Racism

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Racism

• Tools to Identify
• and
• Tools to Work to Undo Racism

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Distinguish BetweenPersonal Prejudice and
Personal ActsversusSystemic and
InstitutionalPreferences for Whites
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If the KKK keeps people out of school, we
understand that as racism
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But if Fewer People of Color Can Afford to
Attend Private Schools, College and Graduate
Schools ? Is that Racism?
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Racism is systematized oppression of one race
of another.  In other words, the various forms of
oppression within every sphere of social
relationseconomic exploitation, military
subjugation, political subordination, cultural
devaluation, psychological violation, sexual
degradation, verbal abuse, etc.together make up
a whole of interacting and developing processes
which operate so normally and naturally and are
so much a part of the existing institutions of
society that the individuals involved are barely
conscious of their operation James Boggs,
Racism and the Class Struggle 147-148.
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RacismisPrejudice Plus Power
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Not Just White and Black
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Racial JusticeEconomic JusticeGender
JusticeAre Intertwined
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Isnt Racism Over?
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Because the Courts have eliminated statutory
racial discrimination and Congress has enacted
civil rights legislation, and because some
minority people have achieved some measure of
success, many people believe that racism is no
longer a problem in American life.
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AGAIN ? Distinguish BetweenPersonal Prejudice
and Personal ActsversusSystemic and
InstitutionalPreferences for Whites
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Movement toward authentic justice demands a
simultaneous attack on both racism and economic
oppression.
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The continuing existence of racism becomes
apparent when we look beneath the surface of
our national life.
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5 areas that illustrate continuing
racismEmploymentEducationHousingCriminal
JusticeOpposition to Affirmative Action
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Education? African-Americans receive more and
tougher disciplinary action than their white
counterparts, even for the same infraction.
Drop-out rate is far higher than their white
counterparts' rate.
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Housing Segregation Patterns
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Opposition to Immigrants
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Blacks comprise 13 percent of the national
population, but 30 percent of people arrested,
41 percent of people in jail. Human Rights
Watch Incarceration and Race
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Opposition to Affirmative Action
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HISTORYRacism has been part of the social
fabric of America since its European
colonization. Whether it be the tragic past of
the Native Americans, the Mexicans, the Puerto
Ricans, or the blacks, the story is one of
slavery, peonage, economic exploration, brutal
repression, and cultural neglect. None have
escaped one or another form of collective
degradation by a powerful majority.
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Founders of Country?
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The educational, legal, and financial systems,
along with other structures and sectors of our
society, impede people's progress and narrow
their access because they are black, Hispanic,
Native American or Asian.
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The structures of our society are subtly racist,
for these structures reflect the values which
society upholds. They are geared to the success
of the majority and the failure of the minority.
Members of both groups give unwitting approval by
accepting things as they are.
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What is Structural Racism?
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Structural Racism Directs Us to Examine the Way
the Wires (Institutions) Are Interconnected
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Under the guise of other motives, racism is
manifest in the tendency to stereotype and
marginalize whole segments of the population
whose presence perceived as a threat. Racism is
manifest also in the indifference that replaces
open hatred.
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The minority poor are seen as the byproduct of a
post-industrial society -- without skills,
without motivation, without incentive. They are
expendable people.
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We have long since grown accustomed to thinking
of Blacks as being racially disadvantaged.
Rarely, however, do we refer to Whites as
racially advantaged, even though that is an
equally apt characterization of the existing
inequality. Harlon Dalton
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Today's racism flourishes in the triumph of
private concern over public responsibility,
individual success over social commitment,
and personal fulfillment over authentic
compassion
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How start to combat racism?
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Start with the understanding that racism is
hard-wired into our society and institutions.
It is like the electric wires in the walls,or
the plumbing, or the air and heat ductwork.
Invisible. Important. Always There. It is a
life-long struggle for justice.
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Transformative EducationEducate Self and
Community about history and realityof the
barriers of structural racismHow it affects
us,How it affects others.
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CREATE a safe environment for open and honest
discussion