Racism

Racism is a doctrine that holds that the world’s human population consists of various “races” that are the primary determinants of human traits and capacities. This doctrine typically regards one’s own race as superior to other races. Intergroup hatred and discrimination generally accompanies racist doctrines. Social science investigates racism at three interrelated levels. First, individual racism involves those individuals who hold racist beliefs. Here racist ideas often overlap with such concepts as prejudice, xenophobia, bigotry, and intolerance. But the key distinguishing feature of individual racism is that the group differences are viewed as innate and unchangeable. If assimilation or conversion is viewed as possible, then intolerance is involved but not racism. Second, situational racism occurs when racist behavior is shaped by the social context. This occurs when face-to-face situations are patterned, based on racist beliefs, to place one group in an inferior position in intergroup interaction. This occurs, for example, when one racial group in a situation possesses most of the resources that emphasize the status differences between the groups. Finally, third, structural and cultural racism results when a society’s institutions are shaped by racist beliefs and results in group discrimination. Indeed, racism’s effects can invade virtually all of a society’s institutions. Thus, racism differentiates human beings from one another by presumed “races,” and this leads to unequal access to resources and opportunities as well as to other forms of inequality such as gender-, ethnic-, and class-based inequity. Much of the research on racism has focused on anti-Black racism in the United States; but non-American references with other racist targets are included.