Abstract
The nexus of race and politics in America began with the formation of the Union. Upon arrival, colonizers stripped Blacks of their culture, and their identity became enmeshed with chattel and hundreds of years of stereotypes. As the Union strengthened and wars ignited freedom and radical change, Blacks fought to have citizen rights through legislative actions and policies. Nevertheless, racism and racist ideologies anchored institutions in their establishment. Critical Race scholars utilize the Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework to challenge the power structures to invoke change the dynamics the law has with race and racism. In this qualitative study, CRT situated the researcher to reexamine America's historical record with counter-storytelling of Black people's lived experiences through narrative inquiry. CRT calls on Black researchers to study their communities—tell their own stories—to break through traditional research tropes. This research assessed how policies and legislative precedents have informed the Black community's relationship with the government generationally. Five families from Atlanta, Georgia, a predominately Black city with a historically politically active Black constituency, participated in this research study: two families had three generations, and two families had two generations. Semi-structured interviews allowed the participants to narrate their stories and experiences with the subtle and crude racialization inherent in American laws and practices. The study added political psychology and soci-cognitive theory of trust to its conceptual framework to explore the social and psychological implications of these experiences. Three major themes were derived from the data: political ideology, laws and racism, and values and morals. Three conclusions gleaned from those themes: seminal legislation's ineffectiveness has contributed to the lack of trust the Black community has towards the U.S. government, Blackness is a political construct because historical legislative outcomes promote anti-Black racist laws and policies, and the previous generation's political ideologies influenced political views; however, they do not dictate the political behavior of the participant. The study's recommendations were derived directly from the participants who disclosed how the government could build trust in the Black community.
Library of Congress Subject Headings
African Americans—Politics and government; African Americans—Political participation; Trust—Social aspects—United States; Critical race theory—United States
Date of Award
2021
School Affiliation
Graduate School of Education and Psychology
Department/Program
Education
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctorate
Faculty Advisor
Barbara Mather
Recommended Citation
Neal, Deatra L., "The socio-historical construction of inter- and transgenerational political distrust in the Black community: a critical race and political psychological examination of Blackness as a political construct" (2021). Theses and Dissertations. 1699.
https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/etd/1699