#BlackLivesMatter (BLM) Was Never About Officer Race

Authors

  • Brittany Houston University of Massachusetts Amherst
  • Abby Kinch University of South Florida

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.20899/jpna.9.2.261-272

Keywords:

Policing, Trust, Power, Institutional Racism

Abstract

Of course, #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) is about race. However, the ‘B’ in BLM refers to the victim’s race, not that of the officer involved in the interaction. Still, the discourse has primarily been framed as White law enforcement versus Black citizenry. The BLM social movement for racial justice began as a hashtag following the 2012 death of Trayvon Martin. In the following years, #BlackLivesMatter was used to bring attention to inequitable police interactions experienced by Black people, disproportionately resulting in death. The George Floyd case acted as a focusing event for the movement, where a Black victim was killed by a White police officer but calls for #BlackLivesMatter were not because the officer was White. In this essay, we argue that the police system is embedded with institutional racism at the organizational level (e.g., policies, procedures, climate) and that public trust in police is positional, not racial, indicating that systemic changes are required at the organizational level to improve police outcome equity.

Author Biographies

Brittany Houston, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Brittany Houston is an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Policy. She received her doctorate in Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University's Askew School of Public Administration and Policy. Her research interests include social equity, public management, and administrative trust.

Abby Kinch, University of South Florida

Abby Kinch is an instructor of Information Strategy and Decision Making at the University of South Florida School of Information and the Chief of Staff at Student Veterans of America. She received her doctorate in Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University's Askew School of Public Administration and Policy. Her research focuses on strategic decision-making, cognitive challenges to decision-making, and the behavioral economics of power relationships.

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Published

2023-08-01

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 2 (2023)

Section

Social Equity Section

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