Letters for Black Lives: Co-ethnic Mobilization and Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement

Abstract

Previous research demonstrates that individuals are more open to persuasion from people who share their race. However, it is not known whether this relationship holds for Asian Americans. We address this shortcoming by exploring how the race of an author influences support for, and perceptions of, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Drawing from literature on opinion formation and social identity theory, we expect that whites will be most persuaded by whites, while Asian Americans will not be particularly persuaded by co-ethnic messengers due to relatively low levels of group identity. To test our hypotheses, we use two online surveys that oversample Asian American respondents who are randomly assigned letters in support of BLM written by either an Asian American author or a white author. Similar to previous research, we find that whites are more likely to respond to appeals from co-racial individuals. However, we find that Asian Americans respond positively to co-ethnic and white messengers. Further analysis reveals that Asian Americans’ lower levels of in-group preferences compared with whites explains why they do not respond to co-racial individuals similarly to other groups.

Keywords

Coethnic mobilization Black Lives Matter AAPI Survey experiments

Introduction

In 2016, a group of Asian Americans wrote an intergenerational letter expressing their support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. The original letter was written in English and was directed toward the broader Asian American community in an attempt to increase support and amplify the message of BLM. The motivation for these letters is that messages coming from a co-racial author will be most effective in altering public opinion. Letters for Black Lives, as the group has become known, is one of several organizations founded and led by nonblacks who are supporting the BLM movement.

The hope that letters from co-racial messengers can alter the attitudes of individuals is not uncommon in social science literature. Namely, numerous studies demonstrate that whites and blacks are much more likely to adapt to the preferences of co-racial opinion leaders (see Kuklinski and Hurley 1994; Nelson, Sanbonmatsu, and McClerking 2007). So much so that when presented with evidence that contradicts their current beliefs, both blacks and whites are more likely to move in the direction of co-racial elites (Tate 2010; Tesler 2016). While previous research shows that co-racial individuals can alter public opinion, it is not known whether Asian Americans follow this same pattern.

There are certainly reasons to expect why Asian Americans may function differently. For example, Asian Americans exhibit lower rates of linked fate and group consciousness than other racial/ethnic minority groups (Junn and Masuoka 2008). Furthermore, there are strong divisions among the Asian American pan-ethnic community down national origin, linguistic, religious, and cultural lines (Masuoka 2006, Wong et al. 2011). Finally, and related to the previous points, Asian Americans tend to display weaker in-group preferences relative to other racial groups. For example, recent surveys have shown that Asian Americans have as high opinions of and strong feelings of closeness to whites as they do to their own racial group (Pew 2012; Wong et al. 2011). By exploring the influence of Letters for Black Lives on attitudes toward the Black Lives Matter movement, we gain additional insight into the impact of racial opinion leaders on Asian American public opinion based on a real-world example.

To assess whether Asian Americans are more likely to adopt the attitudes of co-racial individuals, we begin by reviewing literature on the role that the race of political elites plays in opinion formation. Through this review, we argue that whites will display a strong preference for individuals who share their race and will be more willing to adapt to their position compared with messengers of a different race/ethnicity. We then discuss why Asian Americans may be unique from other racial/ethnic groups in that they may not display a strong preference for messengers who share their race. We argue that this disconnect is driven by Asian Americans’ lower levels of pan-ethnic group consciousness, lower levels of mobilization, and weaker preferences for in-group individuals relative to those of another race. As a result, Asian Americans may be equally as likely to adopt the position of a co-racial messenger as they would a white messenger.

To test these hypotheses, we commission two survey experiments with an oversample of Asian American respondents. The experiments expose individuals to different letters written to mimic those from the website Letters for Black Lives. The only change we make to these letters is the race of the author. We find that in both surveys, Asian American respondents were much more supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement when they read a letter written by either a white or Asian American author compared with those who read no letter. In the most recent survey, we find that whites were only more persuaded to be supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement when they were presented an article with a co-racial author.

We further assess our hypotheses using causal mediation analysis (see Imai, Keele, and Tingley 2010; Imai et al. 2011). In particular, we assess whether changes in attitudes about the Black Lives Matter movement tied to the race of the author are attributable to how the respondent feels about the author. For Asian Americans, we find no significant mediating effects. This indicates that differences in perceptions of the co-racial or white author did not influence how Asian Americans responded to the treatment. For whites, we find that a significant and substantial portion of their greater likelihood of being persuaded to support BLM when presented a letter from a white author is driven by their warmer feelings toward the co-racial messenger. The results provide additional support for our hypothesis that whites’ strong in-group preferences make co-racial individuals more persuasive. However, Asian Americans weaker’ in-group preferences make both white and Asian American individuals equally influential.

Race and Changing Political Attitudes

There are numerous studies that demonstrate that individual’s attitudes are malleable if political messengers who are trusted and liked by a person shift their opinion (Lenz 2009; Page, Shapiro, and Dempsey 1987; Zaller 1992). For example, Zaller (1992) argues that individuals take cues from others they trust when deciding their attitudes on particular issues. However, the influence of messengers on individual attitudes is determined by how positively or negatively the messenger is perceived by the individual.

This is in part a rational decision among individuals who do not have a significant amount of time to explore each policy in detail. Instead, by taking cues from opinion leaders who they feel warmly toward, they can be more confident in their position without devoting too much energy to learn about any given topic (Zaller 1992). When individuals are confronted with new information, which conflicts with their existing beliefs, they generally try to reconcile this disagreement with evidence to confirm their pre-existing opinion (Taber and Lodge 2006). However, when individuals are more trusting of the information source, they tend to fight this disagreement less and justify their acquiescence to this new opinion (Lenz 2009; Levendusky 2010).

If individuals are more swayed by messengers they view favorably, it follows that individuals may be more persuaded by others who share their race than those from another racial group. A plethora of research demonstrates that individuals display a preference for individuals who share their racial identity (Bobo and Zubrinsky 1996; Schuman et al. 1997). Moreover, several studies show that individuals are much more likely to find racial in-group members as being more trustworthy than racial out-group members (Barreto and Nuno 2011; Simpson, McGrimmon, and Irwin 2007). The combination of this higher level of trust and preference for co-racial individuals may make individuals more likely to follow the opinions of co-racial messengers.

Along the same lines, Crano (2001) argues that individuals are much more receptive to claims from individuals who share their identity even if these opinions tend to be opposed to their own. This is in part driven by the fact that individuals are much more open-minded and willing to hear arguments from individuals who share their race (Mackie and Hunter 1999; Turner et al. 1987). Moreover, when individuals are confronted with information from an in-group member that counters their current beliefs, they are more likely to try to find a middle ground to better relate to individuals who share their identity but not their opinion to restore cognitive consistency (Crano and Chen 1998; Crano and Prislin 2006). In contrast, individuals are more likely to engage in motivated reasoning to discredit arguments from outsiders who they may disagree with (Taber and Lodge 2006; Turner et al. 1987). The combination of factors allows messengers a greater opportunity to alter the opinion of racial in-group members.

Consistent with this expectation, there is ample evidence that the race of the political elite matters in whether respondents view them as favorable and whether individuals adopt their position (Barreto 2010; Nelson, Sanbonmatsu, and McClerking 2007; Tate 2010; Tesler 2016). This is particularly true for whites. Previous research demonstrates that whites are much more willing to coalesce around the opinions of white messengers. Nelson, Sanbonmatsu, and McClerking (2007) show that whites found co-racial political messengers more trustworthy than blacks when describing an incident around police misconduct. This greater level of trust led whites to side more with white messengers than their black counterparts. Moreover, Kuklinski and Hurley (1994) find that whites were much more willing to adopt the attitudes of George H. W. Bush than Jesse Jackson when both made the same statements. Kuklinski and Hurley (1994) attribute this result to whites’ poor attitudes about blacks in general and Jesse Jackson in particular. Overall, previous research indicates that co-racial individuals tend to be perceived as more likable and as a result are more effective in altering the opinions of those who share their race. Based on this research, our first hypothesis states:

Hypothesis 1: Whites will be more likely to become supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement when a co-racial individual expresses support for the movement. Moreover, whites are unlikely to be moved in their opinion about Black Lives Matter when the argument in support of the movement is made by a nonwhite author.

Asian American Pan-Ethnic Group Identity

While some research suggests that Asian Americans respond to pan-ethnic group cues the same way as other racial/ethnic groups (Espiritu 1992; Lai 2000; Lai et al. 2001; Nakanishi 1985; Saito 1998), much of these findings are context specific and do not appear to be long lasting. Moreover, there is evidence to suggest that Asian Americans may not be persuaded by co-ethnic cues in the same way as other minority groups in the United States. The Asian American community has a number of significant cleavages down ethnic origin, linguistic, religious, and cultural lines. Furthermore, geographic dispersion, variation in immigration experiences, and social and residential integration affect pan-ethnic identification among Asian Americans (Junn and Masuoka 2008; Wong et al. 2011).

Examining common culture, shared fate, and primordial ties, Lien, Conway, and Wong (2004) find significant variation among ethnic origin groups. Ethnic identity among Asian Americans is complex, multilayered, and fluid (Lien, Conway, and Wong 2004). Junn and Masuoka (2008) find that racial group identity for Asian Americans is not as salient and persistent of a mechanism on opinion formation as it is for other groups, notably blacks. Instead, self-identity varies greatly based on social context. However, there are patterns that emerge. Most Asian Americans prefer to identify in ethnic-based terms rather than pan-ethnic-based terms (Lien, Conway, and Wong 2004; Portes and Rumbaut 2001). Analysis of Asian American political behavior in the 2016 election finds that racial identity variables, such as linked fate, were not strong predictors of vote choice for the group (Masuoka et al. 2018). Although there are clear semblances of a pan-ethnic group identity among Asian Americans, it is relatively weaker and less solidified than for other groups. Therefore, we argue that co-ethnic mobilization should be less impactful for Asian Americans than for other racial groups.

Given their low levels of co-racial identity, we expect that Asian Americans will respond similarly to racial out-group members such as whites as they do Asian Americans. This may be particularly true because the Asian American experience has been intrinsically linked with whites as they have often appealed to whiteness, and the group has moved to being considered “near-white, white, or even ‘outwhit(ing) the whites’” (Okihiro 1994, 34). Moreover, Asian Americans demonstrate their preference for whites in numerous public opinion polls. For example, in a 2012 Pew survey, Asian Americans report that they get along about the same with whites as they do co-ethnic Asian Americans. Among Asian Americans in the survey, 87 percent state that they get along with whites “very well” or “pretty well.” This is comparable with the percentage who report getting along well with other Asian Americans (83%). Results from the 2008 National Asian American Survey (NAAS) corroborate the results from the 2012 Pew survey (Wong et al. 2011). Asian Americans are more likely to believe that they have some or a lot in common with whites than other groups. Relatively low levels of pan-ethnic group identity among Asian Americans and favorable evaluations of whites may make Asian Americans unique in that they may be equally persuaded by whites (an out-group) as they would by co-racial messengers.

Finally, Asian Americans are rarely targeted by political campaigns (DeSipio et al. 2008; Hajnal and Lee 2011; Lien et al. 2001; Wong 2005).

Recent analysis of the 2016 election finds that Asian Americans were highly neglected by both major political parties (Ramírez, Solano, and Wilcox-Archuleta 2018).

Given the lack of attention from political entities, Asian Americans may be particularly receptive to outreach (Lien, Conway, and Wong 2004; Wong 2008). As a result, Asian Americans may not be as concerned about whether the outreach is performed by someone who shares their race or by an individual from a racial out-group. Instead, they may just be responsive to anyone who targets their politically underserved group. Based on this research, our second hypothesis states,

Hypothesis 2: Asian Americans will not exhibit strong in-group preferences when responding to a BLM advocate, and will become more supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement when either a co-ethnic Asian American or white individual expresses support for the movement.

Experiment

Two MTurk Samples

To test our hypotheses, we conducted two surveys on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The first was collected from November 1, 2016 to November 14, 2016. The second survey was collected from December 20, 2017 to December 27, 2017. In both surveys, respondents were paid fifty cents to complete a survey that took on average about nine minutes to complete. Both surveys include an oversample of Asian American respondents.^1,2 While MTurk has the disadvantage of using an opt-in rather than a national random sample, it provides several advantages for our study. First, in spite of its opt in nature, recent research demonstrates that treatment effects derived from surveys on MTurk are in most cases comparable with treatment effects found in nationally representative surveys (Buhrmester, Kwang, and Gosling 2011; Mullinix et al. 2015). Similarly, studies of respondents on MTurk show that they are more representative of the population and often more racially diverse than most crowd-sourcing sites and other convenience samples (Buhrmester, Kwang, and Gosling 2011; Huff and Tingley 2015). Finally, MTurk allows us to sample a sizable number of Asian Americans affordably, which is difficult to do even in surveys that are derived from a nationally representative sample (Huff and Tingley 2015).

Nonetheless, it is important to present details of our sample to illustrate any deficiencies in our analysis. To do so, Table 1 compares our samples to the U.S. population of Asian Americans and to one of the leading national surveys, the 2016 NAAS. Table 1 compares the samples across age, nativity, educational attainment, gender, party identification, and national origin. The MTurk samples are similar to the NAAS’s sample in terms of gender, educational attainment, and Republican identification. Respondents in the MTurk sample are younger than in the NAAS, but the average age is similar to that of the general U.S. Asian American population. The MTurk samples have higher percentages of Democratic identification, and the second sample is significantly more assimilated than either the NAAS or general population.³ While significant differences exist between our samples and the NAAS in age, Democratic identification, and nativity, only the difference in the proportion of U.S.-born respondents is substantial.

Table 1.

Comparison of Asian American Respondents’ Demographic Data across Both MTurk Samples, the NAAS, and the General U.S. Population of Asian Americans.

	November 2016 survey	December 2016 survey	2016 NAAS	AAPI
Age	33	31	52	36
Native born		70	12	41
Bachelor’s degree	73	60	60	51
Female	48	41	46	52
Democrat	56	52	41
Republican	17	15	16
Chinese		24	24	24
Indian		17	21	20
Filipino		12	12	19
Korean		14	12	9
Vietnamese		7	14	9
Japanese		9	10	7

NAAS = National Asian American Survey.

Table 1 also compares the second MTurk sample to the NAAS and general U.S. Asian American population in terms of national origin. Again, the MTurk sample is fairly similar to the NAAS and to the general AAPI population. With the exception of Vietnamese Americans, each of the six largest ethnic origin groups is within five points of the general U.S. population. The difference in Vietnamese Americans is only seven points. We find that our sample drawn from MTurk holds up well in comparison with the NAAS and the general AAPI population. The only major divergence is that the MTurk sample has a higher proportion of respondents born in the United States.⁴

Experimental Design

To assess whether movements such as Letters for Blacks Lives alter public opinion about the Black Lives Matter movement, we created a letter that mimicked one from their website (see supplemental appendix for complete information about the letter). We ensure that respondents knew the topic of the letter through a headline that read “An Asian American’s/White American’s letter of support for the Black Lives Matter movement.” We also worked to ensure that the respondents knew the race of the author of the letter by not only varying it in the title but by including a picture of the author whose race varied from being white to being Asian American. We altered the name of the author to reflect the author’s race/ethnicity based on the most common names for their racial/ethnic group. For the white author, we used the name James Smith. For the Asian American author, we used the name C. J. Lee. The photos were selected to minimize differences in age, attractiveness, and professionalism.

To test the effect of these letters on attitudes about the Black Lives Matter movement, we randomly assigned either of the two letters or we assigned no letter at all. Those who did not receive a letter serve as the baseline for purposes of comparison. Our main dependent variables are derived from two questions. The first measures approval of the Black Lives Matter movement through a question that asks, “Do You Support or Oppose the Black Lives Matter Movement?” The scores to this question are on a five-point scale and range from strongly oppose (1) to strongly support (5). The second measure is a feeling thermometer scale that asks respondents to identify how warmly they feel about the Black Lives Matter movement on a scale that ranges from very negative (0) to very positive (100).

While random assignment should account for most of the imbalances in key variables,⁵ we ensure that this is the case by estimating regressions for both of our dependent variables with controls. First, we control for the age of the respondent. Given that our authors are younger, and the Black Lives Matter movement appeals more to the youth, we expect that younger voters will be more supportive of the BLM movement. As a result, it is important to control for age in our estimations. Along the same lines, we control for partisanship because we expect that democratic voters may be more supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement than their Republican counterparts. This may be evident by the fact that the Mothers of the Movement, a group associated with BLM, was given a prime-time spot at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. We also control for levels of mobilization with a question that asks respondents whether they were contacted by a political party in the 2016 presidential election. It is possible that Asian Americans as a group are so rarely targeted (Wong 2008), that when targeted they may feel an increased willingness to be responsive to the appeal.

We also include a measure of discrimination using a question that asks respondents about their personal experiences with discrimination. Our argument rests on the relative lack of racial group identity among Asian Americans, and personal experiences with discrimination is found to be a strong predictor of group consciousness among Asian Americans (Masuoka 2006). Furthermore, experiencing discrimination influences party identification, pushing Asian Americans away from the Republican Party (Kuo, Malhotra, and Mo 2017). It is possible that experiences with discrimination can lead Asian Americans to respond more positively to co-ethnic appeals.

In addition, we control for whether the respondent is native born or not. While this may matter less for whites, the effect of nativity for Asian Americans has been a consistent predictor on public opinion, particularly on issues related to race (Junn et al. 2011). Moreover, we control for whether an Asian American respondent was from an East Asian country. Given that our author best fits the mold of an Asian American from an East Asian country, we want to ensure that imbalances in this area are not influencing our results. Unfortunately, the questions about mobilization, nationality, and nativity were only asked on the December 2017 survey, so they are only accounted for in these models. Finally, we control for several demographic factors including gender, education, and income.

Results

The results in Figure 1 present Asian American respondents’ mean Black Lives Matter feeling thermometer score and their average levels of support for BLM by treatment type for the (A) November 2016 survey and the (B) December 2016 survey. Figure 1 also presents white respondent’s average BLM feeling thermometer scores and support for the movement by condition in the (C) November 2016 survey and the (D) December 2017 survey. The results in Figure 1A and 1B demonstrate that Asian Americans for the most part are significantly more likely to view the Black Lives Matter movement more positively after receiving a letter from a white or Asian American author. These results seem consistent across both surveys taken over a year apart.

Figure 1.

Average (A) BLM feeling thermometer score for Asian Americans, (B) Support for BLM among Asian Americans, (C) BLM feeling thermometer score for Whites, (D) Support for BLM among Whites.

Asian American respondents had over a third of a point more support for the Black Lives Matter movement on a five-point scale when they were presented a letter in support of BLM. This result remains across authors of different races and surveys across years. The largest treatment effects are for Asian Americans presented a letter in support of BLM in the 2017 survey from either a co-racial or white author. Asian Americans in these treatment groups on average support the Black Lives Matter movement more than 0.6 points higher on a five-point scale than Asian Americans in the control condition (i.e., no letter). The difference in support for the Black Lives Matter movement after receiving the letter from a white author in both years and from the Asian American author in 2017 is significant at .05 based on a two-sample t test. The differences in support for the Black Lives Matter movement for Asian Americans presented the letter from a co-racial author in 2016 or no letter in that year were marginally significant (p < .10).

The results are largely the same with regard to Asian Americans’ BLM feeling thermometer rating across treatment types. Asian Americans who received a letter from a white author rated BLM as being fourteen points more likable in 2016 and 9.8 points more likable in 2017 than those who did not receive a letter. Both differences are statistically significant at .05 based on a two-sample t test. Moreover, Asian Americans rated BLM as about ten points more favorable in 2016 and 2017 when they received a letter from a co-racial author than those who received no letter at all. However, this difference was only significant based on a two-sample t test in the 2017 survey. Nonetheless, the results demonstrate that Asian Americans tend to respond to the letters for black lives. However, this difference does not appear to be larger when the letter is presented by an author who shares the respondent’s race or a white author.

The results for whites as presented in Figures 1C and 1D appear to be less consistent. Contrary to expectations, our survey conducted in 2016 demonstrates that whites did not become more supportive or rate the Black Lives Matter movement more warmly when presented letters in support of BLM regardless of the race of the author. However, in our December 2017 survey, which includes a larger number of respondents, whites only respond to co-racial authors in both their support for the Black Lives Matter movement and their thermometer scores for the social movement organization. For example, whites who received the letter in support of BLM rated the movement as 11.19 points more favorable than whites who read no letter. Moreover, whites who read a letter written by an author who shares their race are 0.38 points on a five-point scale more likely to state support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Both differences are significant at .05 based on a two-sample t test. In contrast, whites who read a letter written by an Asian American author in either survey did not statistically differ from whites who did not read a letter in their BLM feeling thermometer scores and their support for the BLM movement. The results in Figure 1 provide support for our hypotheses. However, to ensure that imbalances in our experiment are not influencing our results, we turn to regression analysis.

The results in Table 2 provide additional support for our hypotheses that the letters for black lives are an effective way to boost support for the political movement for both Asian Americans and whites. However, the race of the author appears to matter more for whites than it does for Asian Americans. Table 2 presents the results of eight ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions predicting feeling thermometer scores for BLM and support for BLM by the race of the respondent and the date the data were collected. In addition to the treatment, we also control for the gender, education, age, income, partisanship, experiences with discrimination, nativity status, and whether the individual was mobilized by a political party in the 2016 presidential election. For Asian American respondents, we also control for whether the respondent was from an East Asian country.

Table 2.

OLS Regression Predicting BLM Feeling Thermometer Scores and BLM Support for Asian American and White Respondents.

	Asian Americans				Whites
	BLM feeling thermometer	BLM feeling thermometer	BLM support	BLM support	BLM feeling thermometer	BLM feeling thermometer	BLM support	BLM support
	November 2016	December 2017	November 2016	December 2017	November 2016	December 2017	November 2016	December 2017
White Author	11.90**	10.58**	0.55**	0.39**	6.32	12.84***	−0.04	0.44**
White Author	(5.68)	(4.10)	(0.23)	(0.17)	(6.08)	(4.64)	(0.25)	(0.19)
Asian American Author	11.77**	7.09*	0.50**	0.30*	−0.13	5.61	−0.13	−0.06
Asian American Author	(5.79)	(4.08)	(0.23)	(0.16)	(5.71)	(4.66)	(0.24)	(0.19)
Female	8.09*	7.94**	0.33*	0.26*	12.32**	10.08***	0.61***	0.39**
Female	(4.80)	(3.44)	(0.19)	(0.14)	(4.95)	(3.79)	(0.21)	(0.15)
Age	0.36	−0.20	0.01	−0.01	−0.14	−0.04	−0.00	−0.00
Age	(0.24)	(0.21)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.21)	(0.14)	(0.01)	(0.01)
Income	−0.09	0.03	−0.00	0.00	−0.07	−0.07	−0.00	−0.00
Income	(0.06)	(0.04)	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.07)	(0.05)	(0.00)	(0.00)
Education	−0.07	0.82	0.00	0.03	1.89	1.48	0.11*	0.06
Education	(1.61)	(1.22)	(0.06)	(0.05)	(1.47)	(1.13)	(0.06)	(0.05)
Democrat	12.66**	14.49***	0.32	0.55***	18.09***	20.60***	0.48**	0.87***
Democrat	(5.65)	(3.93)	(0.23)	(0.16)	(5.35)	(4.79)	(0.22)	(0.20)
Republican	−9.58	−12.20**	−0.21	−0.52**	−31.16***	−12.65**	−1.52***	−0.79***
Republican	(7.65)	(5.55)	(0.31)	(0.22)	(6.84)	(4.88)	(0.28)	(0.20)
Mobilization		8.92**		0.27		5.58		0.08
Mobilization		(4.04)		(0.17)		(4.16)		(0.17)
Native born		−2.92		−0.06		5.61		0.27
Native born		(3.79)		(0.15)		(14.71)		(0.60)
Discrimination		1.68		0.27*		−14.80***		−0.59***
Discrimination		(3.72)		(0.15)		(3.86)		(0.16)
East Asian		1.95		0.10
East Asian		(3.41)		(0.14)
Constant	33.96	34.88*	2.71***	2.48***	20.76	13.86	1.66*	1.92**
Constant	(25.19)	(18.25)	(1.02)	(0.73)	(22.98)	(23.35)	(0.95)	(0.95)
Observations	118	253	118	251	163	239	161	238
R-squared	0.22	0.21	0.15	0.22	0.30	0.30	0.31	0.35

Data from November 2016 and November 2017 Experiments. OLS = ordinary least squares; BLM = Black Lives Matter Matter.

p < .1. **p < .05. ***p < .01 (standard errors in parentheses).

When holding several variables constant, the results indicate that regardless of the race of the author, Asian Americans were significantly more supportive of BLM after reading letters in support of the movement. For example, in the November 2016 survey, Asian Americans who received the letter from the white author rated the Black Lives Matter movement as about 11.9 points higher on the feeling thermometer scale than Asian Americans who did not receive the treatment. Similarly, Asian Americans who read the same letter written by a co-racial author were about 11.7 points higher on the BLM feeling thermometer scale than Asian Americans in the control group.

In the December 2017 survey, we find very similar results. Namely, Asian Americans who received the treatment with a white author rated the Black Lives Matter movement 10.58 points more favorable on a 0-to-100-point feeling thermometer scale than co-racials who received no letter. Along the same lines, Asian Americans who received the letter from the Asian American author rated the movement 7.09 points higher than Asian Americans who did not receive the treatment. In all cases except for Asian Americans with co-racial authors in December 2017 (which is statistically significant at .10), the differences between Asian Americans who read an article and those who did not were statistically significant at .05.

Not only did Asian Americans feel more warmly toward the Black Lives Matter movement when reading letters from co-racial and white authors, but they also expressed more support for the movement after receiving information from either messenger. In the November 2016 survey, Asian Americans who read the letter from a white author were a little over half a point (0.55) more likely to agree that they support BLM, and Asian Americans who read the same letter from a co-racial author were 0.50 points more likely to agree they supported the movement than Asian Americans who did not receive a letter. Both of these differences were significant at .05. In the December 2017 survey, the effectiveness of the letters wane a little but remain statistically significant in the case of the white letter and marginally significant (p < .10) in the case of the Asian American letter. Asian Americans who read an article written by a white author were 0.39 points more approving of the Black Lives Matter movement than Asian Americans who did not receive the letter. Asian Americans who read the letter from a co-racial author had a similar reaction and rated the BLM movement as about a third of a point higher (0.30) on a five-point scale than Asian Americans in the control condition. In combination, the results indicate that, contrary to previous studies for other groups, Asian Americans do not appear to respond uniquely to co-racial individuals.

While the results for Asian Americans are consistent across our two waves of surveys, we find differing results for white respondents in the November 2016 and December 2017 experiments. In particular, the results in Table 2 indicate that the letters for black lives are largely ineffective in shifting white attitudes about the movement in November of 2016. Regardless of the race of the author, whites were not significantly more likely to feel warmly about the Black Lives Matter movement or feel supportive of the movement when they read the hypothetical letter compared with those in the control group. However, in the December 2017 experiment, we find that whites are responsive to co-racial individuals when they make pleas to be more supportive of the BLM movement. White respondents who read the letter from a co-racial author rated the BLM movement as almost thirteen points (12.84) more favorable on a 100-point scale and almost half of a point higher (0.44) on the five-point support for BLM measure than comparable whites who did not read a letter supporting the movement. Moreover, in neither of the surveys did the Asian American author alter white respondents’ attitudes about feeling toward the movement or support for the movement to a statistically greater degree than whites who did not receive a letter. The combination of results suggest that if whites’ attitudes about Black Lives Matter are to change, appeals are much more effective coming from co-racial individuals than those who do not share their race. In addition, the results suggest that Asian Americans differ from whites in that they respond equally well to cues from individuals who share their race and those who do not.

Why Do Whites Respond to Co-racial Individuals?

The results in the previous section raise the question, why do whites uniquely respond to co-racial individuals? As mentioned earlier, much of the literature on the ability of appeals to alter public opinion is based on the respondents’ perceptions of the messenger (Barreto and Nuno 2011; Kuklinski and Hurley 1994). When individuals find the messenger more favorable, they are generally more willing to alter their opinion to mirror that of the person making the argument. Based on this research, it is possible that whites are more likely to alter their opinion with a co-racial author because they view them more favorably. In contrast, Asian Americans may not display a preference for either author based on their race, and this may explain why both the white and Asian American authors were equally effective in altering Asian Americans’ attitudes about the Black Lives Matter movement.

We can test this possibility empirically using causal mediation analysis (Imai, Keele, and Tingley 2010; Imai et al. 2011) and the December 2017 survey, which includes information about the respondent’s feeling thermometer score toward the author. In particular, we asked respondents to rate the author of the article they just read on a scale that ranges from 0 (not favorable) to 100 (very favorable).⁶ While the question asks specifically about the author, given that the authors are making the same comments and are selected to minimize differences across a host of traits, we expect that this measure is tapping into respondents attitudes toward the race of the authors.

Using this variable and method, we can test whether changes in attitudes about the Black Lives Matter movement (Y) tied to changes in the treatment (i.e., received article with Asian American or white Author) (X) can be attributed to differing perceptions of the favorability of the author (Z). The method accomplishes this task by estimating two regression models. The first uses the treatment and specified controls to predict the mediating variable, which for our purposes is the author feeling thermometer score. The second uses the mediator, the controls, and the treatment to predict the dependent variable, which for us are (A) the Black Lives Matter feeling thermometer score and (B) support for Black Lives Matter.

Using information from these two regression models, the mediation analysis creates a predicted value of the respondent’s author’s feeling thermometer score based on the author’s race. The mediation analysis then examines the change in the dependent variables separately for those who read the letter from a white or an Asian American author. When predicting the mediation effect for the treatment group on the dependent variable, the model estimates change in predicted BLM thermometer score/support for BLM if everything else stayed the same but respondents changed from their reported co-racial author’s feeling thermometer score to the author thermometer score they would be predicted to have if the author was of a different race. The method then repeats this counterfactual process for the control condition. Finally, the model takes the average of these two counterfactual analyses to provide an estimate of the average causal mediation effect (ACME).

The analysis also provides information on the direct effect, which is the proportion of the effect of the treatment on the dependent variable that is not associated with differences in author feeling thermometer scores. Finally, each model provides an estimate of the total effect, which is the total effect of the treatment on the dependent variable. By dividing the ACME from the total effect, the models present the amount of the relationship between our treatment and our dependent variables, which can be attributed to differences in the respondent’s author feeling thermometer scores.⁷

Table 3 presents the results from four causal mediation analyses examining whether and how much the treatment’s (X) effect on BLM feeling thermometer scores/BLM support (Y) can be attributed to differences in the respondent’s author feeling thermometer score (Z). The models are estimated separately for Asian American and white respondents. The treatment variable in these models has a score of 1 when the respondents were presented with an Asian American author and 0 when presented with a white author. All models include controls for gender, age, income, education, partisanship, mobilization, perceptions of being discriminated, nativity status, and for Asian Americans whether their nationality is East Asian. We only include respondents who received an article in this analysis, because only they were presented questions about our mediator—feeling thermometer scores of the author.

Table 3.

Causal Mediation Analysis Predicting the Mediating Effect of the Author Feeling Thermometer Score on the Relationship between the Race of the Author and BLM Feeling Thermometer Score/BLM Support for Asian Americans and Whites from the December 2017 Survey.

	Asian American		White
	BLM feeling thermometer	BLM support	BLM feeling thermometer	BLM support
ACME	2.58 [–2.09, 7.23]	0.09 [–0.07, 0.26]	−5.98^† [–11.46, –0.54]	−0.22* [–0.43, –0.02]
Direct Effect	−6.64 [–11.82, –1.43]	−0.19 [–0.42, 0.05]	−2.24 [–8.35, 3.99]	−0.29* [–0.57, –0.01]
Total Effect	−4.06 [–10.91, 2.85]	−0.09 [–0.37, 0.18]	−8.22^† [–16.65, –0.32]	−0.51* [–0.86, –0.19]
% Mediated	−0.44	−0.4	0.68	0.43
Rho	0.64	0.55	0.64	0.57
N	167	165	153	152

90% confidence intervals presented in parentheses. BLM = Black Lives Matter movement; ACME = average causal mediation effect.

†

Significant at .10. *Significant at .05.

Given that Asian Americans responded equally well to the letter when it was written by a white author or by an Asian American author, it is not surprising to find no significant mediating effects for this group in Table 3. The insignificant ACME score for Asian Americans indicates that holding other variables constant, they did not rate the co-racial author more favorably than the white author. A further exploration of the summary statistics of the data demonstrates that Asian Americans rate both the white (62.4) and Asian American (67.9) authors very similarly and generally very positively on the 0-to-100 feeling thermometer scale. As a result, the nonfinding here may be driven by lack of a strong in-group preference rather than animus toward either group. However, it is important to note that given limitations in our research design and the lower levels of outreach to Asian Americans (see Hajnal and Lee 2011; Lien et al. 2001), it is possible that our results may be less about in-group preferences as they are to the fact that Asian Americans will be more approving of anyone who performs significant outreach to their often overlooked racial group. As a result, we can be sure that Asian Americans in our analysis do not rate the co-racial author more favorably than the white author, but the exact cause of why we arrive at this conclusion cannot be empirically verified with this analysis.

The total effects row indicates that while Asian Americans were more supportive of BLM when they received a letter in support of black lives than when they did not (see Table 2), they were not more likely to rate the Black Lives Matter movement more favorably or be more supportive of the movement when they received a letter by an Asian American author rather than a white author.

Conversely, the results in Table 3 may provide some insight into why whites were more moved in their attitudes about the Black Lives Matter movement when presented an argument in support from a co-racial individual rather than an Asian American author. The ACME demonstrates that whites’ higher feeling thermometer rating for the co-racial author explains about 6 out of the 8.2-point increase in the Black Lives Matter feeling thermometer score caused by receiving a letter from a white rather than an Asian American author. This indicates that 68 percent of why whites respond more favorably on the BLM feeling thermometer score when presented with a co-racial author can be explained by their more favorable feeling to the racial in-group messenger. Along the same lines, whites who were presented with the co-racial author were about half a point more likely to say they support the Black Lives Matter movement than whites who were presented the same message from an Asian American author. Moreover, 43 percent of this relationship is explained by whites’ more positive feelings toward the co-racial author over the Asian American author.

The combination of results helps explain why whites responded to co-racial individuals. Whites rated co-racial authors more favorably than Asian Americans, and much of the greater influence these in-group messengers have on improving white’s attitudes about BLM can be attributed to this more favorable rating. Asian Americans on the other hand did not view the co-racial messenger more favorably than the white author, and this may explain why both messengers were able to move Asian Americans’ attitudes about BLM.

Conclusion

The results of our analysis demonstrate that organizations like Letters for Black Lives can be effective in mobilizing support for groups like Black Lives Matter. Moreover, the race of the messenger matters for whites, but not for Asian Americans. When Asian Americans receive messages to support racial movements for other groups from individuals like themselves, they become more supportive. However, in contrast to previous studies exploring the link between the race of the messenger and attitude formation, we find that Asian Americans are equally moved by white messengers as they are by individuals who share their race. Asian Americans who read the letter in support of the movement from a white author or a co-racial author were equally as likely to become supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement. This result was incredibly consistent as it was found in two surveys implemented over a year apart.

This result has important implications for our understanding of the formation of Asian American public opinion. Our findings suggest that Asian Americans do not respond to co-racial messengers to the same degree as whites and blacks. Instead, given their lower levels of pan-ethnic group consciousness and their high regard for whites, whites may be as good as Asian Americans as advocates for change in Asian American public opinion. Moreover, our mediation analysis suggests that Asian Americans do not view strong differences between Asian American and white authors in terms of their approval of these individuals.

While Asian Americans as a group became more supportive of BLM after reading letters in support of the movement, white attitudes about Black Lives Matter only changed in the second survey. The result in the second survey is consistent with previous research demonstrating that whites are much more willing to alter their opinions when presented arguments by a co-racial messenger (see Kuklinski and Hurley 1994; Nelson, Sanbonmatsu, and McClerking 2007). Moreover, the results in the mediation analysis demonstrate that whites’ greater favorability for in-group members largely explains why they were more moved by co-racial messengers. Our analysis of whites demonstrates that they have a strong preference for co-racial individuals even over Asian Americans who are often viewed positively as a minority group among whites (Chou and Feagin 2015; Rim 2007). Moreover, the comparison of whites with Asian Americans provides more support for our second hypothesis that Asian Americans may be unique in not responding most to co-racial individuals because of weaker in-group preferences.

While our study on Letters for Black Lives has advanced our understanding of the efficacy of organizations such as Letters for Black Lives on Asian American public opinion, there are several areas that still need to be addressed. First, while our study finds consistent results across multiple samples, the samples we draw from are somewhat unrepresentative of the populations of interest. Our samples of white respondents are younger and more educated, while our samples of Asian American respondents are younger, have a higher proportion of men and Democrats, and, importantly, have a significantly higher percentage of people born in the United States. Greater acculturation can lead to increased pan-ethnic group consciousness. Therefore, this more acculturated sample of Asian Americans may bias the results, leading to greater responsiveness of co-ethnic appeals. Future studies should replicate our design using different samples, particularly an Asian American sample that is less acculturated.

Second, our experiment relied on a pan-ethnic identity for the Asian American author. Consistent with our expectation, our own analysis disaggregating Asian Americans by region of nationality (i.e., Southeast Asian, East Asian, and South Asian) in the supplemental appendix yielded similar results. Namely, no group uniquely responded to the Asian American author compared with the no letter condition. However, when disaggregating by region, our statistical power suffers significantly as there are few Asian Americans in each category. Moreover, we did not have enough respondents to disaggregate by nationality. As a result, it is still possible that Asian Americans as a group may be more persuaded by someone who shares their ethnicity compared with their pan-ethnicity.

Third, our study focuses only on a single movement, Black Lives Matter. This has some advantages because it is a salient political movement that allows us to better test whether opinions can be moved for real-world social movements. Moreover, it provides a direct test for the efficacy of the Letters for Black Lives approach. However, the high-profile nature of the Black Lives Matter movement also has the drawback that most individuals’ attitudes about the movement are already set, which may limit the impact of our experimental treatment. It is also a left-leaning movement, which may influence how individuals respond to appeals in support of the organization. Namely, Asian Americans may feel equally as good about whites and Asian Americans who advocate for a left-leaning organization but may display a stronger preference for co-racial individuals when they argue in support of a conservative cause. Nonetheless, future research should reanalyze our results using less salient movements and movements that focus on conservative causes.

Fourth, future research should explore whether some Asian Americans and whites are predominantly responsible for the results we find in Table 1. In particular, are Asian Americans with higher levels of group consciousness more willing to respond to the white author as opposed to the Asian American author?⁸ Are white Democrats, white Republicans, or white independents more willing to respond to calls to support BLM?⁹ Our own limited analysis presented in the supplemental appendix provides null results for these questions, but they should be reassessed with a larger data set.

Fifth, future research should assess whether Asian Americans respond to blacks and Latinos the same way they respond to white and Asian American messengers. The results presented above suggest that Asian Americans do not display an in-group preference relative to whites, but they may be more willing to respond to co-racials compared with black and Latino messengers given the racial hierarchy in the United States (Junn and Masuoka 2013; Kim 1999). We also cannot rule out that Asian Americans may be deferential to any letter in support of BLM regardless of the race of the author. Future studies can examine support for the movement based on letters written by authors of different races in comparison with a letter that does not specify the race of the author. While more work is necessary, we believe that this project represents an important step in understanding how Asian Americans respond to co-racial individuals. Moreover, it provides information about how multiracial appeals can improve a race-based political movement among different racial groups.

Supplemental Material

Arora_Stout_Replication_Code – Supplemental material for Letters for Black Lives: Co-ethnic Mobilization and Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement

Supplemental material, Arora_Stout_Replication_Code for Letters for Black Lives: Co-ethnic Mobilization and Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement by Maneesh Arora and Christopher T. Stout in Political Research Quarterly

Supplemental Material

Arora_Stout_Replication_Data – Supplemental material for Letters for Black Lives: Co-ethnic Mobilization and Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement

Supplemental material, Arora_Stout_Replication_Data for Letters for Black Lives: Co-ethnic Mobilization and Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement by Maneesh Arora and Christopher T. Stout in Political Research Quarterly

Supplemental Material

PRQ_Supplemental_Appendix – Supplemental material for Letters for Black Lives: Co-ethnic Mobilization and Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement

Supplemental material, PRQ_Supplemental_Appendix for Letters for Black Lives: Co-ethnic Mobilization and Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement by Maneesh Arora and Christopher T. Stout in Political Research Quarterly

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Michael Tesler for his thoughtful comments and feedback.

Authors’ Note

Previous versions of this article were presented at the 2017 Politics of Race and Immigration and Ethnicity Consortium and the 2017 annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Supplemental Material

Replication data for this article are available with the manuscript on the Political Research Quarterly (PRQ) website.

ORCID iD

Maneesh Arora

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