Do All Black Lives Matter Equally to Black People? Respectability Politics and the Limitations of Linked Fate

Cathy Cohen’s (1999) theory of secondary marginalization helps to explain why the needs of some members of Black communities are not prioritized on “the” Black political agenda; indeed, some groups are ignored altogether as mainstream Black public opinion shifts to the right (Tate 2010). However, th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of race, ethnicity, and politics ethnicity, and politics, 2019-03, Vol.4 (1), p.180-215
Main Authors: Lopez Bunyasi, Tehama, Smith, Candis Watts
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
Black Lives Matter movement
Black people
Black politics
Black women
Community
Female offenders
Imprisonment
Intersectionality
Marginality
Negative campaigning
Oppression
Politics
Prisoners
Public opinion
Racial profiling
Social activism
Social exclusion
Social movements
Society
Theory
Transgender persons
Variables
White supremacy
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Summary:Cathy Cohen’s (1999) theory of secondary marginalization helps to explain why the needs of some members of Black communities are not prioritized on “the” Black political agenda; indeed, some groups are ignored altogether as mainstream Black public opinion shifts to the right (Tate 2010). However, the contemporary movement for Black Lives calls for an intersectional approach to Black politics. Its platform requires participants to take seriously the notion that since Black communities are diverse, so are the needs of its members. To what extent are Blacks likely to believe that those who face secondary marginalization should be prioritized on the Black political agenda? What is the role of linked fate in galvanizing support around these marginalized Blacks? To what extent does respectability politics serve to hinder a broader embrace of Blacks who face different sets of interlocking systems of oppression, such as Black women, formerly incarcerated Blacks, undocumented Black people, and Black members of LBGTQ communities in an era marked by Black social movements? We analyze data from the 2016 Collaborative Multi-Racial Post-Election Survey (CMPS) to assess whether all Black lives matter to Black Americans.
ISSN:2056-6085
2056-6085
DOI:10.1017/rep.2018.33