University of Maryland study showed anti-Black racism fell temporarily following George Floyd’s death

Black Lives Matter sign outside of McKeldin Library on August 27, 2020 (Jalyn Mathis/The Black Explosion)

The murder of George Floyd back in May 2020 sparked outrage and protests across the nation as people demanded change and justice for the Black community.

Nationwide, people posted #BlackLivesMatter, went to protests and talked about anti-Black racism. However, for some people this was just a trend, not a movement. 

A University of Maryland study from September revealed that anti-Black racism fell only temporarily following the murder of Floyd. The study used Twitter data to investigate race-related sentiments and found that changes in anti-Black sentiment were short-lived following the high-profile killings of Black people in early 2020. 

Tweets referencing African Americans in a negative way after the murder of Floyd decreased 32% but the decline was temporary. Negative tweets returned nearly to baseline levels in July, according to a new study in the social science journal SSM-Population Health. The study showed that negative attitudes towards Blacks remain “deeply entrenched.” 

“The George Floyd murder angered people and led to them to rise up,” said Devorah Sklute, a sophomore government and politics major. “It was the catalyst for the entire movement and as time progressed people lost that anger and they reverted back to their old behavior.”

Some saw the Black Lives Matter movement and the demand for justice for Floyd as a trend as people posted on social media and retweeted ideas they heard. One trend in particular encouraged people to post black screens on their social media pages to advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement. 

“People just go along with the crowd and it shows who’s a follower and who’s an educator,” said Sierra Hall, a sophomore hearing and speech sciences major. “There’s people who actually think about what happened and why it happened, and then there are people who just listen for a day and move on.” 

Although there was a sharp decline in anti-Black racism and increased public awareness, these sentiments shifted after time progressed. For some people, the anger after Floyd’s death was temporary to them, however for the Black community, this is decades of anger with an unjust criminal justice system. 

“In the summer of 2020, people were posting Black Lives Matter on their Instagram stories and people felt like regardless of if they supported the movement or not, they had to put something on their social media or people will question why they aren't,” said Mary Walsh, a sophomore government and politics major and history major.

Thu Nguyen, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Maryland School of Public Health and led the study, looked at 3,000 tweets that “revealed themes of desire for long-lasting social change and specific calls for actions.”

However, Nguyen also noticed a backlash of negative attitudes towards Black Lives Matter protests, as well as “victim-blaming and overall denial of the impacts of racism.” 

While the study reveals people’s negative attitudes toward Blacks, Nguyen believes “transitory but powerful shifts in racial sentiment due to important and tragic events can provide windows of opportunity to create lasting social change.”