Implicit racism, colour blindness, and narrow definitions of discrimination: Why some White people prefer 'All Lives Matter' to 'Black Lives Matter'.

Keon West,Colette Van Laar,Katy Greenland

doi:10.1111/bjso.12458

Keon West, Colette Van Laar + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12458

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Abstract

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has been called the 'civil rights issue of our time' (Holt & Sweitzer, 2020, Self and Identity, 19(, p. 16) but the All Lives Matter (ALM) movement swiftly emerged as an oppositional response to BLM. Prior research has investigated some predictors of support for ALM over BLM, but these predictors have thus far not included levels of racial bias or potentially relevant constructions of racism. This pre-registered, cross-sectional study (N=287) tested the degree to which White participants' support for ALM could be predicted using measures of racism (implicit and explicit) and ideological stances around the construction of 'racism' (that discourage the recognition of contemporary inequalities and discrimination). Using multiple regression analyses, we found that implicit racism, colour-blind ideology, and narrow definitional boundaries of discrimination positively predicted support for ALM over BLM. Explicit racism, collective narcissism, and right-wing political orientation did not predict ALM support, nor did any (2-way) interaction of these predictors. Implications for our understanding of the All Lives Matter movement are discussed.

Highlights

Most predictor variables were significantly correlated with all other predictor variables; the exception was collective narcissism, which was not correlated with implicit racism, colour blindness, or definitional boundaries of discrimination
This indicates that our participants showed significant implicit anti-Black bias, but were otherwise predominantly left wing, and low in explicit racism, colour blindness, definitional boundaries of discrimination, and collective narcissism
The results indicated a significant association between All Lives Matter movement (ALM) support and implicit racism, colour blindness, and narrow definitional boundaries of discrimination (DBDs)

Summary

Introduction

Large-scale analyses of police stops in the United States showed that Black drivers are more than twice as likely to be stopped than White drivers (Pierson et al, 2020). It is not surprising that the rate of fatal shootings (per capita) by the police is approximately 2.5–3 times higher for Black Americans than for White Americans (Edwards, Lee, & Esposito, 2019; Schwartz & Jahn, 2020; Statista, 2021b). These differences persist even when other relevant factors (e.g., civilian behaviour, socio-economic status) are accounted for. Research shows that Black victims of police shooting are twice as likely to be unarmed as White victims (Nix, Campbell, Byers, & Alpert, 2017)

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