Loving in the time of George Floyd: how cultural models shape interracial couples’ responses to racialized policing

ABSTRACT This study examines how interracial couples understand and respond to police violence against Black Americans through cultural models, deeply held, often unconscious assumptions about society that guide interpretation and action. Through interviews with 34 members of Black-White couples, I apply a three-part typology of class inequality to analyze participants’ cultural models. Participants with an individual attributes model viewed racialized policing as connected to personal traits and life circumstances, corresponding with strategies that distanced them from police violence and minimized its relational impact. Those with an opportunity hoarding model viewed policing as connected to Black people’s exclusion from fair policing, corresponding with strategies to mitigate risks for Black partners while often imposing additional burdens on them and leaving White partners’ freedom unexamined. Participants with an exploitation/domination model viewed policing as connected to interdependent systems of racialized safety and vulnerability, corresponding with strategies that leveraged White partners’ position to counteract police threats faced by Black partners. This analysis aligns with research showing that the way people conceptualize the causes of inequality shapes their attitudes, behaviors, and expectations of others. These models help explain why some interracial interactions reproduce power inequities, even among people who acknowledge systemic racism and desire racial justice.