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Protesting the "Right" Way: Exploring Respectability Politics and Support for Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter gained elevated levels of support following the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department. Despite temporary 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 police violence victims. This work included experimental analysis of the perceived respectability of a police brutality victim's "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.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc2178819
Date07 1900
CreatorsGoodwin, Alexander Isaac
ContributorsCarey, Tony E., Martinez-Ebers, Valerie, Esparza, Diego, Ishiyama, John, Price, Melanye
PublisherUniversity of North Texas
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
FormatText
RightsPublic, Goodwin, Alexander Isaac, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved.

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