Comment on DIVIDED AMERICA: Minorities hopeful, whites sour on future

EDITOR'S NOTE — This is part of Divided America, AP's ongoing exploration of the economic, social and political divisions in American society. Financially, black Americans and Hispanics are far worse off than whites, yet polls show minorities are more likely than whites to believe in the American Dream. [...] she says she'll vote for Donald Trump because she fears economic stagnation and global terrorism. Tuggle says she's amazed at the progress she's witnessed since her childhood in rural Missouri, when she was barred from entering shoe stores and had to trace her foot on a sheet of paper so a salesman inside could fit her for shoes. "When Bush was in office, Republicans thought the country was headed in the right direction," while Democrats did not, said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster. The NORC at the University of Chicago has for decades asked Americans whether they think their standard of living will improve. Since 2002 — well before Obama's 2008 election — NORC surveys have found that whites across all parties and income levels have been steadily less likely to think their standard of living would improve. A Pew Foundation survey found that Hispanics were the least likely ethnic or racial group to be anxious about the outcome of the current presidential race — even though a centerpiece of Trump's platform is to deport millions of immigrants living in the country illegally and restrict overall immigration. A separate report from the Institute for Policy Studies has calculated that, at their current rate, it would take blacks 228 years to catch up with the wealth of whites. According to Census data, white men have increased their income by only 3 percent since 1973, while black men have improved theirs by 12 percent. The Institute for Policy Studies found that Hispanics' household wealth has risen 69 percent over the past 30 years, albeit to a still-low $98,000 relative to whites' $656,000. Blacks particularly have polled as more negative about race relations recently, following a series of high-profile police killings of African-Americans. Yet even the usually peaceful demonstrations against those killings since 2014 could be seen as evidence of optimism, said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Atlanta's Emory University. The incident shocked Dixon, who gave up his work in construction and decided to plow his family's life's savings into opening a restaurant in the impoverished neighborhood where he grew up. Four years after he bought a former beauty salon to convert into an eatery, Dixon has been unable to open the restaurant because of environmental contamination from a neighboring gas station. [...] she, too, is worried — shaken by the scars of the recession, which tossed her family into bankruptcy, and by the vitriol of the presidential campaign. Bockhorst lives worlds away from the Milwaukee streets which erupted in riots last month in the wake of the shooting of a 23-year-old black man by police after a traffic stop.