Black Lives Matter and Black Millennial Meaning-Making

Abstract

This dissertation is a study of Black millennial meaning-making in relation to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement. As a case, this research supports an investigation of the social psychological processes through which oppressed racial groups interpret the character and actions of racial justice movements and the social contexts in which they mobilize. I use Symbolic Interactionism and critical theories of race and racism to address deficits in the way traditional social movement theories explain the relationship between social structure, interpretive processes, and mobilization—particularly for race-based movements. The study uses data from interviews with 36 Black millennials, conducted across an approximately one-year span starting in early 2019. Although these data provide for analysis of a wide range of topics (e.g. gender dynamics, social and news media impacts, participation, tactics, and collective identity), the dissertation focuses on three areas of meaning construction about the movement that became clear through preliminary analysis. First, I explore interpretations of the purpose and goals of BLM, extending the framing perspective to capture the external framing processes that occur in response to movements. The second portion of the analysis explicates the powerful role of collective memory of past iterations of Black activism in the U.S. in evaluations of BLM. Finally, examining definitions and projections of success for BLM, the third empirical chapter interrogates the relationship between political opportunity structures and prospectus for social change through activism. Across all three chapters, I specifically point to the ways that Black millennial meaning-making about BLM in the U.S. context was decidedly dependent on sociostructural understandings of racism. Thus, I argue that theories of social movements must explicitly incorporate historically constituted systems of racial domination.