Police Violence, Intimate Politics, and Collective Action

• In Event: Black Lives, Black Deaths, and Black Protest: Political Scientists Respond (Anew) to a Persistent Challenge: Black Lives Matter and Political Behavior: Public Opinion and Political Participation

Abstract

How do African Americans make sense of coercive policing, and how do those efforts shape collective politics? Based on a year-long participant observation study in homes, barbershops, community centers, restaurants, and drug corners in Columbus, Ohio, this paper shows how African Americans leverage ascriptions of black criminality during everyday discussions about police violence. While interpretations and normative views of crime vary widely, notions of black criminality allow African Americans to perform interpersonal familiarity in deliberative forums. We label such practices ‘political intimacy,’ and argue that they help mold nebulous norms of collective solidarity into a chimera of more concrete political prescriptions and social behaviors. In turn, we suggest that the very ideas that underpin coercive criminal justice practices may also foment collective action and divisive forms of in-group exploitation.

Authors

• Bradley E Holland, Ohio State University

• Brianna Mack, Ohio State University