Black Lives Matter protests shift public discourse Dunivin, Zackary Okun; Yan, Harry Yaojun; Ince, Jelani ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
03/2022, Volume:
119, Issue:
10
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
SignificanceThis study uses large-scale news media and social media data to show that nationwide Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests occur concurrently with sharp increases in public attention to ...components of the BLM agenda. We also show that attention to BLM and related concepts is not limited to these brief periods of protest but is sustained after protest has ceased. This suggests that protest events incited a change in public awareness of BLM's vision of social change and the dissemination of antiracist ideas into popular discourse.
Scholars have long recognized that interpersonal networks play a role in mobilizing social movements. Yet, many questions remain. This Element addresses these questions by theorizing about three ...dimensions of ties: emotionally strong or weak, movement insider or outsider, and ingroup or cross-cleavage. The survey data on the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests show that weak and cross-cleavage ties among outsiders enabled the movement to evolve from a small provocation into a massive national mobilization. In particular, the authors find that Black people mobilized one another through social media and spurred their non-Black friends to protest by sharing their personal encounters with racism. These results depart from the established literature regarding the civil rights movement that emphasizes strong, movement-internal, and racially homogenous ties. The networks that mobilize appear to have changed in the social media era. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Despite increased media attention, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has received little scholarly attention. News coverage of BLM is often divisive, which suggests important differences may ...exist in how the public views BLM. Within the context of the racial threat perspective, the present study uses a nationally representative sample of 2,114 individuals from 33 states and the District of Columbia to identify state- and individual-level predictors of BLM opposition. Results reveal that older, Republican, and conservative men are more likely to oppose BLM, while Blacks and individuals who perceive their local police to exhibit racial biases against Blacks are less likely to oppose BLM. State-level racial threat variables are largely nonsignificant, but states with more fatal police shootings are less likely to oppose BLM, while states where the Republican candidate won a greater percentage of the vote in the 2012 presidential election are more likely to oppose BLM.
The negative impacts of racism, including experiences of racial trauma, are well documented (e.g., Bryant-Davis & Ocampo, 2006; Carter, 2007). Because of the deleterious effects of racial trauma on ...Black people, interventions that facilitate the resistance and prevention of anti-Black racism are needed. Critical consciousness is one such intervention, as it is often seen as a prerequisite of resistance and liberation (Prilleltensky, 2003, 2008). To understand how individuals advance from being aware of anti-Black racism to engaging in actions to prevent and resist racial trauma, nonconfidential interviews with 12 Black Lives Matter activists were conducted. Using constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) under critical-ideological and Black feminist-womanist lenses, a model of Critical Consciousness of Anti-Black Racism (CCABR) was co-constructed. The 3 processes involved in developing CCABR include: witnessing anti-Black racism, processing anti-Black racism, and acting critically against anti-Black racism. This model, including each of the categories and subcategories, are detailed herein and supported with quotations. The findings and discussion provide context-rich and practical approaches to help Black people, and counseling psychologists who serve them, prevent and resist racial trauma.
Public Significance Statement
This study presents a practical model of critical consciousness development that delineates the core processes Black people navigate to actively prevent and resist racial trauma in an intersectional and systematic manner. The findings suggest that when Black people are exposed to anti-Black racism, they can not only cope but also reduce racial trauma in their broader worlds by going through specific cognitive, intersectional, and behavioral growth processes.
"A powerful - and personal - account of the movement and its players."-The
Washington Post
"This perceptive resource on radical black liberation movements in the 21st century can inform anyone ...wanting to better understand . . . how to make social change."-Publishers Weekly
The breadth and impact of Black Lives Matter in the United States has been extraordinary. Between 2012 and 2016, thousands of people marched, rallied, held vigils, and engaged in direct actions to protest and draw attention to state and vigilante violence against Black people. What began as outrage over the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin and the exoneration of his killer, and accelerated during the Ferguson uprising of 2014, has evolved into a resurgent Black Freedom Movement, which includes a network of more than fifty organizations working together under the rubric of the Movement for Black Lives coalition. Employing a range of creative tactics and embracing group-centered leadership models, these visionary young organizers, many of them women, and many of them queer, are not only calling for an end to police violence, but demanding racial justice, gender justice, and systemic change. In Making All Black Lives Matter, award-winning historian and longtime activist Barbara Ransby outlines the scope and genealogy of this movement, documenting its roots in Black feminist politics and situating it squarely in a Black radical tradition, one that is anticapitalist, internationalist, and focused on some of the most marginalized members of the Black community. From the perspective of a participant-observer, Ransby maps the movement, profiles many of its lesser-known leaders, measures its impact, outlines its challenges, and looks toward its future.
In this article, we explore the potential role of social media in helping movements expand and/or strengthen themselves internally, processes we refer to as scaling up. Drawing on a case study of ...Black Lives Matter (BLM) that includes both analysis of public social media accounts and interviews with BLM groups, we highlight possibilities created by social media for building connections, mobilizing participants and tangible resources, coalition building, and amplifying alternative narratives. We also discuss challenges and risks associated with using social media as a platform for scaling up. Our analysis suggests that while benefits of social media use outweigh its risks, careful management of online media platforms is necessary to mitigate concrete, physical risks that social media can create for activists.
What are the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for people’s political attitudes and behavior? We tested, specifically, whether the psychological burden of the COVID-19 pandemic relates to ...antisystemic attitudes (dissatisfaction with the fundamental social and political order), peaceful political activism, and political violence. Nationally representative two-wave panel data were collected via online surveys of adults in the United States, Denmark, Italy, and Hungary (ns = 6,131 and 4,568 in Waves 1 and 2, respectively). Overall, levels of antisystemic attitudes were low, and only a small share of interviewees reported behavioral intentions to participate in and actual participation in political violence. However, preregistered analyses indicated that perceived COVID-19 burden was associated with antisystemic attitudes and intentions to engage in political violence. In the United States, the burden of COVID-19 was also associated with self-reported engagement in violence surrounding the Black Lives Matter protests and counterprotests. We found less robust evidence that perceived COVID-19 burden was associated with peaceful activism.
A series of deaths of Black Americans at the hands of the police sparked mass protests, received extensive media coverage, and fueled a new civil rights movement in the years leading up to the 2016 ...presidential election. Both major party nominees campaigned on issues of race and policing in different ways. Drawing on colorblind racism theories and the history of law‐and‐order politics, we explore how views of race relations and the police were associated with voting behavior. We ask, on the one hand, whether people were engaged with the civil rights issues raised by Black Lives Matter and, on the other hand, whether Trump's expressions of support for the police functioned as a racial “dog whistle” to mobilize a particular set of voters. Using the 2016 American National Election Studies (ANES) Time Series Study, we find that concern about biased policing and support for the civil rights movement seeking to address it were associated with increased turnout among Democrats and more votes for Clinton. In addition, consistent with a dog whistle effect, claims of supporting the police were connected to votes for Trump mainly among those with high levels of racial resentment. We conclude by discussing the symbolic role of police in American society and politics.
The exercise of power has been an implicit theme in research on the use of social media for political protest, but few studies have attempted to measure social media power and its consequences ...directly. This study develops and measures three theoretically grounded metrics of social media power—unity, numbers, and commitment—as wielded on Twitter by a social movement (Black Lives Matter BLM), a counter-movement (political conservatives), and an unaligned party (mainstream news outlets) over nearly 10 months. We find evidence of a model of social media efficacy in which BLM predicts mainstream news coverage of police brutality, which in turn is the strongest driver of attention to the issue from political elites. Critically, the metric that best predicts elite response across all parties is commitment.
This paper discusses raciality and Africanist culture as elements of the analytical clinical experience. The history of American Jungian psychology, and its relationship with the African diaspora, is ...reviewed with a perspective that seeks to deepen understanding of racism as an aspect of psychoanalytical institutional life. An attempt to separate political activism from the clinical setting is explored with consideration of the necessary intertwining relationship between socialization, racial identity and racism. Diversity and inclusion are becoming cultural signature markers of clinical work with individuals who have oftentimes, within the psychoanalytical clinical setting, been described due to ethnicity, as other. Political activism such as the Black Lives Matter movement stretches consciousness towards an insistence that blackness matters, skin colour matters and the lives of Africanist individuals matter. This paper reflects on cultural racial identity, the influence of politics on the individual, and the effects of these on the analytical relationship.
Cet article étudie la « racialité » et la culture Africaniste en tant qu’éléments de l’expérience clinique analytique. Il étudie l’histoire de la psychologie Jungienne américaine, et sa relation avec la diaspora Africaine, dans le but de chercher à approfondir la compréhension du racisme en tant qu’aspect de la vie psychanalytique institutionnelle. Une tentative pour séparer l’activisme politique du cadre clinique est étudiée, en considérant la relation nécessairement complexe et entrecroisée entre la socialisation, l’identité raciale et le racisme. Dans le travail clinique avec des personnes qui ont souvent, dans le cadre de la psychanalyse, été décrites comme autre du fait de leur ethnicité, la diversité et l’inclusion deviennent actuellement des jalons de signature culturelle. L’activisme politique tel que le mouvement Black Lives Matter élargit la conscience en insistant sur le fait qu’être noir est important, que la couleur de peau a de l’importance, et que les vies des personnes Africanistes ont de l’importance. Cet article s’intéresse à l’identité culturelle et raciale, à l’influence de la politique sur l’individu, et aux effets de tout cela sur la relation analytique.
In diesem Artikel werden Rassenzugehörigkeit und afrikanistische Kultur als Elemente der analytischen klinischen Erfahrung erörtert. Die Geschichte der amerikanischen Jungianischen Psychologie und ihrer Beziehung zur afrikanischen Diaspora wird unter einer Perspektive betrachtet, die versucht, das Verständnis von Rassismus als Aspekt des psychoanalytischen institutionellen Lebens zu vertiefen. Ein Versuch, politischen Aktivismus vom klinischen Umfeld zu trennen, wird unter Berücksichtigung der notwendigen Verflechtung von Sozialisation, Rassenidentität und Rassismus untersucht. Vielfalt und Inklusion werden zu kulturellen Kennzeichen der klinischen Arbeit mit Personen, die im psychoanalytischen klinischen Umfeld häufig aufgrund ihrer ethnischen Zugehörigkeit als Andere beschrieben wurden. Politischer Aktivismus wie die Black Lives Matter‐Bewegung dehnt das Bewußtsein dahingehend darauf zu bestehen, daß Black bedeutungsvoll ist, Hautfarbe und das Leben afrikanistischer Individuen wichtig sind. Dieser Beitrag stellt Reflektionen an über kulturelle Rassenidentität, den Einfluß der Politik auf das Individuum und deren Auswirkungen auf die analytische Beziehung.
Questo articolo discute la razzialità e la cultura africanista come elementi dell’esperienza clinica analitica. La storia della psicologia junghiana americana, e il suo rapporto con la diaspora africana, viene rivista con una prospettiva che tenta di approfondire la comprensione del razzismo come un aspetto della vita psicoanalitica istituzionale. Un tentativo di separare l’attivismo politico dal contesto clinico viene esplorato tenendo in considerazione la necessaria relazione di intreccio tra socializzazione, identità razziale e razzismo. La diversità e l’inclusione stanno diventando i segni culturali distintivi del lavoro clinico con individui che spesso, all’interno del contesto clinico psicoanalitico, sono stati descritti come altri a causa della loro etnia. L’attivismo politico come il movimento Black Lives Matter estende la coscienza verso l’insistenza sul fatto che essere di colore ha importanza, il colore della pelle ha importanza, e le vite degli individui africanisti hanno importanza. Questo articolo riflette sull’identità razziale culturale, l’influenza della politica sull’individuo, e gli effetti di questi aspetti sulla relazione analitica.
В статье обсуждается тема расовой принадлежности и африканской культуры как элементов клинической практики. История американской юнгианской психологии и ее отношение к африканской диаспоре пересмотрено с точки зрения более глубокого понимания расизма как аспекта психоаналитической институционализированной жизни. Изучена попытка разделения политического активизма и клинического сеттинга с учетом неизбежного переплетения отношения между социализацией, расовой идентичностью и расизмом. Разнообразие и инклюзивность становятся культурными знаковыми маркерами клинической работы с людьми, которых часто описывали в практике психоанализа как других из‐за их этнической принадлежности. Политический активизм, так как движение Black Lives Matter, расширяет сознание и формирует настойчивость в утверждении, что черное имеет значение, цвет кожи имеет значение и жизни африканцев тоже имеют значение. В этой статье подчеркивается культурная расовая идентичность, влияние политики на человека, а также влияние этих факторов на аналитические отношения.
El presente trabajo reflexiona sobre la raza y la cultura Africana como elementos de la experiencia clínica analítica. La historia de la psicología Junguiana Americana, y su relación con la diáspora Africana es revisada desde una perspectiva que busca profundizar la comprensión del racismo como un aspecto de la vida psicoanalítica institucional. Se explora el intento de separar el activismo político del encuadre clínico considerando la necesaria relación entramada entre socialización, identidad racial y racismo. La diversidad y la inclusión devienen en marcadores culturales identitarios en el trabajo clínico con individuos quienes, a menudo, han sido descriptos debido a su etnia como otro, dentro del encuadre clínico psicoanalítico. El activismo político como el del movimiento Black Lives Matter amplía la consciencia hacia una insistencia de que lo negro importa, el color de la piel importa y la vida de personas con ascendencia Africana importa. El presente trabajo reflexiona acerca de la identidad cultural y racial, la influencia de la política en el individuo, y los efectos de éstas en la relación analítica.
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