Policing White Supremacy: Asymmetry and Inequality in Protest Control

Abstract

Abstract Despite evident and oft-cited disparities in the policing of right-wing extremists and more progressive social movements, we understand much less about how such distinctions emerge and unfold as the police prepare for, and act within, protest events. How does the racial and political orientation of social movements affect how they are policed? What are the processes through which such effects are realized? In contrast with most existing studies of protest policing, which emphasize how the actions of authorities are conditioned by the degree of threat associated with, for example, the size or capacity for violence of a given protest target, the analysis here of a cluster of cases associated with the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, recognizes the constructed nature of protest threats and highlights how those assumptions inform and interact with police planning and action. Findings emphasize how the degree of alignment between police and protesters shapes policing agents’ preparations for, and operational considerations within, protest events. This alignment provides a basis for asymmetric communication, differential assessment, and—ultimately—distinct treatment of different protest targets.