[We've had great conversation going on our recent allies posts, especially Julia's really amazing piece from last week. Keep it going. Because of the good reception, I thought it might be useful to, once a week, share a general post on race/anti-racism. Everyone here has different levels of knowlege and understanding regarding race and race issues-even if we have experienced racism throughout our lives. It will be easier to teach our children anti-racist values if we understand things liek privilege, how privilege works, institutional racism, etc. Enjoy the following post by Love Isn't Enough contributor Jennifer, who has a body of really great work on her blog, Mixed Race America.]
written by Love Isn’t Enough contributor Jennifer; originally published at Mixed Race America
The first time I remember hearing a formal definition for racism was in my freshman year black studies class, which was an introduction to race class. The professor was clear about defining racism (in the U.S.) in terms of a system of power–in terms of institutions. And that because the system of power (at least in the late 80s although really it is true to this day) was skewed towards white people (and more specifically straight white men), people of color could not be racist. They could exhibit internalized racism or individual acts of bigotry, but because, on the whole, people of color did not have access to systems of power and institutional influence (if you just look at the U.S. government, people of color are either absent or in extreme minority in every branch–executive, legislative, and judicial–and we haven’t even talked about the scarcity of people of color who own Fortune 500 companies, major media outlets, or who act as presidents of universities), then they could not be racist.
Although I’m not sure I entirely agree with this definition now (things have *slightly* improved in 20 years, although depending on who you talk to, they may have gotten worse, but more importantly thinking and theorizing about race has also become more nuanced and tried to account for the complexity of race to acknowledge that there are some people of color who actually do wield some institutional influence and a measure of power in which they could act in a racist fashion–let alone hold racist beliefs–Omi & Winant are really great in terms of these issues).
I know I’ve written about these things before, but I suppose in a blog devoted to mixed race issues, it’s not a bad thing to repeat, especially in light of the recent posts around judgment.
Because I think the central question that people have (or that gets debated) is whether people of color can be racist. And the funny thing is, I think for many people there is an automatic answer (either yes, ie: “I know lots of black people who hate white people and treat them badly” or no, ie: “black people may hate white people but they can’t force them out of a job”).
And we can go back and forth on this question, but the real issue is about history and power. Because history has a long reach and power is nebulous–it isn’t just about who holds public office or runs Fortune 500 companies. It’s about social and cultural beliefs related to race–and these are harder to overcome than just appointing an African American to be Secretary of State [Editor's note: ...or President of the United States.].
Yes, each person is able to discriminate on an individual basis–to perform individual acts of bigotry and hatred–to voice them and in some instances act on them. But racism–this is about the combination of history and power and the residue of that. It’s about racial hierarchies and a belief in who fits into a norm or standard–it is about believing there IS a norm or standard to fit into–racially.
Read Part II of this post, “Can I be racist?” at Mixed Race America.
My problem with his definition, that racism is only tied to institutional power, is twofold. First, I suspect that the vast majority of people tie the concept of racism to an individual’s attitudes, not to the power the individual holds.
Second, and more importantly, I think Jennifer’s definition kind of assumes a single monolithic hierarchy of power, when in reality power is spread out among multiple intersecting and overlapping hierarchies (I’m thinking here of social, moral, and political power, as well as just the ability to exert force). It’s also absolutist, in that it assumes that a PoC can have no individual power (see the parenthetical comment in the article), which is clearly not the case.
Because of that complexity, I think it’s not useful to have a definition of racism that’s only tied to a power structure. I’d prefer a definition that allows individual people’s behavior and well as institutions, organizations, and cultures to be described as actively or passively racist.
There is a very nuanced and interesting discussion of this issue here: http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2009/08/wonder-where-to-start-when-they-join.html
I’m just going to excerpt a bit that I think responds to points raised by dersk. Note, here, the author distinguishes between “sociological definition of racism”–prejudice + power– vs a “colloquial definition of racism” –treating others differently due to race.
“why anti-racists use the sociological definition as versus the colloquial one, but the major reason I’m aware of is that anti-racists aren’t just focusing on individual acts of racism; they’re looking at racism as an entrenched system that pervades every layer of our society.
The colloquial definition reduces racism to an individual level; the sociological definition focuses on the systemic level. The systemic level is actually more important, because even as individual/obvious acts of racism become less socially acceptable, the systemic effects of institutionalized racism continue to work quietly, efficiently, and powerfully.”
In a follow-up thread here: http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2009/09/wonder-how-to-define-racism.html, there is also a discussion about whether this definition effectively denies individual power to POC.
Great, thought-provoking discussion. It’s interesting that you encountered your first definition of racism at university. I did as well, however the definition delineated “prejudice” from “discrimination”. Prejudice essentially spoke to attitudes toward individuals or communities whereas discrimination spoke to actions based on the prejudice. I think this definition takes into account the individual prejudices that all people may have toward others, but allows for the next step (discrimination) to be associated with established systematic racism/homophobia/ethnocentrism, etc. I like these definitions because they do allow for the idea that a person of colour can be prejudiced toward whites (or gay people toward straight, etc), but given social power structures, likely cannot discriminate against them in any significant way. Whites on the other hand, can engage easily in both. What is lacking in these definitions is the concept of privilege – I think any definition, should, in this day and age, explicitly address institutionalized majority privilege.
I just discovered this website a few days ago – it’s bookmarked and I have been visiting often. Great site!
It’s a really interesting issue and while I see the usefulness of this definition for racism, how to move forward from it is less clear to me, especially as a white person or “ally.” So many strata of peoples are affected by skewed institutional structures, so how to acknowledge the differing impacts of that effect (i.e., that a disabled PoC has that much more hurdle to jump than a disabled white person), while also being able to find similarities and empathies in a non-patronizing way so as to unite to transform those institutions? I think especially of the class of whites who have not had access to higher education and who don’t have the tools to recognize and analyze how their own lives are impacted by institutional racism (i.e., the poor whites in New Orleans who insisted that Katrina had nothing to do with race). How to reach them? How to ask them to acknowledge a privilege they don’t feel in their everyday lives?
just a note of thanks for the engaging blog.
I think research should be done on the institutions that were controlled by POC in history and discrimination imposed upon other POC on the basis of colorism or ethnic differences.
I think of what happened in the Sudan in the late 1990s, and the Baltiomore Sun newspaper’s 4 part series called “Witness to Slavery” that began in response to Farrakhan’s contention that there is no slavery in the Sudan while he was doing business with the president of the country who allowed slavery to exist with Muslim Sudanese being the slaveholders to Sudanese who were not Muslim.
I think of the socio-economic differences between lighter complexioned Brazilians and darker complexioned Brazilians.
I think this discussion can’t be limited to just what occures in the Americas, but should be looked at via a historical and global perspective.
Something’s very wrong here when there are genocides, job biases, educational opportunities limited amongst POC that are in power going along the lines of ethnic background, color/complexion discrimination that limits socio-econoimc opportunities for those who are darker in complection.
Anytime we can look at a person or group of people within a society and SEE their ranking on the socio-economic totem pole, there is a problem.
I think the argument of whether Black people can be racist can be explored globally. We have to challenge our own beliefs in the process of looking at this. I know I believe that in a nutshell Black people are just as capable of instutionalized discrimination in certain societies where those in power are POCs and where there are ethnic and religious differences and where the evils of needing to assert one’s power, domination and authority exists due to economic imbalances, and local wars erupting as a result.
In certain areas of the globe the status quo is maintained very well by POCS in power and this status quo has to do with who is on top and who is on the bottom according to ethnic differences, religious differences, complection differences that give one more socioeconomic opportunities and someone else less of it.
In the “Stuff White People Do” blogspot, I actually disagree that this isn’t racist:
‘E. If you’re in an area of your city/state/province that is predominantly populated by PoC and, as a white person, you get harassed because of your skin color, it’s still not racism, even though you’re in a PoC-dominated area. The fact is, even though they’re the majority population in that area, they still lack the institutional power. They don’t have their own special PoC-dominated police force for that area. They don’t have their own special PoC-dominated courts in that area. The state/province and national media are still not dominated by PoC. Even though they have a large population in that particular area, they still lack the institutional power overall.’
If you’re a White person getting harassed by some Black folks due to your skin color, they *are* practicing racism. It isn’t institutionalized racism, yet its individual racism.
And as a White person you’re more likely to be believed that you were harassed, more likely to get assistance from the police for it, more likely to have a court case and judge and jury who is the same race as you.
I don’t think that instutionalized racism and individual racism has to exist apart from each other. Both can exist. One can exist.
If an individual who isn’t White harasses a White person because of their race, and/or has a hatred of White people, yeah their actions are racist.
Adrienne brings up a really interesting part of this- looking at racism in a global perspective.
In the U.S. I would say the missing piece in the idea that “people of color can’t be racist” is that it’s not quite specific enough. I think that in a white supremacist society (which is how I would consider racism in america) people of color can’t be racist against white people, because to get to the higher levels of power in the U.S., there are alot of white people, if you are a poc who freely expresses animosity towards white people, you are probably not going to end up having much institutional power.
@ Perdita, I think classism is as institutionalized as racism. We are even pretty open about this, there was an interesting post, yesterday I think, about inequality in education, and how basically everyone knows about it.
And it seems like it’s like that with almost everything, poor people have less, and they get less. I think the only area where the government spends alot more money on poor people is jails. Which is very messed up. There is an appalling level of governmental and societal indifference about the preventable human suffering that poverty causes.
It seems like a problem if alot of people are first learning ways to think and talk about racism in college. Although I am kind of jealous of you guys, because I am in college right now, and almost everytime I say something about racism or white privilege other students will roll their eyes or mutter, and I will look to the front of the room where the professor who has a fricking PhD will be sitting there like “la la la… no problem here…”
I think regular k-12 schools should teach this stuff too. Preschoolers can talk about race, and I think high schoolers have the capacity to think about ideas like institutionalized racism, and that is probably more interesting and empowering than whatever they are actually teaching high schoolers. I think they don’t because schools (at a institutional level) DO NOT want to educate our young people in a way that empowers them, or challenges the status quo.
I also learned of the sociological definition of racism in college, which asserts that POC are unable to be racist. It’s one I held for a long time, but I’ve shifted from that view. As a parent in a transracial family, I just don’t think it serves my children well to teach this model. I agree that racism = power + prejudice. But to say that a person of color can never be in power? I don’t like the message that sends. Granted, I don’t think that in their lifetime the tides will change and suddenly white privilege will be a thing of the past. Obviously, systemic racism still permeates our society. But I DO believe that my son (soon to be sons) will be in positions of leadership, power, or authority at some point in their lives. Which would make them capable of racism on an individual level.
To that end, I also want to be a family that is actively committed to stamping out racism in every form. I can’t imagine saying to my Black children, “This doesn’t apply to you.” I want my kids to be vigilant about how they treat others in the world around them. I don’t want to use different words based on their race . To address racism if/when my white children are acting in ways that are racist but use a different word for my black children? Doesn’t sit well.
I also don’t ever want to give my children of color a hall pass from responsibility in anti-racism. We live in a very diverse area. There is a huge amount of racism I observe towards the Mexican community, and it is from white people and POC alike. I absolutely think my kids will be faced with observing this, and even tempted to join in. I fear that an attitude of “I’m black, therefore I can’t be racist” will not equip them well to stand up to the values I’m trying to instill.
I do like the example Julia is giving and how there is a distinction between institutional and colloquial racism. That makes a lot of sense to me . . . but as a parent, I don’t think my kids will get those nuances until they are much older. (I’m not even sure the general public gets those nuances). As such, we use the “laymen’s definition” of racism in reference to prejudice , and hold all of our kids up to the same standard.
Surely the object of being anti-racist is twofold: to raise our kids not to be jerks, and to recognize both the explicit and implicit biases in society.
We should define the words we use in a way that furthers those goals and in ways that effectively communicate their meaning to people who don’t read blogs like this – therefore, I think any definition that logically results in “A PoC cannot be racist” is pretty much useless.
Hello everyone–I’m glad that my post has sparked such an interesting discussion. I’m not going to address any but Dersk’s (#10) comment.
I think a key understanding in being an anti-racist ally is understanding the structural SYSTEM of INSITUTONAL racism. I capped those phrases because POWER and the POWER that comes from SOCIETY and CULTURE cannot be underestimated. Yes, I can discriminate and act in a racist fashion towards people individually (the colloquial sense that Julia described). But institutionally, I have very limited power as a person of color in a society that historically has undervalued and actively sought to disenfranchise (and back in the day violently harm) Asians in America.
I’m not advocating for living in the past . Nor am I trying to say that people of color can’t rise to power or change, in small but perhaps significant ways, various intstitutions.
But we all know the insidiousness of the discourse that since Obama is now President racism is over or the feeling that I personally have, as a person of color and anti-racist ally, that all types of discrimination along an axis of race are the same. They’re not. Flattening out individually acts that are racist without understanding the ways they form a matrix of power–instititutional, cultural, social–is dangerous because it perpetuates this idea that there is an equal playing field and there isn’t.
But having said that, I don’t think this means that my children can’t succeed or that as a woman I can’t achieve success or that queer people will always be second-class citizens. It’s nice to use a language that envisions a time and day when there will be an equal playing field, but we aren’t there yet, and so being careful in our language and finding a way to educate our children, as difficult as it is to explain these concepts to them at a young age, seems of paramount importance–and why blogs like this exist.
co-sign, @Jennifer! Well said.
@Jennifer: Absolutely! I guess what I’m looking for is easy and effective ways to describe the difference between individual bias and the bias inherent in our culture.
Part of what’s made the ‘culture wars’ so insidious is how good the right has been at framing the discussion – at defining the terms of the debate. I think that especially in the next few years we have an opportunity to more effectively frame the discussion about racism (and all the other -isms).
Again, just in case it wasn’t clear: I absolutely agree with your post!
institutionalized “Racism” is simple to leave out to lock out, to not be included as a part of the whole. whites own every thing in this world society and this is why the entire brown world a long with some whites are really attacking America with any thing and with every thing they can. To many this is not considered fair. Have you notice how brown our third world counties are? this is the level of this so called defined “Institutional Racism” is. It is more than a owning a few buildings that you lock people out of. it a serious brain washing condition. it is so bad that we allow the very white people to give us the definition. then we fall right in line with the debate on whether to believe their definition or not? remember the word “status Quo”? well the status quo is still just that the status quo. and honey it is not about racism it is about power and greed The minute that one of us black brown come into power we forget like Castro in Cuba the little people. right now it’s brown people, but check history, they did their own when we were not in the picture.
Can POP be racist? I guess it depends on how racism is defined. As a person in a multi-ethnic/ multi-cultural family the issue becomes more complicated. In my nuclear family we have one Caucasian, one Mexican, and two African-Americans. Lately, it has become somewhat acceptable to insult and persecute first generation, Hispanic immigrants. To say that a POP cannot be a racist because of the power difference is only looking at the macrosystem of power. There are many microsystems where POP are more powerful than other POP. If you have a multi-ethnic family, simple statements “POP can’t be racist” becomes incredibly complex. Is that what I should teach my children? I have seen persecution of first generation immigrants by immigrants who have been here for generations. My children will be able to say that we have discussed the different definitions of racism since they were old enough to talk. I believe in institutional racism and fight against it daily, but I also believe in personal racism and have been a victim of it by both POP and Caucasians.
I am very familiar with this definition and have defended it and explained it to others over the years. After reading this question, however, I do have a question about it: if a person of color cannot be a racist because they lack the institutional and cultural power, can a white person who also lacks access to those systems be racist? For example, once I was treated very poorly in a video store by a white clerk because of my race. I told my husband about the incident and his initial response was, “But … she’s a video store clerk, who cares what she thinks?” I remember telling him through my tears, “Don’t be classist.” But does he have a point? I suspect at the time that I probably made three times more money than she did, and had more education and a better standard of living, etc. Does that matter at all? Or is it just about race?
@Melody – what is a POP?
I married into a multiracial family, and I have to say that my perception of racism and race has altered in some subtle, but important ways since then … it’s very different when it’s not just black/white dynamics. Or when you take white people out of the equation altogether. It’s also interesting because I married into a family that is race-aware, but very much Americanized and non-political. This also flew in the face of what I’d been taught about race consciousness.
hsofia,
To answer your question about racism and about issues of class and power (and to also address what I think some folks are writing in about regarding individual/personal acts of bigotry/discrimination/racism vs. institutional/systemic paradigms of racism), I’d say that the issue of class does complicate the power dynamics in the situation you describe with the video store clerk. However, if you felt that you were discriminated against or treated unfairly based on your race–if you were racially targeted by this person, then I’d put it in the category of a racist act.
One way to think about this is the converse side of the racism coin–namely, a system of white privilege and supremacy. Here’s where Peggy McIntosh’s iconic “Unpacking the Knapsack of White Privilege” essay is so helpful. Because we can all think of individuals of every hue who have acted in a bigoted manner towards us or someone we know. But currently in the U.S. the system of social and political and cultural power all point to upholding whiteness as the gold standard–and that whether or not you ask for it, if you present as a white American you receive white privilege and unearned benefits–ones that only by consciously acknowledging them and working as an anti-racist ally can be truly dealt with within our white supremacist society.
But don’t take my word for it–do a google search for McIntosh’s essay–the video clerk may not earn as much money as you do, but if s/he is white, then consciously or no, they receive certain benefits of being white regardless of their socioeconomic background–even if their class status does render their privilege muted or nullfied in certain instances.