African-Americans think the racial divide between black and whites in the U.S. has deepened since President Barack Obama began his term, based on a new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center/USA Today.

In 2009, Pew reported 76 percent of African-American respondents think blacks and whites in the U.S. got along well, and that number was up by seven percent from 2007. However, in the recent survey, the result slid to 64 percent, according to RT.

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Only 64 percent of the black respondents expressed a positive opinion on race relations, based on the latest poll. The number reflects a 12 percent drop from the result in 2009, which was Obama's first year as the U.S. president.

Whites, on the other hand, also think race relations declined from 2007 to 2009. During this period, the number of whites who said in the Pew survey that blacks and whites had good relations inched up by three percent.

In 2014, however, the number of white respondents who said blacks and whites got along very well plunged by five percentage points.

The number of black, white or Hispanic respondents who thought Hispanics got along well with either blacks or whites went up. Also, the number of Hispanics who said they got along well with blacks surged 17 percent since 2009.

The Pew poll also discovered that 70 percent of black respondents thought the U.S. is unable to hold officers accountable for wrongdoings. The same number of respondents said law enforcers do poorly in implementing equal treatment for all racial and ethnic groups.

As for the white respondents, only 25 percent of them said the police do poorly in equal treatment of racial and ethnic groups.

Meanwhile, the Democrats proved to be more critical of police action compared with Republicans.

Younger people were also more critical of police action than those 50 years old and above. Among the respondents, only 29 percent of young people said the police is doing an excellent job in the equal treatment of minorities, while 41 percent of the older ones said the same thing.

The research also revealed that 46 percent of young adults (from 18 to 29 years old) think the police does not treat racial and ethnic groups equally. Only 23 percent of the respondents more than 65 years old had the same opinion.

TagsAfrican-Americans, Obama administration, Pew Research Center, USA Today, RT News, U.S., Democrats, Republicans