Implicit racism, colour blindness, and narrow definitions of discrimination: Why some White people prefer ‘All Lives Matter’ to ‘Black Lives Matter’

West, Keon; Greenland, Katy; Laar, Colette van

doi:10.1111/bjso.12458

British J Social Psychol

2021

DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12458

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Implicit racism, colour blindness, and narrow definitions of discrimination: Why some White people prefer ‘All Lives Matter’ to ‘Black Lives Matter’

Keon West

¹

,

Katy Greenland

²

,

Colette van Laar

³

Abstract: The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has been called the 'civil rights issue of our time' (Holt & Sweitzer, 2020, Self and Identity, 19(, p. 16) but the All Lives Matter (ALM) movement swiftly emerged as an oppositional response to BLM. Prior research has investigated some predictors of support for ALM over BLM, but these predictors have thus far not included levels of racial bias or potentially relevant constructions of racism. This pre-registered, cross-sectional study (N = 287) tested the degree to which W… Show more

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Cited by 65 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 97 publications

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“…In testing our second research question on the relationship between bias and views on Stop AAPI Hate, we found that both implicit anti-Asian bias and color-blind attitudes were significant negative predictors of familiarity and support. This result supports our hypothesis and aligns with previous studies on the #BlackLivesMatter movement (West et al, 2021), which is also consistent with prior research on the relationship between bias and attitudes. In social and legal research, implicit biases are linked to prejudiced judgments (e.g., forming opinions without the necessary facts) and discriminatory actions (e.g., unfair treatment of different social groups; Banaji et al, 2015; Kurdi et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…When conducting subgroup analyses between White and People of Color participants, the significant effect of implicit bias disappears, and only CoBRAS’s significant effect remains. This pattern aligns with our hypothesis and is consistent with existing literature that identified a similar connection between color-blind ideologies and diminished support for racial justice movement (West et al, 2021). This also suggests that power-evasion beliefs may have a more direct influence on an individual’s support for policy reforms.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Implicit bias and color-blind racial attitudes on views of Stop AAPI Hate.

Tan

¹

,

Qian

²

2025

Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology

0

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Exaggerated anticipatory anxiety is common in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Neuroimaging studies have revealed altered neural activity in response to social stimuli in SAD, but fewer studies have examined neural activity during anticipation of feared social stimuli in SAD. The current study examined the time course and magnitude of activity in threat processing brain regions during speech anticipation in socially anxious individuals and healthy controls (HC). Method Participants (SAD n = 58; HC n = 16) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during which they completed a 90s control anticipation task and 90s speech anticipation task.

“…In testing our second research question on the relationship between bias and views on Stop AAPI Hate, we found that both implicit anti-Asian bias and color-blind attitudes were significant negative predictors of familiarity and support. This result supports our hypothesis and aligns with previous studies on the #BlackLivesMatter movement (West et al, 2021), which is also consistent with prior research on the relationship between bias and attitudes. In social and legal research, implicit biases are linked to prejudiced judgments (e.g., forming opinions without the necessary facts) and discriminatory actions (e.g., unfair treatment of different social groups; Banaji et al, 2015; Kurdi et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…When conducting subgroup analyses between White and People of Color participants, the significant effect of implicit bias disappears, and only CoBRAS’s significant effect remains. This pattern aligns with our hypothesis and is consistent with existing literature that identified a similar connection between color-blind ideologies and diminished support for racial justice movement (West et al, 2021). This also suggests that power-evasion beliefs may have a more direct influence on an individual’s support for policy reforms.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Implicit bias and color-blind racial attitudes on views of Stop AAPI Hate.

Tan

¹

,

Qian

²

2025

Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology

0

Get access via publisher Add to collection Cite

Exaggerated anticipatory anxiety is common in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Neuroimaging studies have revealed altered neural activity in response to social stimuli in SAD, but fewer studies have examined neural activity during anticipation of feared social stimuli in SAD. The current study examined the time course and magnitude of activity in threat processing brain regions during speech anticipation in socially anxious individuals and healthy controls (HC). Method Participants (SAD n = 58; HC n = 16) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during which they completed a 90s control anticipation task and 90s speech anticipation task.

“…Our study surfaced a range of perceptions on racism, which supports prior research findings on the difficulty to achieve social change and the durability of “the status quo and associated belief systems” (West et al ., 2021, p. 11). What we have named authentic allyship is quite similar to critical allyship, which is the practice of developing awareness and understanding privilege and recognizing its visible and invisible effects within social structures in a system of inequality (Nixon, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Kindness-informed allyship praxis

Williams

¹

,

Weigand

²

,

Okoroafor

³

et al. 2023

Equality Diversity and Inclusion an International Journal

Get access via publisher Add to collection Cite

Exaggerated anticipatory anxiety is common in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Neuroimaging studies have revealed altered neural activity in response to social stimuli in SAD, but fewer studies have examined neural activity during anticipation of feared social stimuli in SAD. The current study examined the time course and magnitude of activity in threat processing brain regions during speech anticipation in socially anxious individuals and healthy controls (HC). Method Participants (SAD n = 58; HC n = 16) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during which they completed a 90s control anticipation task and 90s speech anticipation task.

“…However, in the current research, men's intentions to act on behalf of their own group were associated with downplaying the issue of violence against women, blaming women for the issue of sexual harassment and assault, and claiming that men suffer more (politically, socially, economically) than women. These results align with work by West et al (2021) in the context of racial inequality-who note that while supporters of "All Lives Matter" (ALM) typically argue that ALM is "more inclusive" than "Black Lives Matter", support for ALM is associated with color-blind ideologies that seek to deny the reality of racial inequality.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

#MeToo, #MenToo: how men's progressive and reactionary actions are shaped by defensiveness

Barron

¹

,

Thomas

²

,

Woodyatt

³

2024

Front. Soc. Psychol.

Get access via publisher Add to collection Cite

Exaggerated anticipatory anxiety is common in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Neuroimaging studies have revealed altered neural activity in response to social stimuli in SAD, but fewer studies have examined neural activity during anticipation of feared social stimuli in SAD. The current study examined the time course and magnitude of activity in threat processing brain regions during speech anticipation in socially anxious individuals and healthy controls (HC). Method Participants (SAD n = 58; HC n = 16) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during which they completed a 90s control anticipation task and 90s speech anticipation task.

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