“¿Tu Lucha Es Mi Lucha?”: Latinos’ Attitudes toward Black Lives Matter

• In Event: Intersectionality and Social Movements

Abstract

There is evidence of growing Latino-Black solidarity amidst the national conversation on racial inequality that reached its most recent zenith in the summer of 2020. Latinos were part of the multiracial coalition that took to the streets to protest the death of George Floyd, for example, and a majority of Latinos have expressed support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement more broadly. Yet, one can also point to instances of anti-Black attitudes among Latinos. Political scientists have found that white anti-Blackness in general, and anti-BLM sentiment in particular, are largely explained by racial animus, symbolic racism, and Republican partisanship. Latinos’ attitudes toward BLM, on the other hand, are best understood in the context of inter-minority relations in the US. I conduct an online survey experiment among Latino respondents to understand their support for BLM, and find that the predictive role of perceived Black-Latino commonality might be overstated, or unevenly distributed, among the Latino population. Despite the importance of a sense of commonality in predicting Latinos’ support for Black issues and BLM, emphasizing the experiences that the two groups share with the criminal justice system can actually backfire among some subgroups (i.e., lead to decreased support for the movement) and have minimal to no effect in others. This finding has important implications for political messaging and partisan strategy, as well as for community organizing.

Author

• Viviana Rivera-Burgos, Baruch College, CUNY