Protesting While Black?

How does the race of protesters affect how police respond to protest events? Drawing on the protest policing literature and on theories of race and ethnic relations, we explore the idea that police view African American protesters as especially threatening and that this threat leads to a greater probability of policing. We examine more than 15,000 protest events that took place in the United States between 1960 and 1990 and find that in many years, African American protest events are more likely than white protest events to draw police presence and that once at events, police are more likely to take action at African American protest events. Additional analyses complicate these findings by showing that they vary over time. In many years, for example, African American protest events are no more likely than white protest events to be policed. While there is support for a “Protesting While Black” phenomenon, it is not invariant across the entire period of inquiry.

[1]  C. Davenport Media Bias, Perspective, and State Repression: The Black Panther Party , 2009 .

[2]  Melissa F. Weiner Elite Versus Grassroots: Disjunctures between Parents' and Civil Rights Organizations' Demands for New York City's Public Schools , 2009 .

[3]  Brayden G. King,et al.  Social Movements as Extra-Institutional Entrepreneurs: The Effect of Protests on Stock Price Returns , 2007 .

[4]  H. Blumer Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position , 1958 .

[5]  C. Judd,et al.  The police officer's dilemma: using ethnicity to disambiguate potentially threatening individuals. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[6]  M. Giugni,et al.  Under The Spotlight: The Impact of Media Attention on Protest Policing , 1999 .

[7]  C. Davenport The Weight of the Past: Exploring Lagged Determinants of Political Repression , 1996 .

[8]  M. Myers Black Threat and Incarceration in Postbellum Georgia , 1990 .

[9]  Lincoln Quillian Group Threat and Regional Change in Attitudes Toward African-Americans , 1996, American Journal of Sociology.

[10]  D. Cunningham There's Something Happening Here , 2004 .

[11]  David A. Harris The Stories, the Statistics and the Law: Why 'Driving While Black' Matters , 2000 .

[12]  J. Franklin,et al.  The Negro in twentieth century America : a reader on the struggle for civil rights , 1967 .

[13]  Ronald Weitzer,et al.  Racially Biased Policing: Determinants of Citizen Perceptions , 2005 .

[14]  S. Soule,et al.  Seeing Blue: A Police-Centered Explanation of Protest Policing , 2006 .

[15]  Paul G. Davies,et al.  Seeing black: race, crime, and visual processing. , 2004, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[16]  Jon Hurwitz,et al.  Public Perceptions of Race and Crime: The Role of Racial Stereotypes , 1997 .

[17]  S. Soule,et al.  THE TARGETS OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: BEYOND A FOCUS ON THE STATE , 2004 .

[18]  S. Soule,et al.  Black church arson in the United States, 1989-1996 , 1999 .

[19]  Michael R. Smith,et al.  Searching for direction: Courts, social science, and the adjudication of racial profiling claims , 2002 .

[20]  William Julius Wilson,et al.  The declining significance of race , 1978 .

[21]  L. Keele Semiparametric Regression for the Social Sciences , 2008 .

[22]  E. Schein Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View , 1985 .

[23]  Stephen K. Rice,et al.  RACIAL THREAT, CONCENTRATED DISADVANTAGE AND SOCIAL CONTROL: CONSIDERING THE MACRO‐LEVEL SOURCES OF VARIATION IN ARRESTS* , 2005 .

[24]  Ronald Weitzer Racialized Policing: Residents' Perceptions in Three Neighborhoods , 2000 .

[25]  K. Beckett,et al.  Power, Politics, and Crime , 1999 .

[26]  J. D. McCarthy,et al.  The use of newspaper data in the study of collective action , 2003 .

[27]  D. Greenberg,et al.  STATE PRISON POPULATIONS AND THEIR GROWTH, 1971–1991* , 2001 .

[28]  D. Pager,et al.  Black Neighbors, Higher Crime? The Role of Racial Stereotypes in Evaluations of Neighborhood Crime1 , 2001, American Journal of Sociology.

[29]  J. D. McCarthy,et al.  Protest under Fire? Explaining the Policing of Protest , 2003, American Sociological Review.

[30]  Ronald A. Francisco Coercion and Protest: An Empirical Test in Two Democratic States , 1996 .

[31]  Elijah Anderson,et al.  Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community , 1992 .

[32]  W. Bennis,et al.  Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge , 1985 .

[33]  Lincoln Quillian Measuring Racial Discrimination , 2006 .

[34]  Hubert M. Blalock,et al.  Toward a Theory of Minority Group Relations , 1973 .

[35]  E. M. Beck,et al.  A Festival of Violence: An Analysis of Southern Lynchings, 1882-1930. , 1996 .

[36]  L. Bobo Attitudes toward the Black Political Movement: Trends, Meaning, and Effects on Racial Policy Preferences* , 1988 .

[37]  Lincoln Quillian Prejudice as a response to perceived group threat: population composition and anti-immigrant and racial prejudice in Europe , 1995 .

[38]  Marc G. Gertz,et al.  RACIAL COMPOSITION OF NEIGHBORHOOD AND FEAR OF CRIME , 1997 .

[39]  Charles Tilly,et al.  The Politics of Collective Violence , 2003 .

[40]  M. C. Brown,et al.  Immigrants, Urban Politics, and Policing in 1900 , 1992 .

[41]  Brad W. Smith,et al.  COMMUNITY ACCOUNTABILITY, MINORITY THREAT, AND POLICE BRUTALITY: AN EXAMINATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS CRIMINAL COMPLAINTS , 2003 .

[42]  Pamela Oliver,et al.  How Events Enter the Public Sphere: Conflict, Location, and Sponsorship in Local Newspaper Coverage of Public Events1 , 1999, American Journal of Sociology.

[43]  R. White Comparing State Repression of Pro-State Vigilantes and Anti-State Insurgents: Northern Ireland, 1972-75 , 1999 .

[44]  Robert Blauner,et al.  Racial Oppression in America. , 1972 .

[45]  P. Oliver Repression and Crime Control: Why Social Movement Scholars Should Pay Attention to Mass Incarceration as a Form of Repression , 2008 .

[46]  C. Davenport,et al.  Cued to Coerce or Coercing Cues? An Exploration of Dissident Rhetoric and its Relationship to Political Repression , 2001 .

[47]  A. Raftery Bayesian Model Selection in Social Research , 1995 .

[48]  D. Hibbs,et al.  Mass Political Violence: A Cross-National Causal Analysis , 1995 .

[49]  Hubert M. Blalock,et al.  Toward a Theory of Minority-Group Relations , 1967 .

[50]  André J. M. Prévos Hip‐hop, rap, and repression in France and in the United States , 1998 .

[51]  C. Shedd Race and Police Brutality: Roots of an Urban Dilemma , 2010 .

[52]  Terrance A. Johnson,et al.  Police Ethics: Organizational Implications , 2004 .

[53]  Hanspeter Kriesi,et al.  New social movements in Western Europe. A comparative analysis , 1995 .

[54]  A. Liska,et al.  Perspectives on the Legal Order: The Capacity for Social Control , 1981, American Journal of Sociology.

[55]  S. Soule Populism and Black Lynching in Georgia, 1890–1900 , 1992 .

[56]  L. Jacoby,et al.  Prejudice and perception: the role of automatic and controlled processes in misperceiving a weapon. , 2001, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[57]  W. Moore Repression and dissent: Substitution, context, and timing , 1998 .

[58]  C. Neal Tate,et al.  Repression of Human Rights to Personal Integrity in the 1980s: A Global Analysis , 1994, American Political Science Review.

[59]  Jeff Chang Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation , 2005 .

[60]  Jason T. Carmichael,et al.  The Politics of Punishment across Time and Space: A Pooled Time-Series Analysis of Imprisonment Rates , 2001 .

[61]  E. Baumer,et al.  Explaining Spatial Variation in Support for Capital Punishment: A Multilevel Analysis1 , 2003, American Journal of Sociology.

[62]  R. Jessop Why Men Rebel , 1971 .

[63]  D. Porta,et al.  Policing Protest: The Control of Mass Demonstrations in Western Democracies , 1998 .

[64]  Anthony G. Greenwald,et al.  Targets of discrimination: Effects of race on responses to weapons holders , 2003 .

[65]  Robert Andersen Nonparametric Methods for Modeling Nonlinearity in Regression Analysis , 2009 .

[66]  Yang Su,et al.  The War at Home : Antiwar Protests and Congressional Voting , 1965 to 1973 Author ( s ) : , 2007 .

[67]  Sarah A. Soule,et al.  Contention and Corporate Social Responsibility , 2009 .

[68]  Jennifer Suzanne Earl,et al.  The Impacts of Repression: The Effect of Police Presence and Action on Subsequent Protest Rates , 2010 .

[69]  L. Smircich Concepts of Culture and Organizational Analysis. , 1983 .

[70]  Stewart J. D'alessio,et al.  Racial Threat and Social Control: A Test of The Political, Economic, and Threat of Black Crime Hypotheses , 2002 .

[71]  Felecia Ross Media Bias, Perspective, and State Repression: The Black Panther Party , 2010 .

[72]  Ruud Koopmans,et al.  Dynamics of Repression and Mobilization: The German Extreme Right in The 1990s , 1997 .

[73]  E. Bonilla-Silva White Supremacy and Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era , 2001 .

[74]  Taylor Branch,et al.  Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63 , 1988 .

[75]  C. Davenport,et al.  State Repression and Political Order , 2007 .

[76]  P. Waddington Liberty And Order: Public Order Policing In A Capital City , 1994 .

[77]  Robert M. O'Brien,et al.  The Determinants of Deadly Force: A Structural Analysis of Police Violence1 , 1998, American Journal of Sociology.

[78]  S. Soule,et al.  Velvet glove, iron fist, or even hand? protest policing in the united states, 1960-1990 , 2009 .

[79]  S. Soule,et al.  A Movement Society Evaluated: Collective Protest in The United States, 1960-1986 , 2005 .

[80]  M. Giugni,et al.  The Contentious Politics of Unemployment in Europe: An Introduction , 2008 .

[81]  D. L. Stone,et al.  INTERIM REPORT OF THE STATE POLICE REVIEW TEAM REGARDING ALLEGATIONS OF RACIAL PROFILING , 1999 .

[82]  P. Jackson,et al.  Race and the War on Crime: The Sociopolitical Determinants of Municipal Police Expenditures in 90 non-Southern U.S. Cities , 1981 .

[83]  J. Earl Tanks, Tear Gas, and Taxes: Toward a Theory of Movement Repression* , 2003 .

[84]  Daniel Myers,et al.  Where Do We Stand with Newspaper Data , 2005 .

[85]  Brayden G. King,et al.  Competition and Resource Partitioning in Three Social Movement Industries1 , 2008, American Journal of Sociology.

[86]  Robin S. Engel Explaining suspects' resistance and disrespect toward police , 2003 .

[87]  Susan Olzak,et al.  The Dynamics of Ethnic Competition and Conflict , 1992 .

[88]  S. Soule,et al.  SECTOR-LEVEL DYNAMICS AND COLLECTIVE ACTION IN THE , 2009 .

[89]  M. White,et al.  Race, Ethnicity, and Policing: New and Essential Readings , 2010 .

[90]  David J. Bordua,et al.  Firearms ownership for sport and protection: two divergent models , 1980 .

[91]  C. Davenport,et al.  Multi-Dimensional Threat Perception and State Repression: An Inquiry into Why States Apply Negative Sanctions , 1995 .

[92]  S. Soule,et al.  Protest and Policymaking: Explaining Fluctuation in Congressional Attention to Rights Issues, 1960-1986 , 2007 .

[93]  C. Tilly From mobilization to revolution , 1978 .

[94]  M. Polen,et al.  Political Repression in Modern America: From 1870 to the Present , 1979 .

[95]  Marylee C. Taylor How white attitudes vary with the racial composition of local populations : Numbers count , 1998 .

[96]  Charlotte Steeh,et al.  Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations , 1985 .

[97]  Brian J. Stults,et al.  Racial Context and Police Force Size: Evaluating the Empirical Validity of the Minority Threat Perspective1 , 2007, American Journal of Sociology.

[98]  Robin S. Engel A Critique of the “Outcome Test” in Racial Profiling Research , 2008 .

[99]  William A. Gamson,et al.  The strategy of social protest , 1975 .

[100]  Eduard A. Ziegenhagen The Regulation of Political Conflict , 1986 .

[101]  P. Essed Understanding everyday racism , 1992 .

[102]  Mitchell B. Chamlin,et al.  Social Structure and Crime Control Among Macrosocial Units , 1984, American Journal of Sociology.

[103]  Matthew Petrocelli,et al.  Racial Profiling? A Multivariate Analysis of Police Traffic Stop Data , 2001 .

[104]  Sanja Kutnjak Ivković,et al.  The Contours of Police Integrity , 2003 .

[105]  David A. Armstrong,et al.  Democracy and the Violation of Human Rights: A Statistical Analysis from 1976 to 1996 , 2004 .

[106]  M. Holmes MINORITY THREAT AND POLICE BRUTALITY: DETERMINANTS OF CIVIL RIGHTS CRIMINAL COMPLAINTS IN U.S. MUNICIPALITIES , 2000 .

[107]  Herbert Aptheker American Negro Slave Revolts , 1963 .

[108]  S. Soule,et al.  Cross-Cutting Influences of Environmental Protest and Legislation , 2009 .

[109]  Pamela Oliver,et al.  Political Processes and Local Newspaper Coverage of Protest Events: From Selection Bias to Triadic Interactions1 , 2000, American Journal of Sociology.

[110]  D. Jacobs,et al.  Collective Outbursts, Politics, and Punitive Resources: Toward a Political Sociology of Spending on Social Control , 1999 .

[111]  Michael R. Smith,et al.  Conflict theory and racial profiling: An empirical analysis of police traffic stop data , 2003 .

[112]  Ali Kara,et al.  A SAS MACRO for calculating intercoder agreement in content analysis , 1993 .

[113]  Manning Marable Race, Reform and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction in Black America, 1945-1982 , 1984 .