Are White Women Showing Up for Racial Justice? Intergroup Contact, Closeness to People Targeted by Prejudice, and Collective Action

Abstract

Although scholars have suggested that relationships with people of color can enhance White people’s commitment to racial justice, many women of color have questioned whether White people, and White women in particular, actually “show up” to protest for racial justice. Focusing on the contact experiences and closeness White women have with people from racial and ethnic groups different from their own, we tested how these relationships may predict their reported motivations to engage in protests for racial justice. With a broad online sample of White American women (Study 1), and White women who attended the 2017 Women’s March (Study 2), our results showed that both positive contact and closeness to people targeted by prejudice predicted White women’s willingness to participate in protests for racial justice (Studies 1 and 2). Only closeness to people targeted by prejudice significantly predicted actual participation in collective action for racial justice (Studies 1 and 2) and also predicted motivation for racial justice among those who attended the 2017 Women’s March (Study 2). Findings suggest that White women’s inclinations to protest for racial justice may be linked to the close relationships they have with people targeted by prejudice, while more general forms of positive contact may not be related to such action. Additional online materials for this article are available on PWQ ’s website at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/0361684319840269 . Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ' s website at http://journals.sagepub.com/page/pwq/suppl/index