Understanding Racism

Key Definitions

Racism
RACE PREJUDICE+POWER=RACISM, the theory or idea that there is a casual link between inherited physical traits and certain traits of personality, intellect, or culture and, combined with it, the nothing that some races are inherently superior to others. Racism is a socially constructed system of domination, which benefits whites at the expense of people of color.

Race
A theory of specious classification of human beings used by whites which assigns human worth and social status using skin color for the purpose of establishing and maintaining privilege and power.

Prejudice
An opinion formed before the facts are known; a preconceived idea, usually one that is unfavorable. So, race prejudice occurs when anyone holds preconceived, unfavorable view towards other on the basis of race. Strictly defined, a preformed and unsubstantiated judgment or opinion about an individual or a group, either favorable or unfavorable in nature. In modern usage, however, the term most often denotes an unfavorable or hostile attitude toward other people based on their membership in another social or ethnic group. The distinguishing characteristic of a prejudice is that it relies on stereotypes (oversimplified generalizations) about the group against which the prejudice is directed.

Power
The ability to determine and enforce the rules and make legitimate superiority based on race, economic worth, age, gender, physical ability, sexual orientation, and religion. An individual, institution, or government that acts with authority, and that exercises control.

Gatekeeper
Anyone in an institutional/organizational role or position who can grant or deny access to institutional resources or equity. Gatekeepers are, by structural design, accountable to the institutions they work for, and not the people they serve. They function as buffers between their institutions and the community.

White Superiority
The unconscious belief held by most whites that ?white is right.? The belief that white organizational cultural expectations are the way things should be. The attitude that, in any group, the white member of the group will be the most knowledgeable, powerful, and influential. The fact that most societal expectations in the United Sates are established by white people in power, grounded in their own cultural backgrounds without regard for the variety of cultural possibilities.

Internalized Racial Inferiority
A process people of color go through of believing, accepting, and internalizing inferior and subordinate images of themselves and their people, resulting in fear, anxiety, and uncertainty about challenging the institutions that have disempowered them.

Internalized Racial Superiority
A process whites go through to develop a sense of superiority over non-whites, accepting and internalizing negative images and beliefs about people of color, and positive images and belifs about themselves.

Institutions
Institutions are fairly stable arrangements and practices through which collective actions are taken. (Examples of institutions are government, business, unions, schools, churches, courts, and police)

Individual vs. Institutional Racism
Racism is both overt and covert. It takes two closely related forms: individual whites acting against individual people of color, and actions from institutions created by and for whites against communities of color. We call these individual racism and institutional racism. The first consists of overt acts by individuals, which cause death, injury or the violent destruction of property. Television cameras can record this type; it can frequently be observed in the process of commission. The second type is less overt, far subtler, and less identifiable in terms of specific individuals committing the acts. But it is no less destructive of human life. The second type is evidenced in the operations of institutions and institutionalized within society, and thus receives far less public attention and condemnation than the first.

Example:
When white terrorist bomb a black church and kill five black children, that is an act of individual racism, widely deplored by most segments of society. But when in that same city-Birmingham, Alabama-five hundred black babies die each year because of the lack of proper food, clothing, shelter and proper medical facilities, and thousands more are destroyed or maimed physically, emotionally, and intellectually because of conditions of poverty and discrimination in the black community, that is a function of institutional racism.

Culture
The arts, beliefs, customs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought created by a people or group at a particular time. A distinctive way of living built up by a group of people.

Ethnicity
Social and cultural forms of identification and self-identification. Membership in a group identified by connection to a place.

Discrimination
To discriminate is to make distinctions on the basis of preference or prejudice. It involves any situation in which a group or individual is treated differently and sometimes unfairly, based on something other than individual reason, usually their membership in a socially distinct group or category. Such categories would include race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation or disability.

Racial Discrimination
Any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.

Oppression
A form of economic, social, political exploitation portrayed as good for everybody. Affirms a two-category system hierarchically arranged as superior and inferior. There exists a gross imbalance of power in this system.

Intersections of Oppressions
Accounts for the complexities of both identity and social relations. Recognition that identity operates within a matrix of domination. How people identify individually and within groups is varied and full of complexities. One-dimensional phenomenon is fundamentally essentialist.

Accountability
To hold answerable for.

Community Organizing
To assist members of a community to work collectively, so that the group can develop collective action on behalf of mutually agreed upon goals. Organizing is bringing the talents, resources and skills of people in the community together to increase their collective power to transform themselves and their community and work for social change. Organizing is different that mobilizing, development or service work. It involves building relationships and consolidating perspectives, thoughts and ideas into an organizational structure.

Sources

• United Nations
• Undoing Racism, R. Chisom & M. Washington, People's Institute Publishing, New Orleans. 1997
• Black Power, by S. Carmichael & C. Hamilton, Vintage. 1967
• Institutional Racism in America, Knowles & Prewitt, Prentice-Hall. 1969
• Webster's Dictionary