Black Lives Matter, American political development, and the politics of visibility

Thurston, Chloe N.

doi:10.1080/21565503.2017.1420547

Cited by 19 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Finally, the media plays a key role in spreading the indirect visibility of the CLS . Sierra, a multiracial interviewee, discussed how she learned about the "importance" of government in her life by seeing videos of police shootings in her social media feed (Thurston 2018). This sentiment aligns with research demonstrating the role that social media plays in providing political knowledge about policing for people of color, and more generally finds agreement with research showing that people of color have greater political knowledge about the CLS (Cohen and Luttig 2019;Weaver, Prowse, and Piston 2019).…”

Section: Government Visibility Formentioning

confidence: 60%

Submerged for Some? Government Visibility, Race, and American Political Trust

Rosenthal¹

2020

Perspect. polit.

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Scholarship concerning American government visibility has focused on the state’s growing submergence, yet these accounts contrast with racial and ethnic politics research focusing on the American state’s conspicuousness in the lives of people of color. Attending to this disconnect, I ask how government visibility varies across racial groups. Combining interviews and quantitative analysis within a policy feedback framework, I argue that five public policy trends have created a racial split in the American state’s visibility. For whites, submerged state policies have grown alongside the rising visibility of racialized poverty policies and taxation. As a result, whites are less aware of how government benefits them and more aware of how government uses tax dollars to fund programs perceived as solely benefitting racial others. For people of color, the decline of civil rights legislation has contrasted with criminal legal policies that have made the criminal legal system a uniquely visible manifestation of government in their lives. To demonstrate the political importance of this racial divide, I uncover a racial heterogeneity in people’s political trust attachments, wherein white trust is connected to welfare attitudes, while trust among people of color is associated with feelings about the police.

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Section: Government Visibility Formentioning

confidence: 60%

Submerged for Some? Government Visibility, Race, and American Political Trust

Rosenthal¹

2020

Perspect. polit.

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“…Hackett 2017, 2019; Morgan and Campbell, 2011), which has generally been disconnected from scholarship exploring the racial foundations of, and racial segregation within, the American state (King 2017; Omi and Winant, 2014). Indeed, as recent work has noted, the conventional wisdom of a submerged state exists in an “uneasy tension” with scholarship on the many overtly visible ways that American government has manifested itself in the lives of People of Color (Thurston 2018, p. 162), as seen here in the form of the CJS. Future scholarship might connect the analysis presented here to research concerning race and the notion of uneven state capacities as an entry point for exploring racial variation in American state visibility (King and Lieberman, 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Her observations highlight the gendered nature of experiences with the CJS; contact with police is frequently direct for men of color, but it often indirectly reaches women of color through familial and social ties (Goffman 2014;Katzenstein and Waller, 2015). Sierra, a multi-racial interviewee, attributed her own apprehension about interacting with the police not to personal experiences but instead to her exposure via social media to police violence aimed at People of Color (Thurston 2018). Taken together, these accounts show that the CJS can often be made into a salient representation of government for People of Color through various forms of indirect contact.…”

Section: "There's Distrust With the Police": Distrust Of Government Amentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While Jay talked about her own negative interactions with the police, she also noted that they were preceded by conversations with her boyfriend about “all these bad experiences he has when he gets pulled over with police officers.” Further, Jay explained that these stops are less frequent when her mother is driving, but that if her father is driving, “he’ll have a worse experience [with the police], and my mom will be in the [passenger seat].” Her observations highlight the gendered nature of experiences with the CJS; contact with police is frequently direct for men of color, but it often indirectly reaches women of color through familial and social ties (Goffman 2014; Katzenstein and Waller, 2015). Sierra, a multi-racial interviewee, attributed her own apprehension about interacting with the police not to personal experiences but instead to her exposure via social media to police violence aimed at People of Color (Thurston 2018). Taken together, these accounts show that the CJS can often be made into a salient representation of government for People of Color through various forms of indirect contact.…”

Section: “There’s Distrust With the Police”: Distrust Of Government Amentioning

confidence: 99%

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Investment and Invisibility

Rosenthal

2019

Du Bois Rev.

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Does political distrust generate a desire to engage in the political process or does it foster demobilization? Utilizing a theoretical framework rooted in government experiences and a mixed-methods research design, this article highlights the racially contingent meaning of political distrust to show that both relationships exist. For Whites, distrust is tied to a perception of tax dollars being poorly spent, leading to increased political involvement as Whites to try to gain control over “their” investment in government. For People of Color, distrust of government is grounded in a fear of the criminal justice system, and thus drives disengagement by motivating a desire for invisibility in relation to the state. Ultimately, this finding highlights a previously unseen racial heterogeneity in the political consequences of distrust. Further, it demonstrates how the state perpetuates racially patterned political inequality in a time when many of the formal laws engendering this dynamic have fallen away.

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“…Nonviolent protests have been at the center of Black‐interest advocacy for nearly a century (Francis, 2014, 2018; Thurston, 2018). However, while groups—like #BlackLivesMatter (BLM)—organize and demonstrate in a peaceful manner, there is no guarantee that onlookers will perceive their efforts as peaceful (Tillery, 2019).…”

Section: Minority Threat and Protest Evaluationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

No Justice! Black Protests? No Peace: The Racial Nature of Threat Evaluations of Nonviolent #BlackLivesMatter Protests

Peay

Camarillo

2020

Social Science Quarterly

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Objective: Nonviolent protests have been at the center of minority interest advocacy for nearly a century, as marginalized communities air their grievances in search for substantive policy change. While groups organize and demonstrate in a peaceful manner, there is no guarantee that onlookers will perceive them as such. We find it necessary to explore what factors shape perceptions of social movement protests and how the racial composition of a demonstration can elicit dramatically different responses from onlookers. Methods: To examine the impact of racial identity on protest evaluations, we conduct a survey experiment on a total of 921 respondents. We simulate a media report concerning a Black Lives Matter protest to determine how subtle changes in the racial composition of the demonstration elicit varying perceptions of a potential for violence. Results: We find that protests that comprise all-Black participants are perceived to have a higher probability to end in violence than more diverse demonstrations. These findings come despite an assurance that the protest in question was peaceful. Consistent with minority threat theory, these perceptions are largely driven by the sentiments of white respondents. Conclusion: We argue that ill-conceived threat perceptions, rooted in the racial composition of Black Lives Matter protests, complicate the mission of those charged with making visible the plight of Black Americans. Even when Black protesters adhere to the "rules" of non-violent protest, there is no guarantee that the biases of onlookers will not drown out their efforts. These findings have wide reaching implications on the exercise of First Amendment right to protest, the role of the media in reporting on protests, and the expectations of government interactions with protesters.

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Black Lives Matter, American political development, and the politics of visibility

Cited by 19 publications

References 20 publications

Submerged for Some? Government Visibility, Race, and American Political Trust

Submerged for Some? Government Visibility, Race, and American Political Trust

Investment and Invisibility

No Justice! Black Protests? No Peace: The Racial Nature of Threat Evaluations of Nonviolent #BlackLivesMatter Protests

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