Linking Racial Consciousness to Police Reform and Political Action

Background and Purpose

Recent protests in the wake of police violence has raised race consciousness across racial/ethnic groups and shifted public opinion on police reform. For people of color, prior research has linked police violence and civil unrest to collective racial identity. Police violence sends the message to people of color that they are not equal members in society, and this realization can motivate people of color to challenge the system. However, a different mechanism may link race consciousness to police reform attitudes and actions for white people, such as making them aware of inequality more broadly. Across racial/ethnic groups, research has shown that greater awareness of social inequality in society is associated with more political engagement. This study assesses whether awareness of racial injustice is linked to police reform support and advocacy through collective racial identity for people of color and general awareness of societal inequality for people of color and white people. This study examines individuals’ reports of race consciousness and uses an experimental design manipulating race consciousness in a police violence scenario to examine moderation of proposed processes.

Data and Methods of Analysis

Data were collected via survey panels conducted at two campuses within the University of California system and analyzed using structural equation modeling. A total of 607 participants participated (60.7% female), with 27.0% White and 73% youth of color, and 7.7% not self-identifying. Participants were presented with the same neutrally presented police misconduct scenario where a police officer tased an 18-year-old. After reading the scenario, participants were assigned randomly to either a neutral or racial justice condition that was designed to add context to the incident, and then completed a single item measure of support for police reform and five political action items related to police reform. A separate model for youth of color was ran to assess the effect of collective racial identity. However, multigroup model comparisons showed no moderation of structural paths by racial framing condition thus, results are for the combined groups.

Results

Youth of color’s reports of race consciousness were linked to more frequent political actions via higher collective racial identity (β = .20, p < .001) as well as greater support for police reform via awareness of societal inequality (β = .24, p < .001). For white youth, awareness of racial injustice was linked to policy support via awareness of societal inequality, β = .12, p < .05 and β = .13, p < .05 respectively.

Implications and Conclusions

Millions of people now understand the connection between racism and police violence. This study offers timely insight into how to move people from race consciousness to support and action for police reform. Moreover, results provide insights on how social work may achieve its grand challenge to eliminate racism. For example, social work practitioners interested in building support for policies should connect the policy to larger social inequalities. For social workers who work with youth of color, supporting their engagement in collective actions against police violence means affirming their collective racial identity.