The Costs of Policing Violence: Foregrounding Cognitive and Emotional Labor

Abstract

This article examines the connections between systemic racism, racial framing, and police violence. While media saturation of recent and highly publicized events of police violence against black males has taken center stage, most of these analyses have focused on “riots” and “protests” without much consideration of the emotional and cognitive costs to communities and people of color. In contrast to mainstream notions that policing violence is increasing, we center the discussion of police brutality in systemic racism by examining the historical relationship between African Americans, violent policing, and resistance. In this article, we introduce and conceptualize emotional and cognitive labor as consequences for people of color as they navigate everyday life, including interactions with policing agents.