What about us? Investigating the impacts of police brutality on Black women

Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, police brutality has been catapulted to the forefront of conversations surrounding racial disparities in policing. Relative to white Americans, Black Americans are nearly three times more likely to be killed by a police officer. Currently, there is an abundance of literature on the experiences of Black men and police brutality. However, there is a demographic of people who are also disproportionately affected by police violence but are notably understudied within the literature: Black women. Black women account for almost 20% of women who are killed by the police, but little is known about how police violence affects Black women. Black women may also experience police exposure and police-related stress that differs from that of both Black men and white women due to their intersecting social identities as Black people and women. In the current study, I investigated the impact of police brutality on the mental and physical health of Black women. Black women were recruited via Prolific and completed a short 20-minute survey. In the survey, Black women answered questions about their mental and physical health, exposure to police brutality (PBE) and their racial centrality. Findings from the current study suggest that PBE is negatively related to sleep quality, and positively related to symptoms of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. However, racial centrality moderated this relationship. Police brutality exposure was positively associated with mental health symptoms at low and moderate levels of racial centrality and was significantly associated with mental health symptoms at high levels of racial centrality. Findings suggest that racial centrality can serve as a protective factor from the negative impact of police brutality exposure on health.