{"title":"Can Black Lives Matter within U.S. Democracy?","authors":"M. Francis","doi":"10.1177/00027162221078340","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the impact of anti-Black state violence on U.S. democracy, tracing the history of that violence and how it has changed from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. I underscore the persistence of state violence against Black Americans, how it undercuts democratization, and how those dynamics provide a useful context for ongoing discussions about the imperfect development of democracy in the United States. I also explore the Black Lives Matter Movement’s (BLMM) emphasis on dismantling the criminal punishment system and the movement’s amplification of the voices of citizens who have often been excluded from the formal political process. I argue that by centering the issue of anti-Black violence, the BLMM is offering a transformative pathway to a more fully functional democracy.","PeriodicalId":48352,"journal":{"name":"Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162221078340","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
This article examines the impact of anti-Black state violence on U.S. democracy, tracing the history of that violence and how it has changed from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. I underscore the persistence of state violence against Black Americans, how it undercuts democratization, and how those dynamics provide a useful context for ongoing discussions about the imperfect development of democracy in the United States. I also explore the Black Lives Matter Movement’s (BLMM) emphasis on dismantling the criminal punishment system and the movement’s amplification of the voices of citizens who have often been excluded from the formal political process. I argue that by centering the issue of anti-Black violence, the BLMM is offering a transformative pathway to a more fully functional democracy.
期刊介绍:
The AAPSS seeks to promote the progress of the social sciences and the use of social science knowledge in the enrichment of public understanding and in the development of public policy. It does so by fostering multidisciplinary understanding of important questions among those who create, disseminate, and apply the social sciences, and by encouraging and celebrating talented people who produce and use research to enhance public understanding of important social problems.