AP-AOL Black Poll

An Associated Press story about an AP-AOL poll of 600 blacks about black leadership made sure you KNEW this upfront.

Many blacks question whether any one person can wear the leadership mantle for such a large and diverse group of people. At the same time, two-thirds in the poll said leaders in their communities were effective representatives of their interests.

That's because the poll found 15% named Jesse Jackson and 11% named Condoleeza Rice. But a STUNNING one-third declined to volunteer a name at all. Think about that figure for a moment.   In polling 600 individuals, some 200 could think of no black leader.   That isn't questioning whether one person could wear the "leadership mantle."   It's really a question of media-promoted black leadership vs. others.  

Louis Farrakhan outpolled Oprah Winfrey which must be a surprise to our media. Martin Luther King got 3% (a tie with Oprah) which must be a surprise to the professionals in the race industry.

The greatest suprise. Of those polled, the two Republicans polled 19% together, a clear choice over Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton combined (17%) OR Obama, Farrakhan, Winfrey and MLK combined (18%).

LEADERSHIP
Oddly, the AP story concluded that two-thirds thought their leaders were effective and one-third who didn't which TOTALLY ignores this follow-on sentence from the official AP-AOL press release. [Bolding mine]

Regardless of the absence of a dominant leader, two-thirds of blacks feel that the leadership of the black community is effective in representing black people like them. However, married men and those making more than $75,000 per year were more likely to say that black leadership is not effective, with approximately 40% of both groups noting their dissatisfaction.

In other words, successful black men and black men with families were dissatisfied with "black leadership." (Note in the demographics how under represented this group was. )

POLL RESULTS
The poll was conducted by Ipso Public Affairs, the Canadian Liberal party public opinion firm of choice. Poll Results LINK

Some of the poll questions and answers yielded suprises, like this one.

6. When slang words that originated in the black community are adopted by mainstream America, is that mostly a good thing or mostly a bad thing?

Some 47% said bad. Only 38% said it was good. Hip hop wasn't admired either.

The pollsters do not explain why the demographics of the poll are skewed toward the South (54%) and women (55%) over men (45%). Nor why, in a poll of blacks, 2 Hispanics were included.