Racial Violence and Public Attitudes toward Justice

• In Event: Race and International Relations

Abstract

Do members of different social groups prefer different types of justice to address the same episodes of political violence? While some scholarship demonstrates that exposure to violence shapes political attitudes like political tolerance and trust in government, little work considers attitudes toward justice and how such attitudes are shaped by one’s social location. We conduct two novel survey experiments to understand preferences for justice for historical and contemporary racial violence in the United States, an oft-ignored transitional justice setting. We conceive of justice broadly, encompassing apologies, memorial projects, and reparations. In Study 1, we examine attitudes toward justice for the historical crime of lynchings in the U.S. South, drawing on a statewide survey. In Study 2, we examine attitudes toward justice for the ongoing crime of police violence, drawing on a national survey. In both studies, we evaluate the influence of respondents' social location, specifically their race, consistent with the scholarship on community and intergenerational experiences of harm. We supplement the quantitative results with qualitative evidence from life histories of victims and victims’ relatives. Our results are important because they describe the conditions under which Americans support restitution for historical wrongdoing. Our project thus contributes to the scholarship on racial justice in American politics and the scholarship on transitional justice in comparative politics and international relations.

Authors

• Jamil Shatema Scott, Georgetown University

• Daniel Solomon, Georgetown University

• Kelebogile Zvobgo, College of William & Mary