According to PRRI data, more than four in ten (42%) Americans say that recent killings of unarmed Black men are isolated incidents, compared to a majority (56%) who say such killings are part of a broader pattern of how police treat Black Americans. In Rochester, New York, the March death of a mentally ill Black man has sparked protests and an investigation. Newly released video shows Daniel Prude, who was suffering from mental illness, and intoxicated on PCP, in custody of the Rochester Police Department. Police placed a spit hood on his head while he was restrained. “The video shows one officer placing both hands on Mr. Prude’s head and holding him against the pavement, while another places a knee on his back, even as the hood remains on his head,” reports The New York Times. On Wednesday, more than 100 protesters gathered in Rochester.

On Wednesday, PRRI Robert P. Jones appeared on WAMU’s program 1A to discuss his new book “White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity,” and the recent conversations on racial justice in the U.S. According to Jones, “White Christians really have a deep, moral blindspot,” when referring to racism. “We should really not just be using the term ‘white nationalism.’ It has always been ‘white Christian nationalism,'” he says.

In a recent piece for The Atlantic, Ronald Brownstein looks at recent PRRI data about how the country views racial justice in light of President Donald Trump’s appeals to “law and order” in his reelection campaign. “Although surveys do show growing concern about violence at protests, and several point to eroding white support for the Black Lives Matter movement, recent polling by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute still found that 56% of Americans consider police shootings of Black men part of a pattern—a huge change from 2015, when a majority described them as isolated incidents,” Brownstein writes. Additional PRRI data shows that more than three in four (78%) Republicans, compared to 39% of independents and only 17% of Democrats, say killings of Black Americans are isolated incidents rather than part of a broader pattern of how police treat African Americans.