Black Protest Research Articles

Delegitimizing protest: Psychology's omissions and commissions

AbstractPsychological research has failed to take accountability for the ways it has aligned with State interests, at the expense of solidarity with Black people protesting the criminal legal system and pursuing liberation in the U.S. Through a case study analysis of six psychological research articles, ranging from 1968 to 2022, this paper tracks evidence of psychology's alignment with the State's interests. Evidence emerges in clinical disease(s) assigned to enslaved and incarcerated Black people (drapetomania, protest psychosis) and in empirical assumptions and (il)logics binding research methods and analyses. While theoretical and methodological frameworks, language (“patients,” “rioters,” “ghetto residents,” “minority group members”) and levels of analysis (psyche, personality, social, community, identity, movement) evolve over time and across subdisciplines, racialized carceral ideologies persist across psychological research approaches. By tracing carceral footprints across this vast psychological literature, this analysis reveals how traditional empirical research weaponized pathologizing and criminalizing accounts to delegitimize Black protests of State violence from the Civil Rights Movement to the Movement for Black Lives and beyond.

Participant accounts of police violence during black lives matter protests in Chicago

ABSTRACT Black protest events in the United States have been characterised by police use of violence against protestors during periods, such as the widespread riots of the 1960s, when many white people and police see black people as posing a special danger to the status quo. It appears that the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd, which triggered widespread Black Lives Matter protests, is another such time. However, social scientific evidence that addresses the question of whether police responded with unnecessary violence to these black-led protests remains in short supply. In this study, we conducted a content analysis of protest participants’ federal court statements about their lived experience with police violence during Chicago, IL, protests. Their accounts suggest that police, rather than protestors, initiated violence and relied on it to control protestors in ways that violated Chicago Police Department policies and constitutional protections afforded citizens. Despite efforts to reform police management of protests over the last half century, our findings suggest that the historical pattern of police use of militaristic tactics and gratuitous violence to control black protest events persists today. We consider the implications of the findings for relations between the police and black communities.

A decisive clash?: A short history of black protest politics in South Africa 1875-1976

A decisive clash?: A short history of black protest politics in South Africa 1875-1976

임신중지, 영화, 정동정치

Since the late 2010s, when the Black Protests were sparked in Korea (September 2016) and the Constitutional Court of Korea ruled that criminalizing abortion is unconstitutional (April 2019), contemporarily and internationally produced films, series and documentaries focusing on abortion have been actively introduced to the Korean public alongside with the popularisation of global OTT services. Most of them explicitly or implicitly support women's choice and the right to abort, but they often perpetuate the suffering, shame, and victimization of women who undergo abortions. For exemple, they make maternal grief inseparable from the pregnant body, embody the excruciating physical suffering of the protagonist’s abortion to the point of making the audience shudder, or keep the protagonist (slut-)shamed, without cause, throughout the story of abortion experience. Erica Millar puts ‘emotion’ at the center of abortion politics, criticizing the politics of ‘choice’, whether anti-abortion or pro-choice, for naturalizing, depoliticizing, and normalizing desperation, grief, and shame as the experience of abortion. This article extends her ideas into the dimension of ‘affect’ and, building on Brian Massumi's discussion of politics of affect, explores affect via film, how anti-abortion power operates and the cinematic practices that resist it.

Philly Elmo Rises: Black Eccentricity and the Street Fantastic During the George Floyd Uprisings/Riots, May 2020

ABSTRACT: During the May 2020 uprisings/riots in Philadelphia, a Black person dressed in a white T-shirt, black athletic pants, and the headpiece of an Elmo mascot costume posed in front of a burning trash can next to a police barricade. “Philly Elmo,” as they were called, became an icon of irreverent radicalism with a touch of Philadelphia idiosyncrasy to social media users who circulated the image of this unique figure. From this ephemeral digital archive, I recognize that Philly Elmo’s unruly, frivolous performance is a manifestation of the Black street fantastic , those unrefined acts cultivated from the urban landscape and limited funds that denote a Black eccentric’s emotionality when disrupting the norms of space and ritual. In this work, I question how the study of Black life and experience can preserve the memory of atypical Black reactions to injustice that may seem disrespectful to the legacy of solemn and joyful Black protest.

"Atlanta's Image Is a Fraud": Fragments of Black Protest in Local TV Newsfilm

"Atlanta's Image Is a Fraud": Fragments of Black Protest in Local TV Newsfilm

Informal Civic Activity of Participants of the “Black Protests” and “Women’s Strike”: An Analysis of Scientific Journal Publications

A recent attempt to impose restrictions on the right to carry out abortions due to developmental abnormalities of a foetus and risks to the mother’s health has triggered widespread protests in Poland. These have resulted in the formation of a new social movement, the so-called “Women’s Strike,” which the author of this paper sees as a significant manifestation of informal civic activity. This paper seeks to generate and systematise the meaning of scientific research dealing with these phenomena. The main problem is the following: What categories of a social movement analysis and the meaning imparted to the new social movement called “Women’s Strike” can be identified in scientific papers? The author has chosen to employ a non-reactive research approach, and the sample selection was deliberate. The process of selecting and narrowing down the documents focused on identifying fragments of papers that could offer insights and answers to the research questions. The analysis was performed with the use of a categorisation key developed by the author, which was used to identify the thematic distribution of the scientific papers devoted to the new movement. Results: Five categories were identified together with the assigned meanings: experience and citizenship, emotions expressed by the movement participants, feeling of community and sisterhood, development of the movement participants’ identity, the Women’s Strike future and development prospects. The conclusions contain examples of potential pedagogic studies, in particular, the educational aspects of the new movement’s impact on the young people participating in it, the experience of the identity transformation of the women participating in the strikes, reactivating the ideas and values of sisterhood and the feeling of community in the face of the threat to the freedom of reproduction, a change of the social attitude towards abortion caused by mass protests sparked by the toughening of the law, and media presentation of the new woman’s movement and its demands.

Unbroken and Unbowed: A History of Black Protest in America

Unbroken and Unbowed: A History of Black Protest in America

A cardboard revolution? The women’s strikes placards and their very own lives

This article is an analysis of the poetics of the women’s strikes which took place in Poland in 2020 in response to the ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal that tightened Polish abortion law by banning pregnancy termination due to fetal anomalies. My main focus is on cardboard placards made by the protesters and used at the demonstrations. Comparing them with the poetics of the black protests launched in 2016 as a response to a bill restricting Polish abortion law, I take as my starting point the recognition of the revolutionary character of the recent mobilization, emphatically showcased—as shown by my analysis and the findings of other scholars (e.g., P. Czapliński and A. Graff)— in breaking with all the symbolic languages and the post-transition social contract, a gesture expressive of the rejection of the strategy of assimilation to the national-conservative hegemony. Analyzing multiple references to Adam Mickiewicz’s Dziady, magical thinking, and spell formulas in the poetics of the women’s strikes, I highlight the significance of the carnivalization of the protests. I argue that thanks to it, new languages of reproductive rights emerged, alternative sources of community were evoked, and the slogans written on cardboard placards and banners and chanted during the demonstrations and marches created a relatively autonomous universe of their own. In conclusion, I seek to answer whether cardboard placards, if performatively used, can constitute cultural change and re-represent the values for which the protesters fight.

In God We Distrust: Christian Nationalism and Anti‐Atheist Attitude

AbstractPrior research found that Christian nationalism, a belief that integrates Christian identity with American national identity, was associated with more negative views toward marginalized groups, such as religious minorities. Relatively less known is the relationship between Christian nationalism and attitudes toward atheists. Specifically, even less is known about whether or not Christian nationalism that is above individuals at the macro, geographic level may influence individual views of atheists. Using nationally representative multilevel data, this study found that higher individual Christian nationalism was associated with more negative views toward atheists. No robust state‐level Christian nationalism influence was found for anti‐atheist attitude. However, Blacks, relative to Whites, were less likely to view atheists negatively in states where Christian nationalism was higher. Meanwhile, in states where Christian nationalism was higher, Black Protestants were less prejudiced against atheists compared to Evangelical Protestants.

Moral psychology and civil rights protesters: Exemplary, different, and mad

AbstractMartin Luther King Jr. appealed for social scientists to reflect on the normative questions of what morality ought to be and what the aims of science ought to be. To avoid rendering social science irrelevant, 1960s moral psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg agreed with King when he argued that morality should be based on a philosophical ideal rather than an adjustment to society. Kohlberg's definition of morality meant that Black protesters could be exemplary. By the 1970s, Kohlberg worked in schools to promote children's knowledge of racial justice and achieve institutional reform, such as integration and affirmative action. Subsequent work challenged Kohlberg's definition of morality and instead claimed morality meant adhering to group‐defined standards. Rather than being seen as more moral and mature, Black civil rights activists came to be seen as possessing a different morality of care that refused to assimilate to White American moral norms. Later, Haidt claimed that a “great synthesis” of empirical work led to a definition of morality as adherence to cultural standards. This definition of morality led Haidt to describe the morality of Black protesters as deficient and mentally ill. The latter approach assumed science aims to achieve racial harmony and spoke against affirmative action. The change in the description of civil rights protesters as exceptional, different, and then mad results in a change in normative assumptions rather than a new synthesis of empirical findings.

CHURCH ATTENDANCE AND PROTEST PARTICIPATION IN THE UNITED STATES

While church attendance is linked to many forms of civic and political engagement, the relationship between church attendance and protest participation is underexplored. Drawing on three waves of the Cooperative Election Study, I examine whether church attendance is positively and significantly associated with protest participation among both the general US adult population and specific religious traditions. I find that church attendance is a positive and significant predictor of protest participation among the general population, Catholics, Mainline Protestants, Black Protestants, and Jews. However, church attendance is only moderately associated with protest participation for Evangelicals. These findings further our understanding of the relationship between church attendance and protest participation and civic engagement more broadly.

Religious affiliation and debt among U.S. households

Religion has been shown to have both a direct and indirect role in shaping personal values, especially pertaining to money and wealth accumulation. Existing research establishes a strong relationship between religious affiliation and wealth attainment. However, previous scholarship has largely ignored the link between religious affiliation and debt, an important yet overlooked indicator of total net worth. To address this gap, we utilize data from the 2017 wave of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and examine how religious affiliation is associated with two forms of household debt: credit card and mortgage debt. Findings from a series of logistic regression models indicate that Black Protestants have the lowest rates of both credit card and mortgage debt and Hispanic/Latinx Catholics have comparably low rates of credit card debt relative to Conservative Protestants. KHB decomposition analyses reveal that race/ethnicity explain some of the relationship between a Black Protestant or Hispanic/Latinx Catholic religious affiliation and household debt. While our study is the first to document the link between religious affiliation and debt profiles of Americans, we would encourage future research to explore how other elements of religiosity—long acknowledged by sociologists to affect wealth and social status—influence different types of debt accumulation in nuanced and meaningful ways.

Racism in the Hands of an Angry God: How Image of God Impacts Cultural Racism in Relation to Police Treatment of African Americans

AbstractPrevious research suggests an angry God image is a narrative schema predicting support for more punitive forms of criminal justice. However, this research has not explored the possibility that racialization may impact one's God image. We perform logistic regression on Wave V of the Baylor Religion Survey to examine the correlation between an angry God image and the belief that police shoot Blacks more often because Blacks are more violent than Whites (a context‐specific form of cultural racism). Engaging critical insights from intersectionality theory, we also interact angry God image with both racialized identity and racialized religious tradition. Results suggest that the angry God schema is associated with this form of cultural racism for White people generally as well as White Evangelicals, yet for Black Protestants, belief in an angry God is associated with resistance against this type of cultural racism.

Friendship in the Time of COINTELPRO: Clarence Major and Dingane Joe Goncalves

I had to accept the fact that we would never have the openness of friendship I always thought could be possible. . . . Then your card [came] from Nairobi, and I thought once again maybe . . . Pat and I will sit down once and for all and look at why we were not more available to each other all these years. —Audre Lorde to Pat Parker, 6 December 1985 It insists on the irreplaceably rooted nature of friendship, however ethically troubling that may be: the love of the shared and the same. —Alan Bray (259) In the mid-twentieth century, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) unleashed COINTELPRO (1956–71), a series of counterintelligence operations aimed at crushing American radicalism of every stripe. Already disproportionately victimized by the Bureau, Black writers were particularly impacted by these operations. Following the hiring of J. Edgar Hoover in 1919, “a who’s who of black protest was spied on, often infiltrated, and sometimes formally indicted” by the FBI (Maxwell 3). William J. Maxwell explains: “Poring over novels, stories, essays, poems, and plays as well as political commentary and intercepted correspondence, the FBI acted as a kind of half-buried readers’ bureau with above­ground effects on the making of black art” (5). In the era of COINTELPRO, when Hoover’s fear of a Black political messiah kicked the Bureau into high gear, state surveillance and Black literary culture were intimately entwined.

Waging a good war: a military history of the civil rights movement, 1954–1968

On 7 March 1965, a young activist named Willie Emma Scott noted that approximately 600 unarmed Black protesters were organizing ‘into companies and squads, with company commanders and squad leaders’ and preparing to walk the 54 miles (87 kilometres) from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama (p. 267). Their aim was to draw attention to their quest for voting rights. Standing in their path, at the eastern edge of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, were hundreds of enemy troops, mostly state police officers, who attacked the marchers with steel pipes, clubs, whips, tear gas and pieces of hard rubber wrapped in barbed wire. The demonstrators were forced to retreat after suffering horrific casualties. Their leader, future Congressman John Lewis, suffered a fractured skull and 140 others were injured, 70 of whom required hospitalization. Fay Powell, an organizer listening to events unfold on the telephone, stated: ‘We could hear people screaming and sirens blaring; it sounded like the soundtrack from a war movie’ (p. 269).

CONSTRUCTING RELATIONAL AND VERIFIABLE PROTEST EVENT DATA: FOUR CHALLENGES AND SOME SOLUTIONS*

We call for a relational approach to constructing protest event data from news sources to provide tools for detecting and correcting errors and for capturing the relations among events and between events and the texts describing them. We address two problems with most protest event datasets: (1) inconsistencies and errors in identifying events and (2) disconnect between data structures and what is known about how protests and media accounts of protests are produced. Relational data structures can capture the theoretically important structuring of events into campaigns and episodes and media attention cascades and cycles. Relational data structures support richer theorizing about the interplay of protests and their representations in news media discourses. We present preliminary illustrative data about Black protests from these new procedures to demonstrate the value of this approach.

“Are Not Our Interests the Same?”: Black Protest, the Lost Cause, and Coalition Building in Readjuster Virginia

Virginia’s Readjuster Party was the most successful interracial political coalition in the post-Reconstruction South. Initially arising from a conflict over the payment of Virginia’s massive public debt, the new party became a force of liberal reform and democracy in the Old Dominion. It represented an alternative path before Jim Crow segregation and disfranchisement became the norm. While the Readjusters have long interested historians, the significant work performed by Black Readjusters in building and sustaining the always-tenuous coalition has gone understudied. Knowing their white counterparts were anxious about interracial political alliances, Black Readjusters eased these anxieties by using the Lost Cause. Black Readjusters condemned carpetbaggers as corrupt and repurposed the myth of the faithful slave to strengthen the interracial coalition, press for their own demands, and demonstrate their status as true southerners. The strategy and its seeming contradictions succeeded in some cases and failed in others, and its ultimate effects remain unclear. By shifting focus to Black Readjusters’ coalition-building labors, this article centers Black political activism and challenges the presumptions scholars make about interracial politics and white supremacy.

Remaking the Republic: Black Politics and the Creation of American Citizenship

Remaking the Republic: Black Politics and the Creation of American Citizenship

Black Protesters in a White Social Movement: Looking to the Anti–Iraq War Movement to Develop a Theory of Racialized Activism

On the basis of ethnographic and historical accounts, many movement scholars hold that differences in political expectations and interaction styles inhibit cross-racial collaboration in social movements. Inspired by this research, the authors ask three questions about minority participation in social movements and address them using a survey of more than 6,000 participants in the anti–Iraq War movement. First, the authors ask about relational inequality. Did Black protesters have fewer ties with the antiwar movement than Whites? Second, the authors ask about siloing. Were Black protesters disproportionately concentrated in specific movement organizations? Third, the authors ask if patterns of inequality were similar for Latino and Asian activists? The authors find evidence of relational inequality for Black activists but not Latino or Asian activists. They find evidence of siloing for all three ethnic groups. These empirical results are used to articulate an account of racialized activism with special attention to organizational processes.