Organization or Publication
APA Dictionary of Psychology
n. a system of structuring opportunity and assigning value based on phenotypic properties (e.g., skin color and hair texture associated with “race” in the United States), which ranges from daily interpersonal interactions shaped by race to racialized opportunities for good education, housing, employment, and other resources, and unfairly disadvantages people belonging to marginalized racial groups. Racism is a form of prejudice that generally includes negative emotional reactions to members of the group, acceptance of negative stereotypes, and racial discrimination against individuals; in some cases it leads to violence. See aversive racism; everyday racism; institutionalized racism; modern racism. See also ethnocentrism. —racist adj., n.
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://dictionary.apa.org/racism
Source Type: Reference
Country: USA
Year: 2023
Tags: Scholarly | Educational | Nonprofit
Australian Human Rights Commission
Racism is the process by which systems and policies, actions and attitudes create inequitable opportunities and outcomes for people based on race. Racism is more than just prejudice in thought or action. It occurs when this prejudice – whether individual or institutional – is accompanied by the power to discriminate against, oppress or limit the rights of others.
Race and racism have been central to the organisation of Australian society since European colonisation began in 1788. As the First Peoples of Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have borne the brunt of European colonisation and have a unique experience of racism. The process of colonisation, and the beliefs that underpin it, continue to shape Australian society today.
Racism adapts and changes over time, and can impact different communities in different ways, with racism towards different groups intensifying in different historical moments. An example of this is the spike in racism towards Asian and Asian-Australian people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Racism includes all the laws, policies, ideologies and barriers that prevent people from experiencing justice, dignity, and equity because of their racial identity. It can come in the form of harassment, abuse or humiliation, violence or intimidating behaviour. However, racism also exists in systems and institutions that operate in ways that lead to inequity and injustice.
Source Title: “What is racism?”
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/race-discrimination/what-racism
Source Type: Web article
Country: Australia
Tags: Educational | Advocacy | Nonprofit
Britannica Online
[R]acism, the belief that humans may be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races”; that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioral features; and that some races are innately superior to others. The term is also applied to political, economic, or legal institutions and systems that engage in or perpetuate discrimination on the basis of race or otherwise reinforce racial inequalities in wealth and income, education, health care, civil rights, and other areas. Such institutional, structural, or systemic racism became a particular focus of scholarly investigation in the 1980s with the emergence of critical race theory, an offshoot of the critical legal studies movement. Since the late 20th century the notion of biological race has been recognized as a cultural invention, entirely without scientific basis.
Individual Author(s): Smedley, Audrey
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://www.britannica.com/topic/racism
Source Type: Reference
Country: USA
Year: 2025
Tags: Educational
Health Affairs
People of color is a term used to refer to African Americans, American Indians/Alaska Natives, Asian Americans, Latinos/Hispanics, and Native Hawaiians/other Pacific Islanders. Racism is the relegation of people of color to inferior status and treatment based on unfounded beliefs about innate inferiority, as well as unjust treatment and oppression of people of color, whether intended or not. Racism is not always conscious, intentional, or explicit—often it is systemic and structural. Systemic and structural racism are forms of racism that are pervasively and deeply embedded in and throughout systems, laws, written or unwritten policies, entrenched practices, and established beliefs and attitudes that produce, condone, and perpetuate widespread unfair treatment of people of color. They reflect both ongoing and historical injustices. Although systemic racism and structural racism are often used interchangeably, they have somewhat different emphases. Systemic racism emphasizes the involvement of whole systems, and often all systems—for example, political, legal, economic, health care, school, and criminal justice systems—including the structures that uphold the systems. Structural racism emphasizes the role of the structures (laws, policies, institutional practices, and entrenched norms) that are the systems’ scaffolding. Because systemic racism includes structural racism, for brevity we often use systemic racism to refer to both; at times we use both for emphasis. Institutional racism is sometimes used as a synonym for systemic or structural racism, as it captures the involvement of institutional systems and structures in race-based discrimination and oppression; it may also refer specifically to racism within a particular institution. (pp. 171-172)
Individual Author(s): Braveman, Paula A; Arkin, Elaine; Proctor, Dwayne; Kauh, Tina; Holm, Nicole
Source Title: “Systemic And Structural Racism: Definitions, Examples, Health Damages, And Approaches To Dismantling”
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01394
Source Type: Journal article
Country: USA
Year: 2022
Tags: Scholarly
Find it at UCLA: https://search.library.ucla.edu/permalink/01UCS_LAL/192ecse/cdi_unpaywall_primary_10_1377_hlthaff_2021_01394
Dismantling Racism Works
The definition of racism offered here is grounded in Critical Race Theory, a movement started in the 1970s by activists and scholars committed to the study and transformation of traditional relationships of race to racism and power. CRT was initially grounded in the law and has since expanded to other fields. CRT also has an activist dimension because it not only tries to understand our situation but to change it. The basic beliefs of CRT are:
1. Racism is ordinary, the “normal” way that society does business, the “common, everyday” experience of most BIPOC communities and people in this country.
2. Racism serves the interests of both white people in power (the elites) materially and working class white people psychically, and therefore neither group has much incentive to fight it.
3. Race and races are social and political constructs, categories that society invents and manipulates when convenient. In reality our differences as human beings are dwarfed by what we have in common and have little or nothing to do with personality, intelligence, and morality.
4. Society chooses to ignore this and assigns characteristics to whole groups of people in order to advance the idea of race and the superiority of whiteness.
5. The power elite racializes different groups at different times to achieve their economic agenda, continually and repeatedly prioritizing profit over people.
Source Title: “Racism Defined”
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://www.dismantlingracism.org/racism-defined.html
Source Type: Web article
Country: USA
Year: 2021
Tags: Educational | Advocacy | Nonprofit
Introduction to Sociology 3e
Racism is a type of prejudice and discrimination used to justify inequalities against individuals by maintaining that one racial category is somehow superior or inferior to others; it is a set of practices used by a racial dominant group to maximize advantages for itself by disadvantaging racial minority groups. Such practices have affected wealth accumulation, employment, housing discrimination, government surveillance, incarceration, drug arrests, immigration arrests, infant mortality, and much more (Race Forward 2021).
Broadly, individuals belonging to minority groups experience both individual racism and systemic racism during their lifetime. While reading the following common forms of racism, ask yourself, “Am I a part of this racism?” or “How can I contribute to stopping racism?”:
Individual or interpersonal racism: Prejudice and discrimination executed by individuals consciously and unconsciously that occurs between individuals.
Systemic racism: Also called structural racism or institutional racism, this involves systems and structures that have procedures or processes that disadvantages racial minority groups.
Racial profiling: This type of systemic racism involves the singling out of racial minorities for differential treatment, usually harsher treatment.
Historical racism: Economic inequality or social disparity caused by past racism.
Cultural racism: The assumption of inferiority of one or more races is built into the culture of the subordinate group.
Colorism: A form of racism in which someone believes one type of skin tone is superior or inferior to another within a racial group.
Individual Author(s): Conerly, Tonja R, Kathleen Holmes, and Asha Lal Tamang
DOI / ISBN / Link: ISBN : 9781951693367
Source Type: Textbook
Year: 2021
Tags: Scholarly | Educational
Find it at UCLA: https://search.library.ucla.edu/permalink/01UCS_LAL/17p22dp/alma9916899008006531
Legal Information Institute (Cornell University)
Racism is the incitation of discrimination, hatred or violence towards a person or a group of persons because of their origin or their belonging, or not belonging, to a specific ethnic group or race. Such discrimination, hatred and violence are directed against minority groups. More broadly, racism can be defined as a set of theories and beliefs that establishes a hierarchy of races and ethnicities, based on misconceptions and stereotypes. Racism is a form of discrimination founded on the origin, or on the ethnic/racial background of the victim. Racism can be held in several forms; including, structural (systemic/institutional), interpersonal, or individual….
Interpersonal racism often involves slurs or hateful actions between individuals and individual racism is an embodiment of the beliefs, attitudes, and actions of individuals that “support or perpetuate racism in conscious and unconscious ways.”
Racism uses prejudices to belittle people based on their physical appearance and it attributes character traits, values, aptitudes or physical or intellectual defects to them, that refer to clichés or stereotypes. Racism aims to incite hatred, encourage verbal or physical violence against minority groups and undermine personal dignity and honor. Hence, the term racism refers to any type of racial discrimination that occurs when an individual is victim of disparate treatment because of their actual or perceived race.
The term “racism” is a modern concept: the word “racism” appears in the eighteenth Century in the European age of imperialism and the doctrine of discovery, more specifically in France and in the United-Kingdom. The term is then used more commonly to describe the Atlantic slave trade, the Nazi regime actions in Germany, the apartheid in South Africa, racial segregation in the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Racism has played a capital role in hate crimes and genocides throughout history, such as the holocaust, the Armenian genocide, or in times of colonization, such as the colonization of the Americas, of Africa and Asia. Indigenous people were direct victims of racism. Racism has also tinted many political systems, such as apartheid, but also is the root to racist ideologies such as nativism, xenophobia, segregation and supremacy.
Racism can be expressed through different aspects:
Behaviors: speech, attacks, threats, insults.
Crimes against humanity: slavery, genocide, wars.
Ideologies: nativism, xenophobia, colonialism, white supremacy, otherness.
Policies: segregation, redlining, apartheid, State persecution, laws against mixed marriage, etc.
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/racism
Source Type: Web article
Country: USA
Tags: Scholarly | Educational
Racism and Anti-Racism Today: Principles, Policies and Practices
Racism can be defined as beliefs and ideologies of racial hierarchy and behaviours or policies that enact them (Elias et al., 2021a). Considerable research has shown that racism is pervasive both as a phenomenon and as a topic of social and political discourse (Andrews, 2021; Human Rights Watch, 2022). It is a regular feature in news media, online platforms, sport and cultural events, political campaigns, workplaces and in the public arena. Thus, it has long attracted academic debate across social science and humanities disciplines including sociology, psychology, legal studies, political science and anthropology. Scholars have analysed how ideas related to race have indelibly shaped post-colonial societies worldwide (Williams & Mohammed, 2013; Mahmud, 1998). Such scholarship has engaged with debates about continued western domination of global political, cultural and economic affairs through institutions that have colonial legacies. A substantial body of research has also been produced documenting ongoing settler colonialism affecting Indigenous peoples across the world, including North America, Latin America and Australia (Wolfe, 2006). Added to this, there is a long history of research focused on the prevalence of xenophobic racism towards foreigners, ethnic minorities, migrants and refugees (Roemer et al., 2007; Wimmer, 1997).
Among the key preoccupations of the scholarship on race has been the debate in relation to ‘race’ and ‘racism’ as social and analytical concepts. Such debates have evolved, and contemporary conceptions and understanding of race and racism qualitatively differ from how they were understood and debated historically. Pseudo-scientific racism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries conceptualised ideas that racial groups had natural differences and argued that distinct races of human beings existed (Dennis, 1995; Graham, 1990). Until the 1920s, the categorisation and ranking of the human species into superior and inferior races had profound influence on western thinking. Through colonial expansion, this racial ideology has spread, justifying the discrimination and atrocity which targeted the treatment of Indigenous and other racialised groups (Elias et al., 2021a; see alsoBarkan, 1992; Dennis, 1995). Research today has debunked the pseudo-scientific racist ideas, and it has become evident that there are no separate races (Barkan, 1992; Templeton, 2013). Today, there is wide understanding regarding ‘race’ as a ‘social’ rather than ‘biological’ construction (Smedley & Smedley, 2005; Templeton, 2013).
However, race as a social category and as an analytical concept remains important (Lopez, 1994, 1997; Omi & Winant, 2014). Across many societies, there exist clear differences in power, income, wealth, resources and health outcomes that can be explained by race and ethnicity. These entail an underlying issue of racism which has continuously evolved in its manifestation and impact on racialised groups. Owing to this, the ways in which racism is understood and informs socio-political debates across societies have varied accordingly. However, at its basic structure, racism is the same system of oppression. Its constitution as a socially constructed system of hierarchy, oppression and bias expressed in discrimination, exclusion, hatred, violence and prejudice remains very relevant today (Feagin, 2013; Roberts & Rizzo, 2021). Critical and post-colonial/ decolonial research emphasises the structural basis of racial inequities and their rootedness as colonial legacies. This tradition has significantly influenced current debates about racism.
Individual Author(s): Elias, Amanuel
DOI / ISBN / Link: ISBN: 9781837535132
Source Type: Book
Country: USA
Year: 2024
Tags: Scholarly | Educational
Find it at UCLA: https://search.library.ucla.edu/permalink/01UCS_LAL/192ecse/cdi_askewsholts_vlebooks_9781837535149
Sociological Perspectives
We identify three meanings of racism to which sociologists often refer: attitudes, culture, and structure. By attitudes, sociologists mean the mental states of individuals, which affect and reflect their behaviors, including deliberate inaction. These mental states range from individuals’ unconscious dispositions, to their conscious evaluations of some object, to their personal beliefs (Bobo and Charles 2009). By culture, sociologists refer to the many kinds of schema with which humans make sense of the world, including themselves, all of which affect the social connotations of group membership. These schema range from (1) “the binary oppositions that make up a given society’s fundamental tools of thought” (Sewell 1992:7–8) to (2) cultural repertoires, defined as “the available schemas, frames, narratives, scripts, and boundaries that actors draw on in social situations” (Lamont et al. 2017:1) to (3) even larger networks or systems of schema (e.g., language, religion, and ideology; Brubaker 2015). By structure, sociologists refer to both (1) the immediate circumstances of individuals and (2) the broader world that humans make sense of, that is, the social relations to which they are oriented and that are oriented toward them, particularly those that reproduce themselves even against the desires of the actors involved, both of which differentiate life chances and lived experiences (Sewell 1992).
Our characterization of these meanings is intentionally complementary because we observe that sociologists seem to favor antagonistic characterizations. Indeed, the moral condemnation associated with “racism” now extends to critiques among sociologists, for example, Joe Feagin and Sean Elias’s (2012:25) critique of Omi and Winant’s racial formation theory for possessing an “evasive” conception of racism, and Winant’s (2015:2181) critique of Andreas Wimmer’s theory of ethnic boundary-making as needing “redemption.” Instead, we propose that an inclusive yet deliberately differentiated conception of racism permits researchers to access the analytic contributions of each meaning. Without conceptions of racism as structure, sociologists lose the vocabulary for how inequality and social closure iteratively influence and constitute group experiences and life chances. Without conceptions of racism as culture, sociologists lose the vocabulary for the social meanings that people impose on each other, as they make sense of, and respond to, their lived experiences. Without conceptions of racism as attitudes, sociologists lose the vocabulary for how individuals are affected by and participate in their cultural and structural contexts. Similar to C. J. Pascoe and Sarah Diefendorf’s (2018:124) call to retheorize homophobia, we argue that sociologists need a differentiated conception of racism because “a singular concept may obscure multiple social processes at play.” In brief, we characterize each meaning as a component in a broader conception of racism. (p. 495)
Individual Author(s): Shiao, Jiannbin; Woody, Ashley
Source Title: “The Meaning of ‘Racism.’”
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://doi.org/10.1177/0731121420964239
Source Type: Journal Article
Country: USA
Year: 2020
Tags: Scholarly
Find it at UCLA: https://search.library.ucla.edu/permalink/01UCS_LAL/192ecse/cdi_unpaywall_primary_10_1177_0731121420964239
ThoughtCo
Racism involves one group having the authority to enforce systematic discrimination (or unequal treatment of different groups) through societal institutions and policies, or by influencing cultural beliefs and values that uphold racist practices. On the other hand, prejudice is a typically negative attitude held by one individual or group toward another group and its members—often based on unfounded generalizations or stereotypes. While related, racism encompasses not only the attitudes fostered by prejudice but also the systemic nature of discriminatory practices and policies.
Individual Author(s): Cole, Nikki
Source Title: “What’s the Difference Between Prejudice and Racism?”
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://www.thoughtco.com/racism-vs-prejudice-3026086
Source Type: Web article
Tags: Scholarly | Educational
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
Race discrimination involves treating someone (an applicant or employee) unfavorably because he/she is of a certain race or because of personal characteristics associated with race (such as hair texture, skin color, or certain facial features). Color discrimination involves treating someone unfavorably because of skin color complexion.
Race/color discrimination also can involve treating someone unfavorably because the person is married to (or associated with) a person of a certain race or color.
Discrimination can occur when the victim and the person who inflicted the discrimination are the same race or color.
Source Title: “Race/Color Discrimination”
DOI / ISBN / Link: https://www.eeoc.gov/racecolor-discrimination
Source Type: Web article
Country: USA
Tags: Governmental