Professor Richard Thompson Ford weighs in on where the country is at in regards to race relations post-Ferguson with CBS News‘ Stefanie Condon. 

After President Obama was sworn in as the nation’s first African-American president, Americans had a bright outlook on race relations: 66 percent of Americans in April 2009 said race relations were generally good.

More than five years later, the latest CBS News poll shows, views on race relations have dimmed dramatically. Just 45 percent say race relations are generally good, the lowest figure in CBS News polling since 1997.

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“It’s hard to feel optimistic about race relations right now,” Prof. Richard Ford, expert on civil rights and anti-discrimination law at Stanford Law School, said to CBSNews.com.

While public perception on race relations has gone up and down, Ford noted that the recent stories of police misconduct are “frustratingly similar” to past abuses, and the conversations taking place now have been had before.

“Everyone swore we would learn from the Rodney King incident in the 1990s, but here we are in 2014 with two similar cases having pretty much the same discussion,” he said. “We need broad-based institutional change– from our approach to crime prevention to more certain accountability for abuses.”