POLL: Americans See Michael Brown Shooting Very Differently By Race and Party

Not TOO surprisingly there are stark racial differences in how Americans of different racial backgrounds view the shooting of Michael Brown, a poll by Huffington Post reveals.

As YouGov puts it:

There is a massive racial divide between white and black Americans about whether Darren Wilson should face punishment for killing Michael Brown. While only 22% of whites say that wilson was at fault and should be punished, just under two-thirds (64%) of black Americans want the officer to be punished. 30% of whites, and 11% of blacks, say that the shooting was a tragic accident. 29% of whites say that officer Wilson was fully justified in shooting Brown, something only 4% of black Americans agree with.

Views of the Ferguson incident are not only bifurcated by racial identity but also by party identification:

Democrats were also three times more likely than Republicans to say Wilson was at fault, and to fear that he would be punished too leniently. 

Perhaps the biggest divide, however, was on whether the shooting represented an isolated incident or part of a broader pattern in how black men are treated by the police. While Americans overall were split, 74 percent of black Americans and 57 percent of Democrats, compared with 31 percent of whites and 18 percent of Republicans, saw the shooting as part of a larger pattern.

Despite this being an incident that involves a white cop and  a Black victim I would be interested in seeing data about how other racial groups (especially Latino and Asians) view the Michael Brown situation. Race in America is far more complicated than just Black and white.