Black Lives Matter: Sociological Theories and Social Justice

Introduction

Black Lives Matter is a social movement facilitated by social media that critiques multiple forms of injustice and disparity. The movement can be viewed as the latest in a string of attempts to achieve racial parity and universal civil rights in the United States, but has been more narrowly defined by its concern with race-based police brutality and racialized violence. Beneath this oversimplification lies the movement's core commitment to creating a more just society. Black Lives Matter is not simply about race-based police brutality — police brutality and racial discrimination in the criminal justice system are only one of many facets of the movement.

From a sociological perspective, Black Lives Matter encapsulates the core tenets of conflict theory, because the movement highlights the intersectionality between race, class, gender, and power. The movement can also be understood within a postmodern framework and within a structuralist-functionalist perspective. If the term "black" is taken as metaphor rather than as a literal racial construct, then Black Lives Matter empowers all underclass, underrepresented, and disenfranchised persons and groups — including women, the LGBT community, and the poor.

Defining the Black Lives Matter Movement

Sexton (2015) provides a cogent definition of Black Lives Matter, calling it "both a call to action and a response to the ways in which our lives have been devalued" (p. 159). The focus on black "lives" is the cornerstone of the movement, as its members respond specifically to preventable black deaths and to symbolic deaths such as incarceration and marginalization. Garza (2014) calls Black Lives Matter "a response to the anti-Black racism that permeates our society and also, unfortunately, our movements" (p. 1). The movement draws upon past civil rights movements and includes, among its main graphic symbols, the raised fist — the universal symbol for worker empowerment in the labor movement. Garza (2014) further describes Black Lives Matter as "an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise" (p. 1).

However, the Black Lives Matter movement does not solely criticize or condemn. It also provides "an affirmation of Black folks' contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression" (Garza, 2014, p. 1). Black Lives Matter includes about a dozen black-led organizations (Ransby, 2015). While the mainstream media focuses only on Black Lives Matter as an anti-brutality movement, scholars have recognized the genesis of the movement at the intersection of race, class, gender, and power. Chatelain and Asoka (2015) note that Black Lives Matter is based on the belief that meaningful, effective, and lasting social change can only come about by "refocusing attention on how police brutality impacts black women and others on the margins of today's national conversation about race, such as poor, elderly, gay, and trans people" (p. 54).

Origins and Evolution of the Movement

Sexton (2015) traces the genesis of the Black Lives Matter movement to the killing of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014. However, Alicia Garza (2014) claims that she, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometti first created the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin "was posthumously placed on trial for his own murder and the killer, George Zimmerman, was not held accountable for the crime he committed" (p. 1). A controversial "stand your ground" law entitled Zimmerman to shoot an unarmed teenager in what was essentially cold blood. The hashtag was created as a collective response to the Martin case, but after a wave of race-based police brutality incidents, it grew in importance and expanded its locus of power to become an all-encompassing movement for social justice.

Because racism has permeated almost every aspect of American society throughout its history, the Black Lives Matter campaign bears similarities to previous civil rights movements. It hearkens to W.E.B. DuBois's sociological theories on the centrality of race, class, gender, and power in America, just as the Civil Rights Movement coalesced with feminism, queer politics, and labor rights activism in the 1960s.

On the other hand, Black Lives Matter differs from previous civil rights movements in several key ways. First, the movement reflects the extent to which racism has become institutionalized and entrenched in American society, given that the Civil Rights Movement occurred more than fifty years ago. Second, Black Lives Matter capitalizes on social media unlike any other organized campaign of its type. Garza (2014) claims that "cultural workers, artists, and designers" helped to take the hashtag "to the streets," and notes that the Ferguson incident was the first evidence that the Black Lives Matter social media movement had become a fully realized political organization (p. 1). The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has allowed individuals and groups from disparate geographic areas to remain connected regarding incidents, demonstrations, and progress. Finally, Black Lives Matter conscientiously combines issues of race, class, gender, identity, culture, power, and sexual orientation in ways no previous movement has done.

Sociological Perspectives and Related Theories

Racism in America has pernicious and broad effects, including measurable impacts on the health status of African Americans. As Garcia (2015) points out, racial injustices in the judicial system, racialized police violence, and racialized police misconduct are all taking a toll on the health and well-being of people of color in the United States. Structural racism refers to the entrenchment of racist biases, attitudes, and beliefs that cause problems such as the indiscriminate killing of African Americans, as well as the vehement reactions to the Black Lives Matter movement itself. Conflict theory, postmodern sociological theory, and structural-functionalism can all be applied to Black Lives Matter to better understand its role in global politics. The movement also highlights the critical importance of collective action as a sociological mechanism of political protest.

Through movements like Black Lives Matter, people from otherwise disparate social groups or strata join together under their shared experiences of oppression. Collective action therefore creates community and enables self-empowerment. The key danger of collective action is the tendency to create new artificial markers of "in group" versus "out group" status, thereby preventing dialogue and the emergence of social justice and harmony. The key strength of collective action is the peaceful subversion of normative statuses, roles, and norms. Collective action has the potential to transform social conflict into social harmony.

Conflict theory has its roots and foundation in Marxist theory, which points to structural variables implicated in social inequality and injustice. Conflict theory focuses on the tension that exists between disparate communities — such as between Blacks and whites, Anglos and Latinos, rich and poor, or cisgender and transgender individuals. By understanding the sources of social conflict, it becomes easier to understand dysfunctional behaviors and trends including criminality and deviance. Because criminality and deviance have become focal points in the Black Lives Matter movement, conflict theory is an especially apt lens through which to analyze this particular form of collective action.

Competition for power and resources is another core concern in conflict theory. In the case of Black Lives Matter, it "is as much an example of a U.S.-based class struggle as Occupy Wall Street was" (Ransby, 2015, p. 31). Black Lives Matter shows how race and class are inextricably linked in American political and social culture. Black communities have been systematically impoverished through lack of access to the means of production, the means of attaining upward social mobility, and the means of improving community infrastructure. Economic injustice is structural and cannot be understood without paying attention to race, and vice versa. Conflict theory shows how structural inequities become institutionalized racism, which is also linked to capitalism and the conflicts between those in power and those without. Finally, conflict theory demonstrates how race, class, gender, and power all coexist within a competition matrix. As Ransby (2015) puts it, Black Lives Matter presents a "bold confrontation with state power" (p. 31), and presumes a conflict-theory underpinning in the conviction that "there can be no real economic justice without racial justice" (p. 31). Furthermore, the leaders of the movement have their personal and professional roots in labor and other economic injustice campaigns (Ransby, 2015).

Postmodernism provides an apt extension of conflict theory. By focusing on institutions and their systemic uses of power, postmodernism demonstrates how institutions like law enforcement use and abuse power to maintain control, preserve the status quo, and impose social order. Rooted in Foucault's analyses of social institutions — and particularly the concept of the panopticon — postmodernism provides the means by which to understand Black Lives Matter's emphasis on law enforcement issues. Disparities in incarceration rates, arrests, and instances of police brutality become more readily understood within the framework of postmodern discourse. Postmodernism also illustrates how it is impossible to segregate different types of discrimination from one another. Krieger (2015) calls the Black Lives Matter movement "one of the most notable features of our present era," alongside climate change, terrorism, and wealth inequity (p. 587).

Structural-functionalism is also linked with both postmodernism and conflict theory by illustrating how social institutions like law enforcement operate and the roles they serve. Education is another social institution that exhibits race-based status and privilege. Empowering the black community through support for black-owned businesses and social institutions is a viable solution to the problem of racism. Other potential solutions include an emphasis on peaceful protest and collective action, both hallmarks of the Civil Rights Movement since Martin Luther King Jr. adopted the Gandhian model for the needs of disenfranchised Americans. Ginwright (2015) offers an optimistic view of how Black Lives Matter functions from a sociological standpoint: "present conditions in Black communities have fostered the development of new modes of youth leadership that focus on hope, love, and joy, and are ultimately restorative and redemptive" (p. 33).

References

Barnard, A.V. (2015). Keep it contentious. Berkeley Journal of Sociology. 18 Aug, 2015. Retrieved from http://berkeleyjournal.org/2015/08/keep-it-contentious/

Blauner, B. (1989). Black Lives, White Lives. Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Chatelain, M. & Asoka, K. (2015). Women and black lives matter. Dissent, 63(3): 54–61.

Garcia, J.J. & Sharif, M.Z. (2015). Black lives matter: A commentary on racism and public health. American Journal of Public Health, 105(8): e27–e30.

Garza, A. (2014). A herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. 7 Oct, 2014. The Feminist Wire. Retrieved from

Ginwright, S.A. (2015). Radically healing black lives. New Directions for Student Leadership, 2015(148): 33–44.

Krieger, N. (2015). Public health, embodied history, and social justice. International Journal of Health Services, 45(4): 587–600.

Rodriguez, J.M., Geronimus, A.T., Bound, J. & Dorling, D. (2015). Black lives matter. Social Science and Medicine, 136–137, July 2015: 193–199.

Sexton, J. (2015). Unbearable blackness. Cultural Critique, 90, Spring 2015: 159–178.

Yancy, G. & Butler, J. (2015). What's wrong with 'All Lives Matter'? The New York Times. 12 Jan, 2015. Retrieved from