{"id":32636,"date":"2021-04-16T12:05:49","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T16:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=32636"},"modified":"2021-04-23T21:53:47","modified_gmt":"2021-04-24T01:53:47","slug":"what-is-institutional-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-institutional-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Systemic or Institutional Racism?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is institutional racism? How does institutional racism relate to white supremacy<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Institutional or systemic racism is a form of racism that operates on the level of underlying societal structures and systems (e.g. criminal justice system, health care, education, etc.). According to Ijeoma Oluo, the author of So You Want to Talk About Race<\/em>, institutional racism is a product of the White Supremacist system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading to understand what institutional racism is and why it can be considered a product of the White Supremacist system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What Is Institutional Racism?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If something is systemic institutional, it\u2019s built into the underlying structure of a system. It\u2019s an integral part of how the system operates. We can visualize each instance of institutional racism as a thread in a vast fabric\u2014so vast that we\u2019re completely caught up in it and can\u2019t see its boundaries or overall shape. Similarly, we\u2019re surrounded by racist messaging, but much of this operates unconsciously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though it may seem controversial, we can characterize institutional racism as a consequence of the societal system that is built on the white supremacist ideology. Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a White Supremacist system, whiteness is both the aspiration and the default. The system was built for the benefit of white people and at the expense of people of color. This dynamic is still playing out in both obvious and subtle ways. Here\u2019s how it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whiteness is the default. <\/strong>In our society, whiteness serves as the reference point for \u201cnormal.\u201d The White Supremacist system normalizes its perspective as the default. This makes anyone who doesn\u2019t match the default invisible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an example, let\u2019s consider hair. If you\u2019re a black woman, chances are you know a lot<\/em> about white women\u2019s hair. It\u2019s everywhere\u2014in magazines, in films, in commercials. You know how to care for it, what products to use, what styles to put it in, and so on. But if you\u2019re a white woman, how much do you know about black hair? Do you know what pomades, Denmans, and co-wash are? That knowledge gap exists because white hair is the default.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many standard dress codes don\u2019t allow for the different hair needs of people of color. The military, for example, prohibited small braids up until very recently, and natural black hair is still seen as unprofessional in many offices around the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whiteness holds a superior position. <\/strong>Superior and inferior are always relative. If one person or group has a superior position, by definition there has to be another person or group that\u2019s beneath them. And this is the seduction of White Supremacy: It whispers You deserve more because they\u2019re here to deserve less.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wherever there\u2019s a finite amount of power or resources, the social function of people of color is to get a relatively smaller piece of the pie. <\/strong>Even if they don\u2019t realize this consciously, people may feel <\/em>that this is the natural order of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why the election of Barack Obama increased, rather than decreased, expressions of White Supremacy. Obama\u2019s election to the most powerful office in the country disrupted this unconscious assumption. If a black person, whose entire purpose is to be \u201cless than,\u201d can assume the presidency, this feels fundamentally wrong to someone who\u2019s been raised on a diet of White Supremacist beliefs\u2014often in ways in which they can\u2019t put into words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obama felt like a threat, because he was. But he wasn\u2019t a threat to the country; he was a threat to the very structure of White Supremacist beliefs. After Obama was elected, many people were left feeling alienated from a country that they thought they understood. This alienation became the foundation of political movements that are still in force today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In such an individualist culture, we don\u2019t like to think about ourselves as part of a system. We like to think that everyone has complete independence<\/a>. But these individualist tendencies obscure our view of the big picture. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Individualist assumptions trick us into thinking that racist cops are just \u201cbad apples\u201d and that every black man who goes to prison deserves it. We need to battle these tendencies and focus on the patterns, even\u2014especially\u2014if this means taking a good hard look at ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we acknowledge racism as institutional, we see that there are no different \u201ctypes\u201d or \u201clevels\u201d of racism.<\/strong> The seemingly innocuous comments and stereotypes come from the same place as the violence and abuse. Yes, avoiding a black person on the subway because you think they\u2019re aggressive might hurt their feelings. But it also references the same general belief that leads to one in three black men in the US being incarcerated at some point in their lives, far higher school suspension and expulsion rates for children of color, and a heartbreakingly high number of police shootings by cops who feel threatened by men of color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cinnocuous\u201d or \u201cprivate\u201d beliefs and emotions are part of the system<\/strong>. Without these usually invisible parts, the most damaging, extreme parts of the system couldn\u2019t survive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The system isn\u2019t \u201cout there\u201d where we can\u2019t reach it. It\u2019s made up of the small and large decisions we all make every day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n