What is racism?

What is racism, really? Today, the word racism is thrown around all the time by not only members of racial minority groups but by whites, too. Use of the term “racism” has become so popular that it’s spun off related terms such as “reverse racism,” “horizontal racism” and“internalized racism.”


Defining Racism


Let’s start by examining the most basic definition of racism—the dictionary meaning. According to theAmerican Heritage College Dictionary, racism has two meanings. Firstly, racism is, “The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.” Secondly, racism is, “Discrimination or prejudice based on race.”


Examples of the first definition abound. When slavery was practiced in the United States, blacks were not only considered inferior to whites but regarded as property instead of human beings. During the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, it was agreed that slaves were to be considered three-fifths people for purposes of taxation and representation. Generally during slavery, blacks were deemed intellectually inferior to whites. This notion persists in modern-day America.


In 1994, a book called The Bell Curve posited that genetics were to blame for why African Americans traditionally score lower on intelligence tests than whites. The book was attacked by everyone from New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, who argued that social factors were responsible for the differential, to Stephen Jay Gould, who argued that the authors made conclusions unsupported by scientific research. In 2007, Nobel Prize-winning geneticist James Watson ignited similar controversy when he suggested that blacks were less intelligent than whites.


Discrimination Today


Sadly, racism in the form of discrimination persists in society also. A case in point is that blacks have traditionally suffered from higher rates of unemployment than whites. In June 2009,black unemployment was 15.3 % compared to an 8.8% unemployment rate for whites. Do blacks simply not take the initiative that whites do to find work? Studies indicate that, in actuality, discrimination likely contributes to the black-white unemployment gap.


In 2003, researchers at the University of Chicago and MIT released a study involving 5,000 fake resumes that found that 10% of those featuring “Caucasian-sounding” names were called back compared to just 6.7% of those featuring “black-sounding” names. Moreover, resumes featuring names such as Tamika and Aisha were called back just 5% and 2% of the time. The skill-level of the faux black candidates made no impact on callback rates.


Can Minorities Be Racist?


Yes, of course. However, it’s important to note that because racial minorities in the U. S. have spent their lifetimes in a society that has traditionally valued whites over them, they are also likely to believe in the superiority of whites. It’s also worth noting that in response to living in a racially stratified society, people of color sometimes complain about whites. Typically, such complaints serve as coping mechanisms to withstand racism rather than as anti-white bias. Even when minorities are actually prejudiced against whites, they lack the institutional power to adversely affect whites’ lives.


Internalized Racism and Horizontal Racism


Internalized racism is when a minority believes that whites are superior. A highly publicized example of this is a 1954 study involving black girls and dolls. When given the choice between a black doll and a white doll, the black girls disproportionately chose the latter. In 2005, a teen filmmaker conducted a similar study and found that 64% of the girls preferred the white dolls. The girls attributed physical traits associated with whites, such as straighter hair, with being more desirable than traits associated with blacks.


What about horizontal racism? When this occurs, members of minority groups adopt racist attitudes towards other minority groups. An example of this would be if a Japanese American prejudged a Mexican American based on the racist stereotypes of Latinos found in mainstream culture.


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