Poster #106 - Examining Multiracial Black Women's Interactions with Police

• In Event: Poster Session II (posters 80 – 155)

Abstract

The legacy of hypodescent and the persistence of a monoracial paradigm in the United States, which considers race to be comprised of mutually exclusive, monoracial categories, has resulted in the lumping of those who identify as multiracial, and/or have biological parents who identify as different races, with monoracially identified people – especially among Black people. This lumping can obscure important within-race differences that may exist in the lived experiences of racialized people. In the context of the current study, the practice of lumping can make invisible important differences in the types of police contacts experienced by multiracial people, the context of their police encounters, and the strategies employed to navigate their police encounters. Drawing on Black feminist theories and critical multiracial theory (MultiCrit), the current study explores multiracial Black women's interactions with police and whether they consider their interactions with police to be similar or different to monoracial Black women's police encounters.

Author

• Viola Sawyer, Western Michigan University