Perceptions of Discrimination Against White People in Post-Floyd America: Media Coverage and Public Opinion, 2020–2024

Abstract The aftermath of the 2020 George Floyd protests illustrates a fundamental truism of race relations in America: racial progress is difficult to sustain. While the protests initially seemed to usher in a progressive era of racial politics, a counter-narrative quickly emerged arguing that efforts to remedy past injustices against people of color discriminated against white people. We show that this framing soon dominated media coverage of, and elite messages about, racial issues. Moreover, using data tracking public opinion between 2020 and 2024, we show that Americans came to believe that white (Black) people experienced more (less) discrimination. In fact, by 2021, Republicans, on average, perceived white people as facing more discrimination than Black people.