To What Extent Is the Black Lives Matter Movement Changing the Perception of Race in American Politics?
Introduction
State violence against African-Americans has historically galvanized and amplified mass movements that birthed the Voting Rights Acts of 1965 and, more recently, the era of Black Lives Matter. As protests gripped America and spread globally in 2020 against police brutality and racial profiling, the movement evolved and expanded to include issues of intersectionality in politics, the prison-industrial complex, the failings of the health and social infrastructure for African-Americans especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, militarization of the police and areas of discrimination. The research question of this paper is this: To what extent the Black Lives Matter movement is influencing the American political diaspora and shifting the political narrative and development from traditional party affiliations to identity politics?
Prior research has shown that race and politics in the use are correlated. Hanes, Smith and Wallace (2017) have provided a comprehensive assessment of how government structure, representation, polices, movements, and influence has historically, and in modern day, treated the African American diaspora. They give a racial perspective to key American political debates and decisions that focuses on intersectionality analysis of the Black Lives Matter movement, key policy changes that were enacted in its wake during the Obama Administration, and questions regarding its enduring vs. transitory nature. West (2005) has identified three anti-democratic dogmas: free-market fundamentalism, aggressive militarism, and escalating authoritarianism that have shaped the issue. Moreover, West (2005) argues that each of these dogmas represents a substantial threat to democracy and serves as a reason for the existence of the Black Lives Matter movement today and the resistance it has encountered. The resistance to Black Lives Matter among ordinary Americans is something that needs to be considered more deeply, however. As Pew Research has pointed out, only 1 in 4 Americans actually supports the Black Lives Matter Movement (Horowitz and Livingston 2020). Clearly there is a need to understand what is going on in the American consciousness and an examination of the extent to which Black Lives Matter is influencing shifting political narratives may help to provide that understanding. It is crucial to resolve this question if any progress towards truly representative democracy is going to be made in America.
The more that one can understand the motivations and perceptions surrounding the intersectionality of race, politics and culture; the better suited one will be to identify solutions to problems of justice and equality. Perhaps because of the newness of the Black Lives Matter movement, this ground has not been explored. Investigating this gap will help scholars understand important political behavior with respect to resistance of Black Lives Matter on the part of three-quarters of Americans.
The findings of this paper suggest that at root the problem is cultural and amplified by what Horkheimer and Adorno (2007) identified as the Culture Industry, the giant media complex that cultivates cultural norms within society. As Angela Davis (2012) pointed out, the prison industrial complex is really just one part of the problem of justice and equality in America: underneath it all is a cultural problem that pits blacks against whites so that ruling class can maintain its hegemony without facing a serious political opponent.
This paper proceeds with a literature review that discusses the relevant literature on the topic of race, politics and American culture, and how they intersect. The literature review is followed by a conclusion that summarizes the findings and discusses areas where further research is required.
Literature Review
Black Lives Matter
McFadden (2020) highlights some of the enduring successes of the Black Lives Matter movement from closing a notorious jail, to...
…contribute to the problems of injustice and inequality identified by conflict and critical theorists in America today.
The papers major contribution is that it identifies the obstacles that keep the majority of Americans from embracing the Black Lives Matter movement. It shows what factors prevent that support even as identity politics become more and more prevalent in mainstream society. The implications of these findings are that American cultural norms and values are being cemented and rifts in social cohesion are deepening so that groups are polarized more than ever even as a growing need for unity against the ruling class nd its system of justice continues to gain in power.
Strengths of this study are its exploration of the phenomena through the eyes of current analysts and commentators. This is an issue that is underway now, which means it is highly relevant and something that can be acted upon. The limitations of the study are that regardless of the findings, application of them in social or political terms may still be muted because of the very fact that cultural polarization remains.
Future research may examine how to bridge these divides if at all possible. Given the extent that the Culture Industry maintains its hold on the imagination of the majority of the public, thanks in no small part to social media platforms, it remains to be seen whether there is a pragmatic way to address these issues at the cultural level without a significant counter-cultural revolution. Research must focus on this aspect of the dilemma going forward.
Without research that is actionable, the question of relevance will always remain. It is one thing to uncover findings that lead others to opine; it is quite something else to be part of a revolution that brings about the changes that one wants to see take place. A…
