Black Racial Identity and Engagement During Black Lives Matter 2020: The Role of Age and Multiracial Status

Objective: The social category of race plays an important role in how people navigate their identities and social worlds, especially in societies where racial injustice is salient. The present study considers the racial identity experiences of Multiracial and monoracial Black adults in the United States during a race-salient moment: the 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Using survey data collected in the fall of 2020, our study seeks to understand racial identity and activism experiences among age-diverse monoracial and Multiracial Black people during BLM 2020. Method: Participants were 183 Black adults in the United States (73 Multiracial, 110 monoracial). Regressions were conducted to examine (a) how identity exploration and commitment differed by age and by Multiracial status during a time of heightened racial salience, and (b) how identity exploration and commitment was associated with BLM engagement. Results: We found that Multiracial and monoracial individuals engage with racial identity differently across age groups, reflecting their different relationships with dominant societal narratives of race. We also found positive associations between racial identity and BLM engagement regardless of participants' Multiracial status or age. Conclusions: While our findings did underscore several commonalities across Multiracial and monoracial Black people, they also indicated a need to revisit the relevance of established (mono)racial identity development models for Multiracial individuals, especially outside of adolescence and young adulthood. Revisiting previous models is critical to engage with the m(ai)cro process of racial identity and how the cultural context of anti-Blackness and monoracism shapes individual development across the life course.