Protesting the "Right" Way: Exploring Respectability Politics & Support for BLM

• In Event: Understanding Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement

Abstract

Black Lives Matter gained elevated levels of support following the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department. Despite temporarily elevated levels of support, large segments of the populous are still reluctant and critical of the movement. This work aims to assess what role notions of respectability politics play in Black American support of Black Lives Matter. Respectability politics is consistently weaponized against members of oppressed groups including racial minorities, women, the LGBTQ community, and their related social movements. Analyzing the role of respectability politics in this context is a needed addition to the scholarly literature regarding social movement mobilization, as well as the interdisciplinary literature that has previously examined respectability in myriad forms. I hypothesize that unwillingness to support Black Lives Matter will be dependent on respectability politics as it relates to the perceived comportment and behavior of police violence victims. This work included an experimental analysis of perceived respectability of a police brutality victim. With “respectable” behavior being varied in the experimental treatment. I found support for my primary hypotheses that adherence to respectability politics correlated with diminished support for Black Lives Matter.

Author

• Alexander Goodwin, University of North Texas