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Sociologists have written surprisingly little about the role of social interactions in facilitating the success of racial diversity initiatives in contemporary organizations. The push for racial inclusion across multiple institutions illustrates that racial diversity is a widespread cultural mythology. However, social interactions are living component of cultural ideals, and successful interracial interactions are necessary to pull off diversity. In this article, I use ethnographic data gathered from parishioners of an interracial religious organization to look beyond “happy talk” and toward the tangible effort that is required to accomplish racial diversity on the ground. Specifically, I advance the concept of the diversity demeanor: racialized interaction rituals that smooth social interactions in interracial settings. Using the contributions of symbolic interactionism to examine race as a social relationship mediated through formal organizations offers a number of advantages. It reveals how the burden of making diversity happen falls on the shoulders of racial minorities who must “save” interactions and develop White actors’ understandings when they “mess up.” By developing the concept of the diversity demeanor, I bring attention to how macrolevel systems of stratification manifest within microlevel practices in the meso space of a religious organization.

SignificanceThis study uses large-scale news media and social media data to show that nationwide Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests occur concurrently with sharp increases in public attention to components of the BLM agenda. We also show that attention to BLM and related concepts is not limited to these brief periods of protest but is sustained after protest has ceased. This suggests that protest events incited a change in public awareness of BLM’s vision of social change and the dissemination of antiracist ideas into popular discourse.

This paper focuses on the contributions of Chris Lebron's book The Making of Black Lives Matter: The History of an Idea. Specifically, I examine his discussion of James Baldwin, Martin Luther King,...

This paper focuses on the social media presence of Black Lives Matter (BLM). Specifically, we examine how social media users interact with BLM by using hashtags and thus modify the framing of the m...