Black Lives Matter 2

After two weeks of largely peaceful protests in response to the murder of George Floyd, it is becoming clearer that the Black Lives Matter movement is upending the way many white Americans view policing in this country.

On Monday, CNN released a poll showing that 84 percent of respondents—including 88 percent of white respondents—viewed the peaceful protests as justified.* In contrast, 67 percent of respondents overall and 67 percent of white respondents answered the question similarly during a 2016 Black Lives Matter protest. Also on Monday, conservative-leaning polling outlet Rasmussen released numbers showing that “belief that blacks are treated unfairly by police and that police discrimination is a bigger issue than inner city crime have jumped to new highs.” As Politico’s Tim Alberta noted on Sunday, there has been an enormous jump in the number of poll respondents—and particularly white poll respondents—who believe that black people are more likely to be victims of excessive police force in this country, from 33 percent overall and 26 percent among white respondents in 2014 to 57 percent overall and 49 percent among white Americans in a survey taken last week.

“In my 35 years of polling, I’ve never seen opinion shift this fast or deeply,” wrote conservative pollster Frank Luntz in response to the numbers. “We are a different country today than just 30 days ago.”

The outrage in the streets is not just leading to shifting public opinions. It’s also producing tangible results. While the goals of protesters calling for widespread defunding of police departments across the country have obviously not been entirely met, it’s worth discussing some of what the protests have already achieved. Here is a brief list of some of the reforms that have resulted directly or in part from the protests.