A UC Berkeley African American Studies alumnus’ research is reframing how Black protest is understood by arguing that public perception is shaped less by protest itself and more by how it is presented and interpreted.
In his study, “What Does Black Protest Appear to Be?,” published in the Journal of the Cultural Studies Association, African American Studies Alumnus Kevin Rigby Jr. draws on his Berkeley academic training to examine how systems of visibility and power influence the way Black protest is seen. His work contends that traditional political and cultural frameworks often fall short in recognizing the complexity of these movements.
Using the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests following the killing of George Floyd as key examples, Rigby analyzed how media coverage frequently reduces Black protest to familiar narratives, such as victimhood, morality or calls for reform. These limited portrayals, he suggests, shape how audiences interpret both the meaning and legitimacy of protest.
“What drew me to thinking about Black protest in terms of ‘appearance’ was a growing concern with how political events are mediated, framed and made meaningful before we ever get to their demands or outcomes,” said Rigby, the Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. “It allowed me to ask instead: what about Black protest resists easy interpretation within democratic narratives of visibility, recognition and reform?”
Rigby argues that media framing does more than document protest, it actively constructs its meaning. As a result, public understanding is often formed before deeper engagement with the issues at stake.
“Most people tend to think about protest as a kind of message, something people do to communicate a demand for social action. The political question then becomes whether the message is persuasive and whether it produces the desired outcome,” he said. “What I’m interested in is how sometimes protest disrupts the ordinary assumptions that presently organize political life by revealing tensions or contradictions that were already there but usually hidden or silenced.”
At the center of Rigby’s research is the idea that the “appearance” of Black protest is shaped through language, imagery and narrative choices. These elements influence whether protest is viewed as a legitimate democratic act or as social disorder.
“The language of ‘peaceful’ versus ‘violent’ protest tends to frame the issue as a moral judgment about the behavior of protesters,” said Rigby. “It can narrow our attention to the immediate scene rather than the conditions that produced it; the everyday violence of policing, incarceration or economic dispossession.”
By examining these dynamics, Rigby’s work reflects the kind of critical inquiry fostered through UC Berkeley’s African American Studies program. His analysis not only investigates how protest is portrayed, but also points to the broader systems that shape those portrayals.
“What Black protest often does is expose where transformations in state power are taking place and how those transformations reorganize social life: who is protected, who is exposed to violence and under what conditions,” he said.
