The Legal System and Its African American Constituents

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Gibson ◽  
Michael J. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Black People ◽  
Legal Authority ◽  
Linked Fate ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Legal Legitimacy ◽  
Black Public Opinion ◽  
Representative Samples

Despite popular reports that the legal system is in a state of crisis with respect to its African American constituents, research on black public opinion in general is limited owing to the difficulty and expense of assembling representative samples of minorities. We suspect that the story of lagging legal legitimacy among African Americans is in fact quite a bit more nuanced than is often portrayed. In particular, black public opinion is unlikely to be uniform and homogeneous; black people most likely vary in their attitudes toward law and legal institutions. Especially significant is variability in the experiences—personal and vicarious—black people have had with legal authorities (e.g., “stop-and-frisk”), and the nature of individuals’ attachment to blacks as a group (e.g., “linked fate”). We posit that both experiences and in-group identities are commanding because they influence the ways in which black people process information, and in particular, the ways in which blacks react to the symbols of legal authority (e.g., judges’ robes).

Black and Blue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Gibson ◽  
Michael Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Social Identity Theory ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Legal Legitimacy ◽  
System 2 ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Learning Through Experience ◽  
System 1

It is not hyperbole to proclaim that a crisis of legal legitimacy exists in the relationships between African Americans and the law and legal authorities and institutions that govern them. However, this legitimacy deficit has largely (but not exclusively) been documented through anecdotal evidence and a steady drumbeat of journalistic reports, but not rigorous scientific research. We posit that both experiences and in-group identities are commanding because they influence the ways in which black people process information, and in particular, the ways in which blacks react to the symbols of legal authority (e.g., judges’ robes). Based on two nationally-representative samples, this book ties together four dominant theories of public opinion: Legitimacy Theory, Social Identity Theory, theories of adulthood political socialization and learning through experience, and information processing theories, especially the Theory of Motivated Reasoning and theories of System 1 and System 2 information processing. Our findings reveal a gaping chasm in legal legitimacy between black and white Americans. More importantly, black people themselves differ in their legal legitimacy. Group identities and experiences with legal authorities play a crucial role in shaping whether and how black people extend legitimacy to the legal institutions that so much affect them.

Group Identities and Experiences with Legal Authorities

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Gibson ◽  
Michael J. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Group Identification ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Negative Experiences ◽  
Linked Fate ◽  
Explicit Attitudes ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Vicarious Experiences

Black and white Americans hold vastly different explicit attitudes about law, justice, and the legal system. But to what extent are the views of blacks toward the legal system homogeneous? We argue that identities and experiences color the extent to which blacks exhibit high levels of support for the legal system. First, we discuss how both personal and vicarious experiences with the legal system vary among blacks, and explain how individuals who have had more negative experiences with the legal system may be less likely to support it. Second, drawing from a rich and developing literature on race and politics, we catalog variation in feelings of linked fate and group identification among blacks. Relying on a nationally-representative survey of blacks, we demonstrate that these two forms of group attachments are surprisingly different.

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

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 180-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tehama Lopez Bunyasi ◽  
Candis Watts Smith
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Politics ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Formerly Incarcerated ◽  
Linked Fate ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Black Public Opinion ◽  
The Right

AbstractCathy 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.

The New Negro in African American Politics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Williams
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Black People ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
New Negro ◽  
Great Opportunity ◽  
African American Politics

This chapter raises the question of how Barack Obama, an African American, was able to achieve the support of American whites, enough to win not only his party's nomination, but also ultimately the presidential election by a landslide. It argues that Obama's success in American politics is rooted primarily in his “acceptability” as an African American racial representative in the eyes of American whites. By acceptable to American whites, the point here is that Obama was able to achieve his status as racial representative primarily because of categorical rejection, exclusion, and repression of black leaders with agendas that were understood to be in any way radical or as posing a threat to the existing racial arrangement. Obama was the modern-day representative Negro in that he represented black people most eloquently and elegantly, and because he was the race's great opportunity to re-present itself in the court of racist public opinion.

“I LEAVE YOU LOVE”: African American Women as Collectors in, of, and through, the Arts

Collections ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 113-166
Author(s):  
Lisa Pertillar Brevard
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African American Women ◽  
Black People ◽  
Government Service ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
American Women ◽  
World Citizenship ◽  
Direct Descendant ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Just Society

In her last will and testament, educator-activist Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955) declared, “I LEAVE YOU LOVE. Love builds.” A direct descendant of former chattel slaves, Bethune believed in building from the bottom up: beginning with love, or positive thoughts, and manifesting those thoughts. By accretion of goods and goodwill, she built not only a physical school which fostered the arts as a bridge toward world citizenship for disenfranchised black people but also a school of thought, extending to encompass purposeful government service at local and federal levels, toward achieving a just society. Bethune’s determined example of building by accretion informs and helps us to better understand and articulate a wide variety of African American women’s collecting in, of, and through, the arts. This article explores and defines—according to philosophy, purpose, practice, type, scope, and audience—various examples of collecting and collections among selected African American women in the arts, many of whom became contributors to, and subjects of, various collections.

scholarly journals POSTRZEGANIE ZWYCZAJÓW ODNOSZĄCYCH SIĘ DO OBOWIĄZKU ZACHOWANIA POUFNOŚCI W ARBITRAŻU. ANALIZA WYNIKÓW ANKIETY PRZEPROWADZONEJ PRZEZ SĄD ARBITRAŻOWY LEWIATAN WŚRÓD POLSKICH PRAKTYKÓW ARBITRAŻOWYCH

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Beata Gessel-Kalinowska vel Kalisz
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Uniform Norm ◽  
Professional Group ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Right ◽  
Confidentiality And Privacy

THE PERCEPTION OF THE PRACTICE OF CONFIDENTIALITY IN ARBITRATION. AN ANALYSIS OF THE RESULTS OF A SURVEY CARRIED OUT BY THE LEWIATAN COURT OF ARBITRATION AMONG POLISH ARBITRATION PRACTITIONERS Summary As with numerous other systems of law, such as Norwegian, Swedish or Australian law, the Polish legal system does not have a clear and uniform norm of law governing confidentiality and privacy in arbitration. Public opinion frequently refers to the role of custom as the source of the obligation to preserve confidentiality, although usually it does so without a detailed analysis of the subject and object of this obligation. This fact provided the inspiration for a survey carried out among Polish arbitration practitioners. The results of the survey present an interesting picture of what is subjectively perceived by arbitration practitioners as forming part of the confidentiality canons in arbitration proceedings. In principle, they reflect the worldwide trends, i.e. as far as the object of the confidentiality obligation is concerned – in camera sessions and the confidentiality of awards, and as regards its subject – the confidentiality obligation imposed on arbitrators and arbitration institutions. In addition, the customary practice of keeping confidential any information obtained in the course of proceedings is perceived as the right conduct as far as the object of the obligation is concerned. One of the very controversial issues is the matter of parties’ responsibilities, which leads to further questions as to individual arbitrators’ membership of the social (professional) group known as “arbitration practitioners”.

scholarly journals The Twilight of the Polls? A Review of Trends in Polling Accuracy and the Causes of Polling Misses

2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 757-790 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Prosser ◽  
Jonathan Mellon
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
High Profile ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
The Us ◽  
Vote Intention ◽  
Representative Samples ◽  
Over Time

Polls have had a number of high-profile misses in recent elections. We review the current polling environment, the performance of polls in a historical context, the mechanisms of polling error, and the causes of several recent misses in Britain and the US. Contrary to conventional wisdom, polling errors have been constant over time, although the level of error has always been substantially beyond that implied by stated margins of error. Generally, there is little evidence that voters lying about their vote intention (so-called ‘shy’ voters) is a substantial cause of polling error. Instead, polling errors have most commonly resulted from problems with representative samples and weighting, undecided voters breaking in one direction, and to a lesser extent late swings and turnout models. We conclude with a discussion of future directions for polling both in terms of fixing the problems identified and new approaches to understanding public opinion.

“They Always Get the Best of You Somehow”: Preston Sturges in Black and White

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krin Gabbard
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Black People ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Ethnic Stereotypes ◽  
Black And White

There is no question that the films of Preston Sturges present racist stereotypes. But we must remember the profound racism in America when Sturges was working. There is even evidence that Sturges respected his African American actors, making sure that they were treated as professionals. Several blacks even became members of his repertory company, working alongside a group of actors who often embodied a range of ethnic stereotypes. And in many of his films, Sturges’s blacks actually express a wry suspicion of white Americans, thus advancing the satiric projects of his films. Rather than concentrate on Sturges’s habit of presenting racist images of black people, we should be attentive to what his African American characters actually say and do.

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