racial discrimination thesis statements examples

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5 examples of thesis statements about racism for your next paper.

By Evans Apr 28 2021

Racism is a hot topic worldwide. It is one of the topics that never lack an audience. As expected, racism is also one of the most loved topics by teachers and even students. Therefore, it is not a surprise to be told to write an essay or a research paper on racism. You need to come up with several things within an incredible paper on racism, the most important one being a thesis statement. The term thesis statement sends shivers down the spine of many students. Most do not understand its importance or how to come up with a good thesis statement. Lucky for you, you have come to the right place. Here, you will learn all about thesis statement and get to sample a few racist thesis statements.

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Tips to writing a strong racism thesis statement

Keep it short.

A thesis statement is supposed to appear in the first paragraph of your essay. However, this does not mean that it should be the entire paragraph! A strong thesis statement should be one sentence (not an annoyingly long sentence), usually placed as the last sentence in the first paragraph.

Have a stand

A thesis statement should show what you aim to do with your paper. It should show that you are aware of what you are talking about. The thesis statement prepares the reader for what he or she is about to read. A wrong thesis statement will leave the reader of your paper unsure about your topic choice and your arguments.

Answer your research question

If you have been tasked with writing a research paper on why the Black Lives Matter movement has successfully dealt with racism, do not write a thesis statement giving the movement's history. Your thesis statement should respond to the research question, not any story you feel like telling. Additionally, the thesis statement is the summary of your sand and answer to the question at hand.

Express the main idea

A confused thesis statement expresses too many ideas while a strong, suitable one expresses the main idea. The thesis statement should tell the reader what your paper is all about. It should not leave the reader confused about whether you are talking about one thing or the other.

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racial discrimination thesis statements examples

Thesis Statements About Racism Samples

Racism in workplace thesis statement examples.

Racism is so rampant in the workplace. Thousands face discrimination daily in their workplaces. While this is definitely bad news, it gives us more data to choose from when working on an essay or research paper on racism in the workplace. Here are a few examples of thesis statements about racism in the workplace:

1. Despite being in the The 21st century, racial discrimination is still rampant in the workplace. The efforts made by governments and world organizations have not helped to do away with this discrimination completely.

2. Even with the unity that comes with digitalism, colour remains the one aspect of life that has continually caused a rift in this life. A lot of efforts have turned futile in the war against racism. The workplace is no exception. It is infiltrated with racial ideologies that remain within man's scope despite the professionalism within the workplace.

3. Systemic racism is no new concept. It remains the favoured term with the tongues of many after food and rent. This is an indicator of how rooted the world is when it comes to the issue of racism. The now world has been configured to recognize racial differences and be blind to human similarity. Organizations have been established upon this social construct, and more often than it has led them into a ditch of failure. The loot that comes with racism is of great magnitude to bear.

Thesis statement about Racism in schools

Many academic institutions have been recognized for producing students who have passed with distinctions. Unfortunately, behind these overwhelming results lies a trail of many students who have suffered racism and have missed the honors board because of the color differences. Let's look at some of the examples of thesis statements on racism in schools:

1. Merit should be the S.I unit upon which humanity is graded. Unfortunately, this is not the case, especially in schools, for the new merit score is the person's color. Many have found their way to the honour's board not because of merit but because they of the same color affiliation as the teacher.

2. Enlightenment and civilization have found their way to the world through one important institution called schools. We owe that to it. Unfortunately, even with the height to which the world has reached civilization and enlightenment, one area has been left out and remains unaddressed- the world view of color. Despite the light and glamour, we see globally, one predominant view is called race. We continue to paint the world based on human color, even in schools.

3. Bullying falls among the vices that have dire consequences to the victim. One of the spheres to which bullying exists is the sphere of color and race within the context of schools. Many student's confidence and esteem have been shuttered only because they are black or white. Many have receded to depression because they feel unwanted in the schools. One of the prominent times within American History is the Jim Crow Era, where racial segregation in schools within North Carolina was rampant. We saw schools have a section for white students and a separate section for black students within this era. The prevailing flag was black and white, and racism was the order of the day.

Final Thought

Coming up with a thesis statement does not have to difficult. No, not at all. Evaluate the topic or question and express yourself through the thesis statement from your stance or the answer. Mastering this one key in writing exams or assignments is one of the keys to scaling up the ladder of lucrative grades. However, practice is a discipline that will see you become a pro in writing a prolific strong, and catchy thesis statement. Henceforth, regard yourself as a pro, regard yourself as the best in thesis statement writing. If you are still having trouble with coming up with an excellent thesis statement, do not beat yourself up because of it. Paper per hour has the best writers who can help you with all your racism thesis statement needs.

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How to Write a Racism Thesis Statement: A Step-by-Step Guide (With Examples)

Jul 20, 2023

Jul 20, 2023 | Blog

As a student, you will handle many subjects and assignments.

One topic that is popular for essays and research papers is Racism.

Many resources are on the topic, so students assume a racism essay is easy.

The challenge you will face with a racism essay is not content but a thesis statement.

The racism thesis statement should be powerful and something your audience can understand and relate to.

This article will provide helpful guidelines and tips on writing a racism thesis statement and examples of powerful racist thesis statements.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement is the backbone of a persuasive paper.

The thesis states your position or opinion as a factual claim and guides readers through their journey with you in this essay.

I am informing them on how they will navigate through it.

A good thesis statement is the equivalent of a preacher giving a sermon or a politician making an announcement.

As you craft your paper’s introduction, your goal will be to pique interest by announcing what you’re going to say in-depth throughout the rest of your essay.

Do you know how a preacher or politician might say, “Here’s what I’m going to tell you”?

The thesis statement is your announcement of what you’re trying to convey.

Difference between a TOPIC and a THESIS STATEMENT

A topic is a subject or good idea you would like to explore further.

A thesis statement is a specific argumentative stance you will take on the subject.

For example, Racism is a topic, while a thesis statement about Racism could be:

“While racism remains a problem in America, it can be reduced or potentially eliminated through the effective implementation of diversity training programs in schools and corporate institutions.”

How do I get started with writing a thesis statement on racial discrimination?

Use these three steps:

(1) brainstorm what you think

(2) refine your idea

(3) rewrite your idea in the form of a central claim

Let’s use a hypothetical sociology class assignment asking you to construct a response to the racism problem on our college campus.

Step 1: Brainstorm what you think

You start by writing, “Racism is a prominent issue on our college campus.”

Even though this is a great starting point, it is not well-defined. It’s’ simply restating the assignment.

At this point, what you need to do is to brainstorm. On this given topic, what do you think about it?

What’s your opinion on the given topic?

How will you support your opinion?

What examples and facts can you provide?

Try putting these questions on paper and writing down your answers. You will then use the solutions you wrote down to formulate a stronger racism thesis statement.

Step 2: Refine your idea

One of the proven best methods of doing this is using the following model:

On a piece of paper, write this: “I think that ____________.

Using your initial brainstorming idea, fill in the blank.

In our case, it will be this: “I think that racism remains a problem on our college campus.”

While you have rewritten your rough idea at this stage, it is starting to form a thesis.

Next, complete this model as you continue building your thesis: I think racism Racism remains a problem on our college campus because __________.

Then you write: IRacism Racism remains a problem on our college campus because it does not require mandatory diversity training for all of its students.

Okay, now you are progressing and heading in a good direction.

Let’s reword the thesis to make it appear more “academic.”

Step 3: Rewrite your idea in the form of a central claim

We need to replace the word “you” to make the thesis statement appear less personal and like the main claim.

To achieve this, delete the “I think that” from the sentence:

“Racism remains a problem on our college campus because the college does not require mandatory diversity training for all of its students.”

Hurray! You now have your thesis statement—many congratulations.

Essential details to keep in mind when writing a racism thesis statement

1) your racism thesis statement should appear at the beginning of the paper.

When writing a Racism essay on Racism, the thesis statement is important.

Readers should be given a clear idea of what your essay will cover and how it will unfold.

The racism thesis statement is an outlook for the rest of your paper in the introductory paragraph.

The introductory paragraph should clarify that you’re approaching this topic from all angles and know how complicated this issue can be in today’s society.

2) Your theRacismatement on Racism should give direction to the rest of your paper

A thesis statement on Racism gives your reader direction and provides several reasons for elaborating on a specific claim.

If you wish to accomplish this, your statement should expRacismhe the idea of Racism in-depth with different examples that will persuade readers.

For example: ”Racism does not exist” while still, an argument is insufficient as it has a false sense of structure.

However, if your thesis is that “racism does not exist because antiracist movements have grown in power and number over the years,” you can provide two reasons to support this claim within one sentence.

Such shapes the rest of your paper while leaving much time for evidence discussion later.

Such gives the paper the needed shape as evidence is discussed in detail to support this claim.

3) Ensure that you have a debatable argument

Although it’s important to question any information you are given, there is a certain knowledge that the public already values.

For exampRacismeryone, he knows Racism is a social and moral vice.

This means coming up with such a topic would not interest their audience.

Your argument becomes a racism thesis statement once you add an aspect.

For instance, oRacismld says, “Racism is the most harmful social and moral vice on earth. we might lose our unique identities and multicultural features if not eradicated soon enough.”

4) Keep your Racism thesis statement short!

It’s effortless to make your racism essay more interesting if you keep it short.

If you pick a broad topic, the magnitude of information will almost certainly give you trouble.

A good thesis statement should be small and localized rather than large or generalizing.

For example: “White police brutality on black people among many other things shows that Racism still exists in the United States” would make a powerful claim about something that was happening more often now than before

Tips On How To Write A Racism Thesis Statement

Before writing your thesis statement on Racism, consider the following guidelines.

Find a racism topic or issue to write about

Racism is a broad issue that continues to plague the world even today.

Therefore, finding an informative topic from which you can develop a thesis statement shouldn’t be difficult.

You can see Racism approach Racism through other social issues such as art, politics, economy, equitability, poverty, and history.

2. Pick a topic that is interesting to you

You might not be familiar with all the Racism surrounding Racism.

As asRacismoned earlier, Racism is a broad topic; there are many approaches you can take in your paper.

Therefore, to have an easier time developing a thesis, pick a racist topic that interests you.

For instance, if you are conversant with the history of America, your thesis statement could focuRacismhe the effects of Racism during the Civil Rights Movement that began in 1954 and ended in 1968.

3. Hook your reader

As you write your thesis statement, try to include a hook.

A hook is a statement that grabs the attention of a reader.

Try hooking your reader by relating your thesis to popular culture.

You could even refer to current issues on the news or relate to popular television programs, movies, or books.

4. Avoid offensiveRacismage

Remember, Racism is a personal issue; it is open to bias depending on your thinking.

Therefore, most of the issues surrounding this topic are controversial.

Avoid offensive and rude language when discussing a controversial topic in an academic paper.

Examples Of Racism Thesis Statements

It would help if you had a well-thought-out and well-constructed thesis statement to get a good score in your racism-related research paper or essay.

The following are examples of thesis statements on different racism topics.

Existence of Racism

Such an essay tries to prove that racial segregation is still a significant social problem.

Therefore, your thesis statement should focus on the problems racial segregation causes.

Consider the following example:

It is a fact that police killings involving people of color are more than white people. Joshua Correll of the University of Colorado confirmed this when he designed a game where the participants played cops. The game results indicated that, despite the people playing cop, they were more willing to kill a person of color and showed hesitation when the suspect was a white persRacismis. Racism continues to plague society.

Use our free Thesis Statement Generator Tool Here .

Workplace-related Racism

Racism is a form of prejudice often experienced in a workplace environment.

A workplace powerful racism thesis statement could read as follows:

Prejudice in a workplace environment is a backward practice that undermines productivity. In the professional sphere, white people are considered mentally superior, and therefore they get the top jobs that pay higher wages. Blacks are considered physically endowed and land physical labor jobs, which generally pay lower.

Anti-racism movements

Anti-racism is a phrase coined by people who formed movements to fight Racismnsequences of Racism.

Martin Luther King Jr led the greatest antiracist movement between the early 50s and the late 60s.

Another key antiracist figure was Nelson Madiba Mandela of South Africa.

Anti-racism also covers the beliefs and policies set to combat racial prejudice.

An anti-racism essay thesis statement should evoke emotion from a reader.

The following is an example:

Anti-racism movement leaders were treated inhumanely; Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years, and Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated. But, society today would not be as egalitarian as it is without them. Their sacrifices are the sole reason blacks and whites can walk on the same street and work together to create a brighter future.

Cause and effect

You can choose to write about Racism and the effect of Racism.

For example, ignoRacismis a cause of Racism that results in fear and eventually extreme violence.

The following is an example of a thesis statement that focuses on ignorance and fear as thRacismary causes of Racism.

Undoubtedly, Racism has negative consequences, the key among them being fear and violence, resulting from a need to protect themselves. Racism major cause of Racism is ignorance. Uneducated and unexposed feel threatened by people of a different race. Such people condone and practice this prejudice without considering its negative effects and consequences on the individuals they discriminate against and society.

Racism Thesis statements based on art and literature

Books, music, and movies cover a wide variety of racist topics.

The following are examples of literary artworks you can base a racism essay on:

Othello is a play by Shakespeare that addresses some delicate sociRacismssues such as Racism.

You could develop a thesis statemeRacismhlighting Racism in the play.

Othello, who was black, was highly disrespected by Lago and other characters such as Emilia, Roderigo, and Brabantio. These characters labeled him ”Barbary horse,” ”an old black ram,” ”thick lips,” and other demeaning names. He was also abused for marrying a Venetian woman. All this shows a strong conviction that one race is superior and a barbaric intolerance towards the ”inferior” race.

2. To kill a mockingbird

This book by Harper Lee is popular because it portrays the struggles of a black man in the southern states in the early 20 th century.

The book is a good source for Racism essays as it depicts Racism and its effects easily and comprehensibly.

The following is a good example of a racist thesis statement from To Kill a Mocking Bird :

Tom Robinson was suspected of murdering Mayella Ewell, a white woman, and was sentenced not because of any evidence but because he was black. Like Atticus Finch, Scout, and Jem, who tried to defend him, White characters were given shaming names such as ”Nigger lovers.” The story in the book clearly shows the tribulations a black man went through and how his word meant nothing.

3. Disney films

Disney films and racism thesis statements

Disney films are popular for their fascinating stories and world-class acting and production.

However, scrutiny of several films will realize a certain degree of racial prejudice in how the films portray characters.

The following is an example of a thesis statement focusing on racial prejudice in Disney films:

There is a significant degree of racial prejudice in how Disney portrays characters in their films. For example, in Jungle Book, the gorillas communicated in an African vernacular language. Another example is Lady and the Tramp, where the cat villains had slanted eyes and spoke with an East Asian accent. The film production company portrays protagonists as white and antagonists as people of color.

4. Advertisements

The advertisement sector also depicts racial prejudice.

To demonstrate, consider this thesis statement:

Several surveys show that black people are underrepresented in commercials, mainstream media, and online ads. According to the US Census Bureau 2010 records, blacks and other racial minorities represent 30%. Yet, only 7% of ads involve black people, while other racial minorities are hardly ever represented.

Racism is a fairly easy subject for an essay and research paper .

However, it has so many sources and different points of view that selecting one idea to focus on in creating a thesis statement can be problematic.

But, with the guidelines shared above, developing a thesis statement for your racism essay will not be as difficult.

Remember, you need to let the reader know your point of view and demonstrate your objectiveness on the issue.

Examples of thesis statements on Racism

Racism worldwide can end if the global collaboration and interracial and intercultural communication continue to increase.
Racial minorities in America still face covert prejudice despite America’s institutional and societal changes in the sixties.
Multiculturalism has failed as an institutional practice in Europe, which can be determined by the increase in hate crime cases and racial minority issues.
Despite the significance of affirmative action in countering racial prejudice, there are concerns that it promotes racial differences.
There exists a misconception that affirmative action is a women’s agenda.
Racial prejudice founded on a single person’s actions but taken to be the general state of affairs for the given race is wrong.
Racism in the workplace adversely impacts workers’ productivity as it affects their aggressiveness.
It costs nothing to point out racist actions in the workplace.
The majority of Racism in the world relies on Racism as a means of garnering votes and grabbing power.
The rate of racial hatred and related crimes is high in Australian universities.
Students’ diversity can play a significant role in reducing racial crimes and related issues.
Embracing diversity in the workplace can help reduce incidences of racial intolerance.
Transgender, bisexual, gay, and lesbian Americans have experienced prejudice from society.
In the thirties, the Blacks lived in hatred and poverty, which was the cause of death of many innocent lives.
It was considered strange to show affection to Black Americans in the past.
Despite the frowning among most citizens in America, racial prejudice is a common practice, especially in the brave home.
Racial equality is a social barrier that Americans are yet to overcome.
There are wide geographical and psychological distances between Asians and Blacks in America. Such distances can be attributed to the segregation by the American society government or the white-centric media.

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Racism - List of Essay Samples And Topic Ideas

It is difficult to imagine a more painful topic than racism. Violation of civil rights based on race, racial injustice, and discrimination against African American people are just a small part of issues related to racial inequality in the United States. Such a topical issue was also displayed in the context of school and college education, as students are often asked to write informative and research essays about racial discrimination.

The work on this paper is highly challenging as a student is supposed to study various cruel examples of bad attitudes and consider social questions. One should develop a topic sentence alongside the titles, outline, conclusion for essay on racism. The easiest way is to consult racism essay topics and ideas on our web. Also, we provide an example of a free college essay on racism in America for you to get acquainted with the problem.

Moreover, a hint to writing an excellent essay is good hooks considering the problem. You can find ideas for the thesis statement about racism that may help broaden your comprehension of the theme. It’s crucial to study persuasive and argumentative essay examples about racism in society, as it may help you to compose your paper.

Racism is closer than we think. Unfortunately, this awful social disease is also common for all levels and systems in the US. A student can develop a research paper about systemic racism with the help of the prompts we provide in this section.

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Racism in Movie “42”

The movie I chose for this assignment is 42 starring Chadwick Boseman and Harrison Ford. The movie is about Jackie Robinson, a baseball player who broke the color barrier when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. One of the topics we covered in this course was racism. For my generation it is hard to understand how pervasive racism used to be in society. I have three cousins that have a black father. Many of my friends are from different races and […]

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Introduction The primary purpose of this report is to explore racism issues in the United States justice system and addressing the solutions to the problem affecting the judicial society. Racism entails social practices that give merits explicitly solely to members of certain racial groups. Racism is attributed to three main aspects such as; personal predisposition, ideologies, and cultural racism, which promotes policies and practices that deepen racial discrimination. Institutional racism is also rife in the US justice system. This entails […]

About Black Lives Matter Movement

The fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution are inherent for all. There is no question that all people (blacks, Latinos, Indians, or white) were created free and equal with certain inalienable rights. This is a universally accepted principle. Segregation and racism against minorities in this country have been widely discussed, and prominent figures have taken a stand asking people to join in the fight for equality. This stand addresses the significance of black lives. However, contrasting opinions on […]

Structural Racism in U.S. Medical Care System Doctor-Patient Relationship

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Slavery and Racism in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

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The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest James Gaines

The author of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Ernest J. Gaines, is a male African American author who has taken full advantage of his culture by writing about rural Louisiana. His stories mainly tell the struggles of blacks trying to make a living in racist and discriminating lands. Many of his stories are based on his own family experiences. In Ernest J. Gaines’ novel, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, four themes that are displayed are the nature of […]

History of Racism

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Civil Rights Martyrs

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Making Racism Obsolete

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Discrimination of Races

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Racism and Discrimination: the Influence of Past Sins

Discrimination against black people by white people in the United States had been regarded as a matter of course and justifiable for more than 300 years. Therefore, the problem is far more than whether the laws are prohibited or not, but whether people's mind and concepts are changed or not. The latter is something that everyone understands but is the most difficult to do. While looking at American history, the history of African Americans can be said to be soaked […]

Racism: Unmasking Microaggressions and Discrimination

Reading through the article provided a vivid reflection on how racism becomes a serious issue in the today society. There are various types of racism the article brings out manifested in micro aggression form. The varied opinions in my mind provide a clear picture of the information relayed in the article through the following analysis. Discrimination concerning race will major in my analysis. First, let me talk about the black guy abused in the Saudi Arabia that has sparked public […]

Color Blind Racism

I enjoyed watching this documentary “White Like Me”, by Tim Wise. What I found most surprising was the fact that Tim Wise was a white male and was the individual in the film talking about the discrimination people of color receive. There were a few other things that surprised me, like the fact that there are more African Americans in jail and on probation than the number of those enslaved in 1850. The movie version of Black Like Me was […]

The Acts of Imperialism and Racism in “The Heart of Darkness”

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Stereotyping and Discrimination

Introduction The movie starts with all the animals living together and happily in the big city. Their peaceful lives are then disturbed by ferocious predators. The case goes to the swindler fox and a bunny cop, those who unintentionally solve many problems related to hidden cases of interspecies.Rhetorical Strategies Few of the negative observers interpret that movie does not openly or directly express the racism. Additionally, the writer named as Nico Lang also asserts that movie does not score much […]

Police Brutality and Racism

The Declaration of Independence was created to protect the inalienable rights that all Americans receive at birth, yet police brutality continues to threaten the rights of African Americans everywhere. Police everywhere need to be given mandatory psychological tests in order to gain awareness of racial bias in law enforcement and allow citizens to slowly gain trust for the officers in law enforcement. No one wants a child to grow up in a world filled with hate. As Martin Luther King […]

Effects of Racism in Desiree’s Baby

As hard as it may be to talk about it, race has found a humble abode in literature. Desiree’s baby revolves around race and how it affects its main characters. A woman by the name of Desiree gives birth to a baby boy who is fathered by cruel slave master Armand Aubigny. Desiree makes a startling discovery when she finds out that her baby is of African heritage and this infuriates her husband who kicks them out causing Desiree to […]

Racism and Slavery

During the colonial period, Americans came up with the idea to bring African men and women overseas and use them as slaves. The effects of slavery on African Americans were enormous, and the white men got higher ranked in the hierarchy than the back men because of the colour of their skin. In order to discuss the impact that slavery has had on today’s society, you need to first address why it actually occurred. During the 17th and 18th century, […]

How To Write An Essay On Racism

Introduction to the complexities of racism.

Writing an essay on racism involves delving into a complex and sensitive subject that has deep historical roots and contemporary implications. Begin your essay by defining racism as a system of discrimination based on race, affecting individuals and groups socially, economically, and politically. Highlight the importance of understanding racism not only as overt acts of discrimination but also as institutional and systemic practices. This introduction should lay the groundwork for your exploration, whether it's focused on historical aspects of racism, its manifestations in modern society, or strategies for combating racial prejudice and inequality.

Historical Context and Evolution of Racism

The body of your essay should include a detailed examination of the historical context and evolution of racism. Discuss how racism has been perpetuated and institutionalized over time, highlighting key historical events and policies that have contributed to racial discrimination and segregation. Depending on your essay’s focus, you might explore the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, Jim Crow laws, or apartheid, among other topics. This historical perspective is crucial for understanding how past injustices continue to shape present racial dynamics and attitudes.

Analyzing Modern Manifestations of Racism

Transition to discussing the modern manifestations of racism. Examine how racism operates in current societal structures, such as in the criminal justice system, education, employment, and healthcare. Discuss the concept of systemic racism and how it perpetuates inequality, as well as the impact of racial bias and stereotypes in media representation and everyday interactions. This section should also address the intersectionality of racism, acknowledging how race intersects with other identities like gender, class, and sexuality, contributing to unique experiences of discrimination.

Strategies for Addressing and Combating Racism

Conclude your essay by exploring strategies for addressing and combating racism. Discuss the importance of education, awareness-raising, and open dialogue in challenging racist beliefs and stereotypes. Reflect on the role of policy changes, affirmative action, and reparations in addressing systemic racism. Emphasize the importance of individual and collective action in fostering a more inclusive and equitable society. Your conclusion should not only summarize the key points of your essay but also inspire a sense of hope and commitment to anti-racist efforts, underscoring the ongoing work needed to dismantle racism in all its forms.

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Racism and History of Discrimination Essay

Racism and other kinds of discrimination have existed for centuries and still prevail in modern-day society. While many people view racism as a social construct that only exists among ordinary people, it is much more frequent among government authorities and law enforcement agencies, with police brutality being one of the most acute issues. Such an issue is not merely a local or state problem but a federal one, permeating the entire country. As a result, while different policies aim to eradicate racism-caused police brutality, it still exists and causes many deaths.

There are many instances of the given issue that led not just to disabilities but also to deaths. For example, despite a 1993 prohibition on chokeholds by the New York Police Department, policeman Daniel Pantaleo nonetheless fatally choked Eric Garner in 2014 (The Economist, 2020). In one of the latest occurrences, Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis law enforcement officer, knelt on George Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes on May 25, 2020, causing George Floyd to pass away (Valbuena et al., 2020). As a result, the policy sector this sort of social injustice falls under is criminal justice. According to the United Nations, among the core problems that impact this sector are “racial profiling, harassment, verbal abuse and abuse of power by law enforcement officials” (United Nations, 2022). As a result, advocacy should be aimed at creating new models in criminal justice that will ensure the protection of all minority groups and due process. As has been mentioned by the UN, “racial discrimination in law enforcement and the criminal justice system cannot be separated from systemic racism” (United Nations, 2022). Therefore, such a macro policy intervention should aim at holding those law enforcement officers responsible for the brutality.

Hence, despite efforts to end racism-related police violence, it still occurs and claims many lives. Criminal justice is the area of policy that deals with this kind of social injustice. Racial discrimination, harassment, emotional insults, and the misuse of authority by law enforcement authorities are among the significant issues that have an influence on this industry, according to the United Nations. Therefore, advocacy efforts should focus on developing new criminal justice models that would guarantee the protection of all minority groups and due process. The goal of such a macro-political intervention should be to hold violent law enforcement personnel accountable.

The Economist. (2020). In America protests have already brought policy changes . The Economist. Web.

United Nations. (2022). Addressing and responding to racial discrimination in the criminal justice system . UN. Web.

Valbuena, V., Howard, R., Bonner, S., & Dimick, J. (2020). Let us not be silent . Annals of Surgery , 272 (6), 915-916. Web.

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Tutorial Review
Open access
Published: 20 December 2021

Systemic racism: individuals and interactions, institutions and society

Mahzarin R. Banaji 1 ,
Susan T. Fiske ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1693-3425 2 &
Douglas S. Massey 2

Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications volume 6 , Article number: 82 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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Systemic racism is a scientifically tractable phenomenon, urgent for cognitive scientists to address. This tutorial reviews the built-in systems that undermine life opportunities and outcomes by racial category, with a focus on challenges to Black Americans. From American colonial history, explicit practices and policies reinforced disadvantage across all domains of life, beginning with slavery, and continuing with vastly subordinated status. Racially segregated housing creates racial isolation, with disproportionate costs to Black Americans’ opportunities, networks, education, wealth, health, and legal treatment. These institutional and societal systems build-in individual bias and racialized interactions, resulting in systemic racism. Unconscious inferences, empirically established from perceptions onward, demonstrate non-Black Americans’ inbuilt associations: pairing Black Americans with negative valences, criminal stereotypes, and low status, including animal rather than human . Implicit racial biases (improving only slightly over time) imbed within non-Black individuals’ systems of racialized beliefs, judgments, and affect that predict racialized behavior. Interracial interactions likewise convey disrespect and distrust. These systematic individual and interpersonal patterns continue partly due to non-Black people’s inexperience with Black Americans and reliance on societal caricatures. Despite systemic challenges, Black Americans are more diverse now than ever, due to resilience (many succeeding against the odds), immigration (producing varied backgrounds), and intermarriage (increasing the multiracial proportion of the population). Intergroup contact can foreground Black diversity, resisting systemic racism, but White advantages persist in all economic, political, and social domains. Cognitive science has an opportunity: to include in its study of the mind the distortions of reality about individual humans and their social groups.

Introduction

Significance.

American racial biases persist over time and permeate (a) institutional structures, (b) societal structures, (c) individual mental structures, (d) everyday interaction patterns. Systemic racism operates with or without intention and with or without awareness. But because these responses are based on socially defined racial categories, they are racialized, and because they are negative, they reveal the roots of racism. At the level of most behavior, they are also controllable, even if many non-Black people rarely notice these relentless patterns. Systemic racism is a unified arrangement of racial differentiation and discrimination across generations. Understanding these formidable challenges is necessary to understand and then dismantle them. Cognitive science can illuminate the fine-grained levels of inbuilt racial bias because it has the methods and the theories to do so. Moreover, studying racial bias is interesting; it will improve the science; and it is the obvious path to ensuring a mutually respectful, peaceful society that flourishes economically, politically, and socially.

At the Editor’s invitation, this article presents the social and behavioral science of systemic racism to a cognitive science audience. The tutorial defines systemic racism, describes its origins in US history, shows how the resulting racialized societal structures have become built-in cognitive structures that propagate in social interactions, resisting change. But these very societal-cognitive-social features can also be agents for change.

Systemic racism is said to occur when racially unequal opportunities and outcomes are inbuilt or intrinsic to the operation of a society’s structures. Simply put, systemic racism refers to the processes and outcomes of racial inequality and inequity in life opportunities and treatment. Systemic racism permeates a society’s (a) institutional structures (practices, policies, climate), (b) social structures (state/federal programs, laws, culture), (c) individual mental structures (e.g., learning, memory, attitudes, beliefs, values), and (d) everyday interaction patterns (norms, scripts, habits). Systemic racism not only operates at multiple levels, it can emerge with or without animus or intention to harm and with or without awareness of its existence. Its power derives from its being integrated into a unified system of racial differentiation and discrimination that creates, governs, and adjudicates opportunities and outcomes across generations. Racism represents the biases of the powerful (Jones, 1971 ), as the biases of the powerless have little consequence (Fiske, 1993 ). Footnote 1

We highlight the “inbuilt” aspect of systemic racism to be its signature feature and the touchstone necessary to understand the nature of systemic racism and its resistance to awareness and change. We begin with the concept’s more traditional domains: institutional and societal systems. Then, given the current venue, we expand the levels of analysis to include individual mental systems that have built in those systems of inequalities. We close with the interaction of those minds in social behavior, which can either maintain or change racial systems.

Institutions and Society . As the first section explains, the term systemic racism has traditionally referred to systems that uphold racism via institutional power (Feagin, 2006 ), with stark examples of what is also called institutional racism (Jones, 1972 ) visible in inequities in housing and lending, as well as more broadly in access to finance, education, healthcare, and justice. This section focuses on the institutional level in depth, as it provides the strongest evidence of systemic racism. At an even more macro s ocietal level, however, the inbuilt aspect of systemic racism is evident in race-based demarcations created by large-scale state and federal programs, which offer levers either to increase or decrease systemic racism. To remain within the scope of the paper, we consider the structures of institutional and societal racism in a single section.

Individuals and Interactions . In tandem with the previous section, this section focuses on individual bias and interactional racism, together bringing into view the inbuilt nature of systemic racism. To expand on this inclusive view of systemic racism, we end by reviewing what we know about the individual human being, alone and interacting with others. Individuals are agentic entities, the primary actors within all systems of life and living. Their attitudes (preferences, prejudices), beliefs (stereotypes), and behaviors (discrimination) are inbuilt or intrinsically enmeshed into the foundation of the mental systems that feed systemic racism. At the individual level, “inbuilt” refers to the common psychological processes that represent race in the minds of individuals. This evidence reveals systemic race bias.

Note that, here, we use slightly different terms: Systemic Racism refers to much of the sociological, demographic, and historic material as well as anything in the psychological section that is explicit and conscious racism. Systemic Race Bias is about implicit cognition—people who may not be aware of the harm they may cause. Implicit race bias does not mean a person is a racist. In this view, keeping racism and bias separate as terms seems advisable. Others view even unexamined racism as systemic racism in its individual manifestation. Each section elaborates on the meaning of racism in that context.

Individual racial bias propagates through both face-to-face and virtual interactions within families, classrooms, playfields, and workplaces, both verbally and non-verbally. Individual minds create and consume racial representations in books, social media, and entertainment. Footnote 2 We focus here on everyday interactions that convey disrespect and distrust of Black Americans.

Why? Role for psychological science in studying systemic racism

Individual humans are the creators and consumers of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, but also the policies and practices that lie at the heart of systemic racism. Psychology as a field has historically remained silent on the topic of systemic racism, per se (e.g., Guthrie, 2004 , “Even the rat was white”; for exceptions, see: Jones, 1971 ; DuBois, 1925 ). Perhaps psychologists have regarded systemic racism to be a form of institutional racism and hence in the bailiwick of social scientists who study institutions and society, not individuals. Nonetheless, we attempt here to include individual minds and face-to-face interaction as playing a role. This goal has precedents: Early scholars who straddled disciplines, such as George Herbert Mead ( 1934 , p. 174), would likely find our attempt to be quite compatible with his stance that mind and society must be considered in intertwined fashion.

Today, psychologists are increasingly attempting to bridge the divide between the individual mind and society. Cultural psychology, for example, has attempted to analyze racism as the “budding product of psychological subjectivity and the structural foundation for dynamic reproduction of racist action” (Salter, Adams & Perez, 2018 , p. 151). This dynamic can emerge in individual racist actions (with or without awareness) that are fitted into the structure of everyday life and perpetuate systemic racism. Interpersonal interactions bridge individual and collective representations of race. Individual minds, sharing some notions about each other’s salient identities (e.g., probable race, gender, age) treat each other according to social norms, cultural habits, and cultural scripts. In the case of race, these individual mental representations and social interaction patterns rarely benefit Black participants facing Whites.

“Inbuilt”: A useful metaphor guiding the essay

There are these two fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ’Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?’ Wallace, 2009

The fable highlights a simple idea—that the most fundamental feature of any system may be so completely pervasive that it ceases to be perceptible or when perceptible, fails to be recognized in its true form. This paradox creates a challenge for social and behavioral scientists, who must not only generate evidence about the complexities of systemic racism, but we must also confront unthinking rejection of that evidence. Other scientists face similar challenges in documenting their own complex phenomena, such as the resistance faced by the theory of evolution or the denial of evidence about climate change.

In most cases, evidence eventually reaches a tipping point, after which it ceases to be denied and even becomes sufficiently commonplace that its previous denial itself is puzzling. An easy example is the denial of scientific evidence about the position of the earth in the solar system and its shape, with few arguments today (but not zero!) about a flat earth. However, we are far from that tipping point of knowledge and acceptance when it comes to the idea of systemic racism. This paper, then, is yet another attempt, by connecting across the individual, interactional, and institutional/societal levels, to shed light on its existence.

The obvious allegorical lesson from the fable about the fish is of course the ease of being ignorant of that which is pervasive. However, the fable also points out that not all the fish are ignorant of their surroundings. The older fish, swimming the same ocean as the young fish, seems to have figured out the truth about the substance that suffuses its environment so fully that it is imperceptible to its peers. Ignorance then, need not be the only guaranteed outcome, even when perception and awareness are hard. Hence, one section uses the term “unexamined” to describe controllable attention to or willful neglect of one’s own biases (see also Fiske, 1998 ). Social scientists commenting on resistance to socioeconomic inequality have used the term “clueless” (Williams, 2019 ), which is admittedly harsh but suggests that learning some facts would permit more evidence-based understanding. Regardless, the evidence for systemic racism, at the level of institutions and society or at the level of individuals and interactions, requires re-examining the taken-for-granted, whether the water we swim or the air we breathe.

Systemic racism: the role of institutional and societal structures

Contemporary societal racism rests on Black–White segregation, historical and current. This first substantive section presents evidence that systemic racism has long pervaded US institutional and societal systems—creating a context for the minds of individuals within these systems, enabling an omnipresent neglect. First, this section shows that continued housing segregation by race obstructs Black opportunity and mobility, perpetuating racial disparities, challenging many Black Americans in ways White Americans never experience (Massey, 2020 ). At a societal level, Black disadvantage and White advantage come in part from residential hypersegregation (Massey & Tannen, 2015 ). More than any other racial group, Whites live in racially isolated neighborhoods (Rugh & Massey, 2014 ); and in the US neighborhood segregation translates directly into school segregation (Massey & Tannen, 2016 ; Owens, 2020 ). Both segregation and local funding undermine the quality of predominantly Black schools.

To elaborate these points, this section describes the historical context for US racism, territory likely to be less familiar to cognitive scientists. Our takeaway: Systemic racism pervades US social institutions, policies, and practices; later sections show how the societal structures make into the minds of the humans within these systems.

History: segregation and systemic racism

To explain systemic racism, we start with the historical origins of race in the US—that is, the social/political/economic mechanisms that have maintained it over time. Race is baked into the history of the US going back to colonial times (Higginbotham, 1998 ; Jones, 1972 , 1997 ) and continuing through early independence when slavery was quietly written into the nation’s Constitution (Waldstreicher, 2009 ). Although the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution ended slavery and granted due process, equal protection, and voting rights to the formerly enslaved, efforts to combat systemic racism in the US faltered when Reconstruction collapsed in the disputed election of 1876, which triggered the withdrawal of federal troops from the South (Foner, 1990 ).

The absence of federal troops to enforce Black civil rights enabled states in the former Confederacy to construct a new system of racial subordination known as Jim Crow (Packard, 2003 ). It rested on a simple principle: in any social encounter, the lowest status White person was superior to the highest status Black person. By law and custom, Black voting rights were suppressed, and Black Americans were socially segregated from Whites, relegated to menial occupations, inferior schools, dilapidated housing, and deficient facilities throughout Southern society. Any challenges to the Jim Crow system, perceived or real, were met with violence, often lethal, both within and outside the legal system (Tolnay & Beck, 1995 ).

From 1876 to 1900, 90% of all African Americans lived in the South and were subject to the dictates of the repressive Jim Crow system; 83% lived in poor rural areas, occupying ramshackle dwellings clustered in small settlements in or near the plantations where they worked. Although conditions were somewhat better for the 10% of African Americans who lived outside the South (68% in cities), anti-Black prejudice was widespread, racial discrimination was common and, as in the South, the prospect of racial violence was never far away (Sugrue, 2008 ).

Before, 1900, few African Americans lived in cities, and levels of urban racial residential segregation were modest. Black workers and servants generally lived within walking distance of their workplaces, and social contact between the races was common (Massey & Denton, 1993 ). At that time, the share of Blacks among city residents was small, and they were not perceived to be a threat to White hegemony, obviating the need for spatial segregation. The Great Black Migration of the twentieth century changed this status quo and transformed race relations in the US, making race truly a national rather than regional issue (Lemann, 1991 ). This transformation also created a new system of racial subordination based on Black residential segregation.

Between 1900 and 1970, millions of African Americans left the rural South in search of better lives in industrializing cities throughout the nation. As a result of this migration, by 1970 nearly half of all African Americans had come to live outside the South, 90% in urban areas (Farley & Allen, 1987 ). It was during this period of Black urbanization that the ghetto emerged as a structural feature of American urbanism, making Black residential segregation into the linchpin of a new system of racial stratification that prevailed throughout the US irrespective of region (Pettigrew, 1979 ).

Black out-migration from the South began slowly at first, but accelerated after 1914, when the onset of the First World War curtailed the arrival of workers from Europe. It accelerated again after 1917, when the US entered the war, boosting labor demand as conscription drew workers out of the labor force. The imposition of strict immigration restrictions in 1921 and 1924 guaranteed that Black workers and their families would continue to pour into cities during the economic boom of the 1920s (Wilkerson, 2010 ). The entry of ever-larger cohorts of impoverished Black laborers and sharecroppers into the nation’s cities unnerved White urbanites, prompting them to organize collectively by creating “neighborhood improvement associations.” These organizations pressured landlords not to rent to Black tenants and tried to convince Black home seekers that it was in their best interest to locate elsewhere, using persuasion and payoffs when possible but resorting to violence when these blandishments failed (Massey & Denton, 1993 ).

As the number of incoming Black migrants continued to rise despite these efforts, White city residents demanded that politicians act to “do something” about the perceived “Black invasion.” Officials in smaller towns and cities responded by enacting “sundown laws” that required all Blacks to leave town by sunset (Loewen, 2018 ). In large cities, legislators passed municipal ordinances that confined Black residents to a specific set of already disadvantaged neighborhoods and excluded them from all others. These ordinances were the functional equivalent of South Africa’s Group Areas Act, which underlay the establishment of that country’s apartheid system in, 1948. These ordinances were widely copied and were spreading rapidly from city to city when, in 1917, the Supreme Court declared them to be unconstitutional (Massey & Denton, 1993 ). Sundown laws, however, were never challenged in court and remained in force well into the Civil Rights Era.

The end of legally mandated neighborhood segregation in cities occurred just as Black migration surged in the aftermath of America’s entry into the First World War. The sudden influx of workers caused existing areas of Black settlement to fill up rapidly and eventually overflow into adjacent White areas, where the arrivals met with increasingly violent resistance. The violence peaked in the late teens as anti-Black race riots swept through the nation’s cities, culminating in the Great Chicago Race Riot of 1919 (Tuttle, 1970 ). Even established Black neighborhoods were not safe, as evidenced by the Tulsa Massacre of 1921, in which the prosperous Black neighborhood of Greenwood was systematically attacked and razed by mobs of White vigilantes, leaving thousands homeless and dozens, perhaps hundreds, killed (Madigan, 2001 ).

Shocked by the wanton destruction of property, the real estate industry moved to institutionalize racial discrimination in housing markets and assert control over the process of racial change in cities (Massey & Denton, 1993 ). In 1924, the National Association of Real Estate Brokers adopted a code of ethics stating that “a Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood a character of property or occupancy, members of any race or nationality, or any individuals whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood” (Helper, 1969 , p. 201). In 1927, the Chicago Real Estate Board devised a model racial covenant to block the entry of Blacks into White neighborhoods and offered it to other cities for adoption throughout the country (Massey & Denton, 1993 ). A racial covenant is a private contract in which property owners within a defined geographic area collectively agree not to rent or sell to African Americans. Once approved by a majority of property owners, the contract became enforceable, and violators could be sued in civil court.

As the real estate industry gradually assumed control of racial change in urban areas, racial violence abated and neighborhood transitions from White to Black came to be managed professionally by realtors who sought to minimize confrontation and maximize profits. As Black migration continued throughout the 1920s, recognized Black neighborhoods steadily increased in density as housing units were divided and subdivided. Basements, garages, attics, and even closets were converted into rental units. Eventually, however, no more living space could be squeezed into the confines of the existing ghetto. Realtors then conspired to move the residential color line, selecting an adjacent neighborhood for racial transition and initiating an institutionalized process known as “block busting” (Philpott, 1978 ).

Realtors began the process by choosing a few poor Black families just arrived from the rural South and obviously unused to city ways to be placed strategically into selected units within the targeted neighborhood. Agents then moved through the neighborhood block by block warning residents of a pending Black “invasion.” Panic selling ensued, enabling realtors to purchase homes cheaply for subdivision into smaller apartments, which were then leased at inflated rents to African Americans desperate for living space. Owing to these institutionalized practices, Black segregation levels steadily climbed through the 1920s and ghetto areas gradually expanded their boundaries through the profitable management of neighborhood racial turnover by realtors (Massey & Denton, 1993 ).

The exclusively private auspices of Black residential segregation ended with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. When Franklin Roosevelt came to power with his New Deal in 1933, the nation was in the midst of a catastrophic banking crisis. Millions of middle-class homeowners had lost jobs and were in danger of defaulting on their mortgages, putting both their homes and their bankers at financial risk. In response, the Roosevelt Administration created the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) to help middle class homeowners refinance their mortgages using long-term, federally insured, low-interest loans (Jackson, 1985 ). Together the federal guarantees and extended amortization periods reduced monthly mortgage payments to affordable levels, saving both the banks and the homeowners from financial losses through foreclosure.

To qualify for the federal guarantees, however, HOLC loans had to meet certain government-mandated criteria. In addition to low interest rates, minimal down payments, and long amortization periods, lenders were obliged to consider the riskiness of the neighborhoods in which properties were located. To this end, HOLC officials worked with local realtors and bankers to create a series of Residential Security Maps for use in cities throughout the nation. These maps color-coded neighborhoods according to their creditworthiness. Green indicated a safe investment, yellow indicated caution, and red indicated excessive risk and hence ineligibility for HOLC lending. Black neighborhoods were invariably coded red, along with adjacent neighborhoods perceived to be at risk of Black settlement (Rothstein, 2017 ).

The HOLC lending program only helped the minority of families that already owned homes, however, and in order to spread housing wealth to a wider population and create jobs in the real estate and construction industries, in 1934 the Roosevelt Administration created a much larger loan program under the Federal Housing Authority. The FHA offered long-term loans to prospective home buyers , not just owners. As before, federally guaranteed loans had to meet federally mandated criteria, which evinced a strong anti-urban bias. Specifically, they excluded from eligibility all multiunit buildings, attached dwellings, row houses, and structures containing a business. These provisions effectively restricted FHA loans to single family houses on large lots, thus channeling housing investment away from central cities toward vacant land on the urban fringes (Jackson, 1985 ).

Reflecting the prejudices of the realtors, bankers, and builders who helped to design the program, FHA underwriters were also required to make use of the HOLC’s Residential Security Maps, formally institutionalizing the practice of redlining in real estate and banking and systematically cutting off investment in Black neighborhoods for decades to come. The FHA Underwriter’s Manual explicitly stated that “if a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes.” In addition to requiring the use of Residential Security Maps, the manual went on to advocate the use of racial covenants to protect FHA-insured properties. When a parallel loan program was created in the Veterans Administration by the 1944 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, it adopted the FHA’s racialized practices and procedures (Katznelson, 2006 ).

The anti-urban biases and discriminatory practices built into federal loan programs had little effect on housing patterns during the 1930s and 1940s owing to the tiny amount of new residential construction that occurred during the Great Depression and Second World War. In the postwar period, however, FHA and VA lending drove forward a massive wave of suburban home construction that made new homes widely accessible to White but not Black households. Given high rents and home prices in central cities owing to the influx of workers during the war years, in the late 1940s and early 1950s it was cheaper to buy a brand-new house in the suburbs than to rent an apartment in the city (Massey & Denton, 1993 ).

The end result was a government-subsidized mass exodus of middle and working class White families from central cities to suburbs, creating a distinctly American urban configuration of Black cities surrounded by White suburbs. The homes left behind by the departing Whites seeking their piece of the American Dream in the suburbs were quickly occupied by Black in-movers coming to the city to take jobs in the still-vibrant urban manufacturing sector. Neighborhood turnover accelerated, and the nation’s urban Black ghettos rapidly expanded, both demographically and geographically (Massey & Denton, 1993 ).

Although neighborhood transitions in the 1950s and 1960s improved Black access to housing in the short term, in the long term the neighborhoods turned into poverty traps. Because of redlining and racial discrimination built into housing and credit markets by federal policies and private practices, once a neighborhood became Black, it was cut off from investment, ensuring that its housing stock and business infrastructure would progressively deteriorate. It also left the Black middle class without a means to finance the purchase of homes, and predatory lenders stepped into the resulting void.

Drawing on their own capital, these lenders purchased homes and then offered to “sell” them to middle class Black families by means of Loan Installment Contracts (Satter, 2009 ). LICs were essentially rent-to-own schemes with high interest rates, bloated monthly payments, and no property rights or transfer of title until the final contract payment was made. Any missed payment could bring about immediate eviction by the property owner, no matter how long the aspiring family had been making payments under the contract.

Other predatory investors also purchased ghetto properties to become landlords, subdividing them into ever-smaller units and leasing them to poor and working class Black tenants at inflated rents (Massey & Denton, 1993 ). Whether city housing was being sold under an installment contract or rented on usurious terms, however, the absentee owners could not themselves get loans to offset depreciation or purchase insurance policies to protect their properties, creating a strong financial incentive for landlords to defer maintenance, minimize capital investment, and extract high rents as long as possible until the properties deteriorated to the point of becoming uninhabitable.

As Black ghettos expanded geographically during the 1950s and 1960s in cities such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, and St. Louis, they ultimately came to encroach on zones in which White elites had place-bound investments in universities, hospitals, museums, and business districts. In desperation, local politicians and civic leaders turned to state and federal agencies for help. Drawing on funding from the National Housing Act, they created locally controlled Urban Renewal Authorities with the power of eminent domain, thereby enabling White interests to gain control of the Black neighborhoods threatening their place-bound investments (Bauman, 1987 ; Hirsch, 1983 ). Once in control of the land, they evicted the residents, razed their homes, and demolished neighborhood businesses, replacing them either with large-scale middle-class housing projects or institutional developments that strategically blocked the expansion of the ghetto toward the threatened White properties, prompting James Baldwin to quip that “urban renewal means Negro removal” (Dickinson, 1963 ).

Because of a “one-for-one rule” embedded within the National Housing Act, for every unit of housing torn down in the name of renewal, planners had to identify another unit into which the displaced tenants could theoretically move. To satisfy this rule, local elites once again turned to the federal government, garnering additional funds authorized by the National Housing Act to construct large public housing projects for families displaced by renewal. Given that the displaced families were Black, it was politically impossible to build the housing project in a White district, so another Black neighborhood was targeted for renewal and torn down to build dense collections of high-rise projects that now had to house two neighborhood’s worth of displaced families (Massey & Denton, 1993 ).

This pairing of urban renewal and public housing did not itself increase the level of Black residential segregation (Bickford & Massey, 1991 ). Segregation levels were already high in the cities where this pairing occurred; but it did dramatically increase the spatial concentration of poverty within the ghetto by replacing relatively class-diverse Black neighborhoods and business districts with tightly packed blocks of high-rise projects in which being poor was a criterion for entry, yielding neighborhood poverty rates of 90% or more (Massey & Kanaiaupuni, 1993 ).

By 1970, high levels of Black residential segregation were universal throughout metropolitan America (Massey & Denton, 1993 ). Footnote 3 As of 1970, 61% of Black Americans living in US metropolitan areas lived under a regime of hypersegregation (Massey & Tannen, 2015 ), a circumstance unique to Americans. Although in theory, segregation should have withered away after the Civil Rights Era, it has not. In 2010, the average index of Black–White segregation remained high and a third of all Black metropolitan residents continued to live in hypersegregated areas (Massey & Tannen, 2015 ). This reality prevails despite the outlawing of racial discrimination in housing (the 1968 Fair Housing Act) and lending (the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act).

Why does modern segregation persist, despite Whites’ reported racial attitudes improving?

Accompanying these legislative changes was a pronounced shift in White racial attitudes. In the early 1960s, more than 60% of White Americans agreed that Whites have a right to keep Blacks out of their neighborhoods. By the 1980s, however, the percentage had dropped to 13% (Schuman et al., 1998 ). The fact that discrimination is illegal, and White support for segregation has plummeted, begs the question of why segregation persists. The reasons are multiple.

First, although the Fair Housing Act banned discrimination in the rental and sale of housing, enforcement mechanisms in the original legislation were eliminated as part of a compromise to secure the bill’s passage (Metcalf, 1988 ). Federal authorities were likewise granted only limited powers to enforce the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Community Reinvestment Act (Massey & Denton, 1993 ).

Although overt discrimination in housing and lending has clearly declined in response to legislation, covert discrimination continues. Rental and sales agents today are less likely to respond to emails from people with stereotypically Black names (Carpusor & Loges, 2006 ; Hanson & Hawley, 2011 ) or to reply to phone messages left by speakers who “sound Black” (Massey & Fischer, 2004 ; Massey & Lundy, 2001 ). A recent meta-analysis of 16 experimental housing audit studies and 19 lending analyses conducted since 1970 revealed that sharp racial differentials in the number of units recommended by realtors and inspected by clients have persisted and that racial gaps in loan denial rates and borrowing cost have barely changed in 40 years (Quillian, Lee, & Honoré, 2020 ).

Audit studies, conducted across the social and behavioral sciences, include a subset of resume studies in which researchers send the same resume out to apply for jobs, but change just one item: the candidate’s name is Lisa Smith or Lakisha Smith. Then, they wait to see who gets the callback. The bias is clear: employers avoid “Black-sounding” names (Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2004 ). In fact, in both Milwaukee’s and New York City’s low-wage job market, Black applicants with no criminal background were called back with the same frequency or less as White applicants just released from prison (Pager, 2003 ; Pager, Western & Bonikowski, 2009 ).

That is, in the minds of hiring managers whose mental make-up is expected to be no different than the readers of this article, a White felon is equivalent to a Black non-felon. The same housing application, the same bank loan application, the same health data, the same behavior, lead to different outcomes depending on the race of the applicant, even though the decision-makers believe they are paying attention to the merits of the case and explicitly not to race, which most decision makers in these studies regard to be irrelevant to the decision.

What makes the problem of systemic racism so perverse is that “good people” with no explicit expression of we would call “racism” are the contributors to such decisions that produce widespread and unnoticed bias, resulting in systemic racism (Banaji & Greenwald, 2013 ). Racial discrimination continues because, although White support for Black segregation may have declined in principle, Whites nonetheless continue to harbor negative racial stereotypes about Black people , which limit their tolerance for integration in practice. Indeed, the willingness of Whites to enter or remain in a neighborhood declines steadily as the percentage of Black neighbors rises (Charles, 2003 ; Emerson, Chai & Yancey, 2001 ). And negative racial stereotyping of Black Americans strongly predicts White opposition to government efforts to enforce Black civil rights (Bobo, Charles, Krysan & Simmons, 2012 ).

In White American social cognition, as later sections elaborate, racial biases remain entrenched both explicitly (Moberg, Krysan & Christianson, 2019 ) and implicitly (Eberhardt, 2019 ). This extends to preferred neighborhoods : Residential searches are inevitably embedded within racialized expectations about neighborhoods and homes that reflect the racially segregated world that most Americans inhabit (Krysan & Crowder, 2017 ). The “correlated characteristics heuristic” relies on a single salient neighborhood trait—in this case racial composition—to represent an area’s acceptability. In White social cognition, the mere presence of Blacks denotes lower property values, higher crime rates, and struggling schools, irrespective of what the objective neighborhood conditions are (Krysan, Couper, Farley & Forman, 2009 ; Quillian & Pager, 2001 , 2010 ). Although Whites in surveys and interviews say they welcome the presence of Black neighbors, in practice Whites avoid neighborhoods containing more than a few Blacks and confine their searches to overwhelmingly White residential areas exhibiting White percentages well above those they report in describing their “ideal” neighborhood on surveys (Krysan & Crowder, 2017 ).

Although rarely admitted, explicit prejudice against Black Americans has hardly disappeared. Google search frequencies on the epithet “nigger” for different metropolitan areas strongly predicted an area’s level of Black residential segregation (Rugh & Massey, 2014 ). This index of explicit racism also strongly predicts the degree to which a city’s suburbs are covered by restrictive density zoning regimes (Massey and Rugh ( 2018 ), a key proximate cause of both racial and class segregation (Rothwell & Massey, 2009 , 2010 ). Owing to the persistence of discrimination, Black Americans are far less able that other Americans to translate their income attainments into residential mobility, greatly compromising their ability to access more integrated and favored neighborhoods (Massey & Denton, 1985 ). As of 2010, the most affluent Black Americans were still more segregated from Whites than the poorest Hispanics (Intrator, Tannen & Massey, 2016 ).

No other group in the history of the US has ever experienced such intense residential segregation in so many areas and over such a long period of time (Massey & Denton, 1993 ; Rugh & Massey, 2014 ). Systemic racism in federal housing policies (Katznelson, 2006 ), real estate (Helper, 1969 ), banking (Ross & Yinger, 2002 ), and insurance (Orren, 1974 ) has ensured a vicious cycle of racial turnover and neighborhood deterioration for most of the past century. As a result, many Black Americans have been compelled to live in societally isolated, economically disadvantaged, physically deteriorated neighborhoods produced and sustained by powerful external forces beyond their ability to control, the precise embodiment of systemic racism.

Because of racial residential segregation and the blocked mobility and spatial concentration of poverty it produces, neighborhoods have become the key nexus for the transmission of Black socioeconomic disadvantage over the life course and across the generations (Sharkey, 2013 ). Half of all Black Americans have lived in the poorest quartile of urban neighborhoods for two consecutive generations, compared with just 7% of Whites, a gap that cannot be explained by individual or family characteristics.

Whereas in the 1960s Black poverty was transmitted across generations by the inheritance of race and the discrimination and exclusion that came with it (Duncan, 1969 ), in the twenty-first century Black poverty is transmitted by the inheritance of place and the concentrated poverty it entails (Massey, 2013 ; Massey & Brodmann, 2014 ; Peterson & Krivo, 2010 ; Sampson, 2012 ; Sharkey, 2013 ). Black disadvantage with respect to income and social mobility is explained almost entirely by the poor neighborhood circumstances they experience (Chetty, Hendren, Jones & Porter, 2020 ; Massey & Brodmann, 2014 ). Racial residential segregation has become linchpin for systemic racism in the US in the twenty-first century (Massey, 2016 , 2020 ).

Discussions of segregation typically highlight how it operates to increase the social isolation of Blacks, but in fact it does more to isolate Whites, who are by far the most spatially isolated group in the US. In 2010, the average Black metropolitan resident lived in a neighborhood that was 45% Black, but the average White metropolitan resident occupied a neighborhood that was 74% White (Massey, 2018 ), and in suburbs the figure rose to 80% (Massey & Tannen, 2017 ). As a result, the advantages of segregation to Whites and the disadvantages to Blacks are invisible to most White Americans.

Feagin ( 1999 , p. 79), put this paradox into perspective by relating the experience of a British immigrant’s confrontation with the realities of race in the US:

Some time after English writer Henry Fairlie emigrated to the USA in the mid-1960s, he visited Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello plantation and took the standard tour. When the White guide asked for questions, Fairlie inquired, “Where did he keep his slaves?” Fairlie reports that the other tourists looked at him in disturbed silence, while the guide “swallowed hard” and said firmly that “the slaves’ quarters are not included in the official tour.” (Fairlie, 1985 .) Housing segregation, and the systemic racism it reveals, are still not on the official tour.”

Two decades later, the question we must answer is whether we are willing, as scientists and citizens, to put housing segregation—and all the other institutions that do so much to dictate the vicissitudes of Black life—on the official tour of the USA.

Systemic racial bias: the role of mental structures and resulting social interactions

We began with institutions and society. Now, we move to individual minds surrounded and shaped by these societal structures. Next, we then move to interacting minds, which further perpetuate societal and individual racial distinctions. Racial bias at each level supports bias at the other levels, creating a racist system.

To understand individual mental structures, we start with unconscious inference, identified by Helmholtz, and its heir, implicit bias, most relevantly as expressed by Whites associating Black racial cues with negative concepts. Socially motivated (mis)perception goes one stage earlier to bias information seeking and interpretation. More specific links among racial bias in perceiving physiognomy, linked to dehumanizing associations, and aggressive behavior close this first section on the individual.

Unconscious inference

Among the intellectuals who contributed to the emergence of experimental psychology as an independent discipline in the nineteenth century was the German polymath, Herman von Helmholtz, whose numerous contributions to science include the concept of “ Unbewuste Schluss ” or “ unconscious inference .” Helmholtz’s concept was simple, but its implications are profound, even more so today with recent advances in the mind and brain sciences. Given the complexity of just the visual world, how are humans to represent it based on their individual-level, meager sensory and perceptual system, which entails the shunting of packets of data from the world outside, through the eyes and into the brain? Helmholtz offered two ideas. First, perception is not veridical, given the complexity of the world and the rudimentary nature of the minds attempting to make sense of it. Second, as implied by the word inference , what one deduces from the evidence provided by the senses is not a replica of what is out there. Rather, mental representations of the physical world are mere approximations.

Whittling the self-esteem of Homo sapiens down further, Helmholtz went on to say that perception is not controllable, but rather that it unfolds automatically. He used a commonplace example to make this point. We know that it is not the Sun that rises, but rather that the Earth revolves around it. But when we sit on our porch at sunrise, and look toward the horizon, we incontrovertibly experience ourselves as being fixed, and the Sun, however bulky, pushing itself up to meet us. To say about the Sun that “it rises” is completely inaccurate yet completely compelling. That incorrect perception is not something over which we have choice. To think otherwise is to delude ourselves.

Helmholtz’s two ideas contained in the phrase “unconscious inference,” with many additional levels of social complexity, summarizes the challenge when we confront systemic racism. On the one hand, we “know” the facts about an economy purportedly mounted on free labor for 250 years, the undelivered promise of 40 acres and a mule, the failure of Reconstruction, the resistance to desegregation, the history of redlining and gerrymandering, a history of unequal access to education, jobs, housing, finance, healthcare, and a lack of equal protection under the law. On the other hand, the limited sensory, perceptual, learning, and memory systems of humans set up a built-in blindness and automatic inferences that generate the illusions that, for instance, White people experience more discrimination than Black people (Norton & Sommers, 2011 ). Or, if Black Americans have any challenges, they have created their own situation in America today (Pettigrew, 1979 ) and therefore are responsible for getting themselves out of that situation. Not that minorities have no illusions, but the illusions of the higher-status group have more consequences because they usually also have more power.

The features of human minds that feed into the production of systemic racism come in two forms: ordinary errors of perception, attention, learning, memory, and reasoning that are the hallmarks of all thinking systems with human-like intelligence. In addition, we add another level of theorizing familiar to psychologists, that of motivated reasoning , the idea that our preferences, goals, and desires can bias our reasoning and lead to prejudicial decisions and outcomes (Fiske & Taylor, 2021 ; Kunda, 1990 ).

Another hallmark of human cognition is the phenomenon of loss aversion , the finding human beings much prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979 ). Even as White Americans resist and deny the reality of systemic racism, they nonetheless feel the loss of White privilege and social status quite keenly, creating powerful resentments that motivate them to reason away the potential existence of systemic racism (Craig & Richeson, 2014 ; Parker, 2021 ).

Implicit racial bias

Beginning in the 1980s, psychologists began to document a puzzling result. Individuals who claimed to have no racial animus showed evidence of negative attitudes and stereotypes toward Black Americans (Devine, 1989 ; Dovidio & Gaertner, 1986 ). Soon, the hunt for methods to better access “implicit bias” (as contrasted with standard, explicit bias measured in surveys) was underway, with specific calls for the invention of better technologies that could bypass conscious awareness or conscious control (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995 ).

One such measure, the Implicit Association Test (IAT), has demonstrated a wide array of group evaluative associations. Typically, people can pair own-group cues faster with positive concepts, and other-group cues faster with negative ones—compared with vice versa. For example, White and other non-Black Americans show robust race bias in their inability to associate “good” and “bad” equally rapidly with the social categories Black and White. The IAT has attracted considerable attention (see Greenwald et al., 2020 , for best practices, reliable effects, and ongoing investigations). A public online location, since 1998, has provided data from millions of tests taken by volunteer participants at http://www.implicit.harvard.edu . Several signature results have replicated multiple times with large samples over time:

Race bias is consistently visible in the data.

A small positive correlation between stated and implicit race attitudes exists, but the two are largely dissociated, i.e., many of those who report being neutral (no negative explicit attitudes toward Black or White Americans), do carry implicit associations of Black + bad and White + good to a larger extent than White + bad and Black + good. This result prompts us to yet again note that the term “racism” has been used by contemporary psychologists to refer to conscious forms of race prejudice and to emphasize its semi-independence from less conscious or implicit forms of race bias. To make this distinction clear, researchers who study implicit race bias have gone to great lengths to reserve the term racism to only refer to conscious expressions of racial animus. Our usage of the term systemic racism in this article is undertaken is in the interest of including all levels of analysis (individual, institutional, societal) and all forms, from the most explicit to the most implicit. The result of a low correlation between explicit racism and implicit race bias makes the point empirically that the two are not the same. Of course, implicit race bias feeds into what may become racism, and for this reason it is best to think about implicit race bias as the roots of racism, not the above ground, visible structure. Implicit race bias also results from systemic racism.

Asian Americans show the same pattern as White Americans, even though as a third-party group in response to a Black–White test, they might be assumed to have neutrality. From the point of view of systemic racism, this is an example of what it means to live in a system of inequity at all levels. Even third-party groups will acquire negative and positive attitudes toward groups that are not their own.

Black Americans express strong positive feelings toward their own group but on the measure of implicit cognition, they show no preference for their own group, with scores of almost any sample of Black Americans showing relative neutrality, i.e., equal association of good and bad for Black and White Americans. This absence of ingroup-favoring attitudes—juxtaposed with the ingroup-favoring lack of neutrality in all other groups in the same society—is open to various interpretations, from moral balance to internalized racism to astute pragmatism; all await other data.

Tests of anti-gay bias revealed it to be quite high in 2007 but steadily dropping off (by 64% since 2013) to be at an all-time low today. By comparison, anti-Black bias has dropped, but to a much lesser extent, by about 25% (Charlesworth & Banaji, in press). A 25% drop-off in race bias is not insignificant, and although the genders differ in magnitude of bias, both men and women are losing bias at equal speed. Although all demographic groups are changing, young Americans are changing faster than older Americans, suggesting that the world they inhabit is signaling a less biased set of attitudes.

Together, these data point to the individual manifestation of systemic racial bias, hidden from view but robustly present. However, psychologists have also gone beyond such demonstrations of basic cognitive associations as markers of implicit mental content to show that individual and institutional change is possible if the will to create change exists.

Socially motivated (mis)perception

The idea of motivated reasoning or motivated cognition gathers several useful ideas to understand how individual humans shape and even distort perception to deal with real or perceived threats to self. Kunda ( 1990 ), for example, posited that the individual need for accuracy is thwarted by the demand to reach a conclusion prior to the evidence being satisfactorily in place and that one’s goals and motives often drive decisions. These decisions reveal many identifiable biases that emerge to weaken the orientation toward accuracy (see Fiske & Taylor, 2021 ).

With more direct focus on motivated reasoning as it concerns social change, Kay et al., ( 2009 ) presented empirical evidence for a motivated tendency to view things as they are and conclude that such a state of affairs exists because it is reasonable and even representative of how things ought to be. The connection to systemic racism is quite clear, as the authors further demonstrate that motivated cognition exists in the interest of justifying sociopolitical systems that maintain inequality and resist change. People justify the status quo, preferring stability especially if they are privileged, but even if not (Jost & Banaji, 1994 ). Groups in a secure position show the cultural equivalent of inertia, seeking stability, but groups on the move express inertia as continuing to move (e.g., acquiring mainstream standing) (Zárate et al., 2019 ).

Two substantive theoretical accounts undergird these ideas as they concern complex interactions of within-person and across-person phenomena such as systemic racism. First, Sidanius and Pratto’s ( 1999 ) Theory of Social Dominance offers evolutionary and cultural evidence to support the idea that hierarchies are an almost obligatory feature of human social groups. A related but independent idea may be found in Jost’s System Justification Theory (Jost, 2020 ), which explicitly makes the case that individuals will sacrifice self and group interest in order to maintain larger “systems” of social arrangements and work to keep them in place. The reason, Jost argues, is that such a motivation serves to meet deep psychological needs for certainty, security, and acceptance by others. The overarching social structure is important to protect because if it is stable, then all within it will be safe, including those disadvantaged by established hierarchies.

Perception of phenotypes, deadly associations, and system-maintaining behavior

With regard to perceptions of race, the mere categorization of someone as Black shifts perceptions of their phenotype. For example, a series of experiments documented that people’s knowledge about race phenotypes drives perception of lightness of the skin tone (Levin & Banaji, 2006 ). In other words, experiments held skin-tone constant and varied only the features, from Afrocentric to Eurocentric; this variation in features shifts perception of skin tone, such that Afrocentric faces are viewed to be darker skinned than Eurocentric ones, despite the same gray-scale tone.

Skin tone and features are critical cues to make life and death decisions, especially in ambiguous situations that are often present in so many interactions between police and Black citizens. In simulations of police-citizen encounters, people are more likely to “shoot” unarmed Black men than otherwise equally unarmed White men (Correll, Wittenbrink, Park, Judd, & Goyle, 2010 ). Black men with more phenotypically Black features are more likely to receive the death penalty for murdering a White person, holding constant the features of the crime (Eberhardt, 2019 ). The phenotypicality effect extends even to Whites with Afrocentric features (Blair, Judd, & Chapleau, 2004 ). Judgments of criminality can be primed by a Black face (Eberhardt, 2019 ).

And there’s more: the race–crime association overlaps the dehumanizing association of Black faces with great ape faces, that Staples ( 2018 ) called the “racist trope that won’t die”; Goff, Eberhardt, Williams and Jackson ( 2008 ) provide evidence from policing that links apes and Black people, from the first moments of perception to the radio dispatch and other media, with systemic implications. In more recent work, Morehouse et al., ( 2021 ) have shown that White Americans associate White with human and Black, Asian, and Latinx with animal with greater ease than the opposite pairing (White with animal), regardless of the category of animal (generic or specific). Implicit racial biases (Whites favoring Whites) are consequential, correlating with judged trustworthiness and economic investment (Stanley, Sokol-Hessner, Banaji & Phelps, 2011 ).

More recently, Kurdi et al., ( 2021 ) measured attitudes toward a phenotypic feature that happens to be a dominant perceptual marker of race, Afrocentric and Eurocentric types of hair. First participants took an IAT measuring their implicit attitude toward Black women with natural or straightened hair. Then, subjects read a summary of a real legal case involving a corporation that fired a Black employee for refusing to change her natural hair ( Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Catastrophe Management Solutions , 2016). The more negative the implicit attitude toward Afrocentric hair, the greater the sympathy with the corporation’s position rather than the plaintiff’s position in the legal case.

A relatively new approach to racial associations comes with the promise of epitomizing the term “systemic” in systemic racism. These are studies of large language corpora that are now possible using machine learning approaches to natural language. With the increasing availability of trained datasets—including large samples of the language of the Internet (content archives continuously collected by the nonprofit Common Crawl) or specific trained datasets of media such as books, TV shows, etc.—allow measuring the extent to which language contains attitudes and beliefs about Black and White Americans across time. Charlesworth and Banaji (in preparation) analyzed data from Google Books from 1800 to 1990. Setting aside the data from older books to focus on whether bias is present in the language today, these are the traits most associated with Black Americans (and not with White Americans) in the late twentieth century: earthy, lonely, sensual, cruel, lifeless, deceitful, meek, rebellious, headstrong, lazy . By contrast, these are the traits associated with White Americans (and not with Black Americans): critical, decisive, hostile, friendly, polite, able, diplomatic, belligerent, understanding, confident . Other work in natural language processing (NLP) sorts adjectives into 13 stereotype-content dictionaries (Nicolas, Bai, & Fiske, 2021 ). The above adjectives convey ambivalent reactions to Black Americans on several dimensions, but notably neglect competence; Whites in contrast feature several competence adjectives. NLP allows efficient analysis of language in the culture or in spontaneous, open-ended descriptions (Nicolas, Bai, & Fiske, under review). Footnote 4

Words have an important role to play. People often express surprise about implicit biases in the minds of individuals who have no intent to harbor them. Considering how and why it occurs—plausible mechanisms—may prove convincing. One causal candidate is language , the predominant way humans communicate and express themselves. Words undertake much of the labor of creating racism in thoughts and feelings that are reflected in speech. Machine learning approaches to understanding racial bias in language will likely be a critical method to objectively uncover how words, spoken and written, create systemic racism. That is, linguistic patterns connect groups with valenced concepts, and the repeated pairings create associations. Without awareness, language produces the inbuilt in the architecture of social cognition (as an example, the NLP stereotype-dimensions dictionaries capture more than 80% of spontaneous stereotype content; Nicolas, Bai, & Fiske, under review).

From cognitive racial bias to aggregate racialized behavior

Individual implicit attitudes have been repeatedly shown to predict behavior; Kurdi et al. ( 2019 ) offer the largest number of studies included in a meta-analysis to date. However, as the authors note, the actual attitude–behavior relationship is marred by the poor quality of many studies, especially given the lack of psychometric control over the predicted behavior. Among the controversies that have marked this work is an intriguing idea put forth by Payne, Vuletich and Lundberg ( 2017 ), who proposed that the small correlations between individual attitude and behavior must be acknowledged as a function of what they call the “bias of crowds,” the idea that an individual’s behavior is determined by the larger social context in which that individual exists. A number of studies have appeared recently to challenge the idea that individual attitude–behavior correlations is the right place to be looking. That the actual correlation between implicit attitude and behavior is larger than it may have appeared has been revealed in a series of studies that predict behavior at the aggregate level by using aggregate IAT scores by region, such as metropolitan areas, counties, and states. Charlesworth and Banaji ( 2021 ) reviewed these studies to demonstrate more substantive relationships between IAT racial bias and consequential social outcomes.

For example, the studies reviewed reveal that the greater the implicit bias against Blacks in a region (using average IAT scores of a region) the greater is the lethal use of force by police, the greater the Black American deaths from circulatory diseases, the lower is spending on Medicaid disability programs (more likely to assist Black Americans), the greater the Black–White gap in infant low birth weight and preterm births, the greater the Black–White gap in school disciplining (suspension, law enforcement referrals, expulsions, in-school arrests), the Black–White gap in standardized testing scores (3rd–8th grade for math and English), and lower upward mobility.

To grasp the meaning of systemic racism as it exists at the individual level within larger society, not just in a single moment by across time, a study by Payne, Vuletich and Brown-Iannuzzi ( 2019 ) is illustrative. Their analysis of IAT data today yields strong correlations with the ratio of enslaved to free people in the southern US in 1860. States with a larger ratio in 1860 are the states with greater race bias today, 160 years later (r = 0.64). This correlation is much larger in magnitude than even the correlation between regional IAT race bias and Black American representation across the US (r = 0.32). As Charlesworth and Banaji ( 2021 ) note, “the result also suggests that today’s Americans who live in regions with greater historical legacies of slavery must be acquiring the particles of race bias embedded in the social atmosphere. Systemic discrimination is a useful term in this case as it helps capture the pervasiveness of race bias as it extends across both space and time.”

Summary. As explicit bias decreased, measured forms of implicit bias have persisted, potentially attributable to racial segregation. White Americans have limited direct experience with Black Americans, so cultural associations substitute for more individuated impressions. Implicit associations of “Black-bad” and “White-good” are weakening, but far from neutral. Meanwhile, socially motivated (mis)perception favors these system-justifying biases. Together, they support a syndrome linking racial phenotypes, deadly associations, and system-maintaining behavior. Further, cognitive racial biases underpin aggregate racialized behavior. These are some cognitive-motivational mechanisms of systemic racism. Other mechanisms involve everyday interactions that perpetuate bias. In particular, predictable patterns of disrespect and distrust maintain the interpersonal racial divide.

Racialized social interactions

Face-to-face behavior propagates bias. Individuals carry racial biases into their social settings largely by interacting with others. Repeated patterns of behavior that differ by race are, at a minimum, racialized (defined by race) and often experienced as racist. Individual racial biases, enacted in daily life, perpetuate bias, which then links the individual to the norms, scripts, and habits that constitute the social system. Interpersonal interaction conveys bias, intentionally or not. In scores of studies, White Americans distance themselves from Black interaction partners, express non-verbal discomfort, and avoid them (e.g., Dovidio, Kawakami & Gaertner, 2002 ; Richeson & Shelton, 2007 ; Word, Zanna & Cooper, 1974 ). In the aggregate, these patterns constitute the concrete manifestations of a racially biased social system.

We have already seen White people’s generically negative default associations with Black Americans, linking them to crime (untrustworthy) and to animals (incompetent). These reflect the two key stereotype dimensions in intergroup perception (Fiske, 2018 ): warmth and competence. These dimensions organize people’s perceptions of social systems: perceived competence reflects groups’ stereotypic status in society. The hierarchy supposedly reflects merit, so rank predicts their supposed competence and evokes respect—or supposed incompetence and disrespect. Besides groups’ status (competence), the other aspect of social structure is groups’ apparent cooperative or competitive goals, interdependencies that stereotypically predict warmth and trustworthiness. Cooperators on our side are nice; competitors are not. Stereotypes derive from social structural perceptions (status and interdependence), especially when people learn about others they might encounter (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick & Xu, 2002 ; Nicolas et al., 2021 ). Black Americans do not get a break on either dimension. And because these racialized perceptions derive from social structure, they pave the way for systemic racism. Consider the evidence for these two dimensions: competence and warmth in racialized perceptions and behavior.

Disrespect communicates Whites’ view of Blacks as low status and incompetent

The default representation of Black Americans is low status (Dupree, Torrez, Obioha & Fiske, 2021 ). Whites spontaneously associate Black faces with low-status jobs, compared to Whites. The structural belief that Blacks are low status appears in associating them with jobs such as janitor, dishwasher, garbage collector, taxi driver, cashier, maid, prostitute. This race–status association correlates with endorsing social dominance (believing that some groups inevitably dominate others, and it is better that way) and with meritocracy (group get what they deserve). All these judgments share a common element of disrespect and assumed incompetence.

Race–status associations emerge in behavior that maintains Black people at the bottom of the hierarchy. Respondents endorsed Black applicants for lower status jobs and withheld support for organizations and government policies aiding minorities. Thus, racialized associations, assumptions, and preferences all identify a view of Black people's structural position as low status, on average. Behavior communicates these attitudes, whether examined or not. Thus, race–status associations imply Black incompetence, covarying with feeling-thermometer (0–100) ratings of interracial bias, social dominance orientation, meritocracy beliefs, as well as hierarchy-maintaining hiring and policy preferences.

Disrespectful behavior that presumes incompetence of Blacks appears in another series of studies. Well-meaning liberals, expected to introduce themselves to a Black partner, dumbed-down their speech, as they did in vocabulary for a task assignment (Dupree & Fiske, 2019 ). Similarly, White Democratic presidential candidates also showed a competence downshift in speeches to minority audiences only (Dupree & Fiske, 2019 ).

This pattern reproduces itself when respondents imagine introducing themselves to a lower-status person (race unspecified) at work (Swencionis & Fiske, 2016 ). They claim their goal is to communicate their own warmth (as they downplay their competence), but this rests on the presumption of the other’s incompetence. Trying to be folksy does not communicate respect.

The presumption that structural status predicts competence is widespread (averaging r > 0.80 across US and international samples; Fiske & Durante, 2016 ). The implication is that for most White Americans, the association that pops into their minds will link a Black person with incompetence. People communicate such disrespect by failing to bet on or invest in the other’s performance (Walsh, Vaida, & Fiske, under review).

Structurally, this amounts to racism. Black people are widely perceived as inferior in these ways, which are baked into the social hierarchy, reflecting disrespectful patterns of interpersonal behavior. All of this perpetuates the social hierarchy and the image of Blacks as incompetent.

Worse yet, disrespect surfaces in police encountering Black drivers. From the first moment (“Hey” instead of “Sir” or “Ma’am”), police officer language shows computationally derived, measurably lower respect (Voigt et al., 2017 ). Given the already fraught relationships between police and Black community members, this worsens an already dangerous encounter and undermines the chances to create trust.

Distrust communicates Whites’ views of Blacks as uncooperative and not warm

Besides incompetence, the other major dimension of social cognition is warmth (trustworthy, friendly), as noted. The default stereotype of a Black person is probably also untrustworthy, but the data on this point are surprisingly indirect. Whites can be expected to distrust Blacks as part of the larger principle that, categorically, people mistrust outgroups. More specifically, as noted, Whites associate Blacks with crime, which certainly undermines trust. Footnote 5 This configuration fits survey data showing that ratings of poor (i.e., explicitly low-status) Black people allege incompetence (disrespecting them) but also lack of warmth (distrusting them).

Plotting these ratings in a warmth x competence space, poor Blacks are frequently judged as low on both. Because White Americans link race and status, the low-income Black person is the default Black person, allegedly incompetent, but also untrustworthy. Mistrust is indicated by excessive surveillance of Black Americans (driving while Black, shopping while Black, false accusations of theft or assault, police shootings…). Footnote 6

Distrust can be operationalized as behavior: In the economic Trust Game, a player must decide how much of their starting endowment to share, on the knowledge that it will be tripled, and on the hope that their partner will share back, generously. Incentivized trust-game behavior closely tracks warmth ratings; that is, societal groups rated as low warmth and untrustworthy receive less shared endowment, presumably because they are not trusted to share it back. In nationally representative samples, people of color do not fare well in the Trust Game (Walsh et al., under review). In more prosaic settings, non-verbal behavior reveals unmonitored dislike (if not specifically mistrust), as noted.

Black Americans experience repeated treatment as incompetent and untrustworthy. Because this stereotype and ensuing behavior is racially category-based and negative, as well as potentially controllable, it is racist. Because the behavior comes from societal stereotypes, which come from social structure, Footnote 7 it is systemic.

Whites’ potential control implies responsibility for reinforcing system racism

Racialized interactions could also be termed racist, in the sense that White people could potentially observe their own inequitable behavior if they chose (Fiske, 1989 ). People rarely examine these unwritten rules, typical behaviors, but conceivably they could, so “unexamined” bias captures the higher potential control for behavior than for implicit associations. Control implies responsibility in the minds of lay people and the law, so this interpretation of “racialized” as “racist” creates concern and is likely to be contested. But the science makes the empirical point here that racialized social behavior is demonstrably controllable, given sufficient incentive (Monteith, Lybarger & Woodcock, 2009 ; Sinclair, Lowery, Hardin & Colangelo, 2005 ). So systematically different behavior by race reflects a racist habit, script, or norm, the components of a system from the bottom up.

The challenge in controlling racist habits is that they are the cultural default. Much of this systematic behavior results from White Americans’ inexperience with Black Americans, thereby substituting societal representations for individuating information about the unique human (Fiske & Neuberg, 1990 ). People use especially those default representations that fit their natural human tendency to detect and prefer people they view as similar to themselves. To unpack this, consider some basic principles of affiliation that would predispose Whites to favor other Whites and exclude Black people. First is the basic tendency to categorize others and to favor those of the ingroup. For decades, principles of attraction have established its foundations in similarity (Byrne, 1971 ; Montoya & Horton, 2013 ) or homophily (McPherson, Smith-Lovin & Cook, 2001 ). And mere categorization suffices to produce ingroup favoritism (Tajfel & Turner, 1979 ). No animus is necessary, although it easily develops. As a basis for categorization, race is arbitrary (more so than gender and age; Kurzban, Tooby & Cosmides, 2001 ) but common (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999 ). Thus, race-based ingroup favoritism is a default, in the absence of other experience. Footnote 8 This makes it hard to over-ride.

Societal segregation by race makes difficulties for overcoming the racial default. Segregation limits White exposure to Blacks, undermining their direct experience, leaving Whites to rely on cognitive shortcuts to represent Blacks as a group. Indeed, the less exposure people have to outgroups, the more clearly they differentiate among them–stereotypically. That is, White Americans who know the least about other races have the clearest stereotypes about them; the less diversity, the more differentiated their cognitive representations (Bai, Ramos & Fiske, 2020 ).

What’s wrong with that?

As a scientific question, a skeptic might ask, what’s wrong with differentiating by stereotypes? One set of answers concerns the demeaning individual and face-to-face interaction, just addressed. The other answers pertain to sheer demographic diversity of Black Americans, covered next.

Given its racial history and ongoing systems, societal patterns and cultural stereotypes prevailing in the US tend to associate Blacks with low status and Whites with high status as noted. To the extent this race–status association has a kernel of statistical accuracy (Blacks are over-represented in low-status jobs), it fails several tests as an argument for using stereotypes as a constructive strategy of intergroup relations. First, it ignores variability, individuality, and (especially) Black diversity. Second, category-based thinking exaggerates perceived between-group variability and minimizes perceived within-group variability (Tajfel & Turner 1979 ; Taylor, Fiske, Etcoff & Ruderman, 1978 ). So “nouns that cut slices” (Allport’s, 1954 felicitous phrase for category labels) do violence to the human data. What’s more, society has civil rights laws protecting people from being judged by their group membership, so the consensus is that this is not only wrong, but illegal.

Race–status associations, in practice, ignore all the structural contributors to race–status associations, such as the neighborhood effects, already described. Whites assume meritocracy, believing that status accurately reflects individual competence (Fiske, Dupree, Nicolas & Swencionis, 2016 ); globally, the perceived status—perceived competence correlation hovers around 0.80. (The only countries where people are more cynical about the status-merit link are former Communist ones; Grigoryan et al., 2020 .) The point here is that status has many antecedents, and not all of them are merit (or other personal, stereotypical explanations, e.g., innately good/bad at math). Systemic factors such as neighborhood, school, family resources, connections, and especially race all receive no mention in the meritocracy account.

Whites do differentiate Black Americans by subcategories, e.g., by status, specifically social class, viewing low-income Black people as incompetent and untrustworthy, but Black professionals as competent and trustworthy (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick & Xu, 2002 ). Black Americans themselves differentiate several subtypes of Blacks likewise along a social-class dimension (Fiske, Bergsieker, Russell & Williams, 2009 ).

Status-keeping shortcuts are easier to maintain without information to the contrary, such as experiencing human variability. Whites with less exposure to Blacks are more overtly prejudiced as a function of structural features such as rural residence, where they encounter less diversity (Bai et al., 2020 ), and lack of education, where they experience less variability of ideas. As a structural matter, segregated White rural residence also predicts lower school quality partly because of the American policy of locally funding schools; this creates an association between a weaker tax base, rural location, ethnic homogeneity, and overt bias. These systemic factors interact to produce prejudice. As an earlier section shows, the social structure permeates American arrangements since the arrival of Whites on native lands.

Nevertheless, for most Whites, their isolated lives make them inexperienced about their Black fellow citizens. Housing segregation disfavors most Whites in experience with diversity, making them often inept and naïve when speaking about issues that are facts of Black lives. This means that Whites rely on cultural shortcuts to understand the Black people whose life experience they do not know. These cognitive representations derive from perceived structural patterns such as race–status associations and race-resource unfairness (Krysan & Crowder, 2017 ).

We have seen that Whites’ racial beliefs are relatively automatic (implicit bias) and ambivalent (warmth/competence). The resulting associations (stereotypes) are more subtle than most people believe. They are consequently hard for anyone to detect in themselves (unexamined) or in any one person (under the radar), but the patterns appear systemically as aggregate biases. Supposing the aggregate biases are problematic, at least because they ignore variability, examine that more closely.

Aggregate bias ignores diversity

So far, this review has described the relentless systems of racism that limit opportunity and outcomes by race. Many Black Americans nevertheless succeed despite the rigged system. Black diversity thus results from those who escape the system, but also from African and Caribbean immigration, and from intermarriage. For Black students enrolled at selective colleges, especially, the diversity of their backgrounds is the main fact that underscores their success (Charles, Kramer, Massey & Torres, 2021 ). Any given White student’s background is far more predictable than any given Black student’s, which potentially ranges from extreme disadvantage to extreme wealth. For that minority (a third) of Black students whose segregated neighborhoods entail underfunded schools, gang violence, and concentrated police violence, their presence in college testifies to extraordinary resilience (Charles, Fischer, Mooney & Massey, 2009 ).

Most non-Black people do not realize that Black Americans are more diverse than most American ethnic groups. Underestimating their variety allows an oversimplified image to dominate every level, from mind to society, making it a systemic racism. This section describes diversity based on place, intermarriage, immigrant experience, parent education, and sheer escape.

A century ago, most Black Americans lived in the rural South, but after the Great Migration, most lived in cities, often in the North, usually hyper-segregated, but with family roots in both the North and South. By the turn of the current century, Black American student bodies at selective colleges were the most diverse in history, more biracial, more immigrant, more middle or upper class, and equally identifying themselves as both American and as Black (Charles et al., 2021 ). Black students, even as elites, show “unprecedented variation in terms of racial origins, skin tone, nativity, generation, class, and segregation” (Charles et al., 2021 , Ch. 10).

Clusters of characteristics and attitudes illustrate the variety. Mixed-race students identify less with being Black, are comfortable with both Blacks and Whites, see Whites as less discriminatory, and report deep parental involvement in their schooling and cultural experiences. Mixed race students also have more White friends and fewer Black friends than their monoracial peers and are more likely to date outside the group, especially with Whites. In addition, mixed-race students are less likely to join majority-Black organizations on campus, and thus report less intense interaction with Blacks . Psychologically, the White view of biracial individuals continues to demonstrate hypodescent, i.e., the view that biracial individuals belong to the less advantaged group, or the cognitive expression of the “one drop rule.” Combining the sociological and psychological angle demonstrates the lack of consistency between how biracial Americans are viewed and the way they see themselves.

Black students with an immigrant background are most comfortable with other Black students, and report having strict parents who expect obedience, respect, hard work, and family loyalty without hands-on, hovering involvement. First-generation immigrants, especially African immigrants (versus Caribbean ones), believe in meritocracy and see Whites as not so discriminatory. After a generation, idealism gives way to pragmatism: Hard work pays off. African immigrant origins predict reliably higher grades.

As for segregation, Black students growing up with more exposure to Whites feel closer to them but also view Whites as more discriminatory, a psychologically complex mental state to manage. In contrast, living in segregated neighborhoods especially exposes Black students to higher (the top third) levels of disorder and violence, leading them to view Whites as more distant and discriminatory. But parents are more protective, relying on strict discipline but not trying to use shame or guilt as an influence strategy (more frequent in Asian families).

As with all students, high-school GPA predicts college GPA. Besides that, again as with all students, Black women do better than Black men, as do those with educated parents . Differences in academic preparation vary by segregation in two ways: the more White students in their schools, the worse Black students’ grades but the higher their SATs, suggesting more rigorous standards. Thus, the portraits of Black college students are diverse; generalizations are unreliable, except perhaps for one: resilience in the face of systemic bias and a diversity of adaptations to a variety of challenges.

We document Black diversity here for these reasons: First, to avoid making the litany of systemic Black disadvantages the sole image conveyed here. Second, because of segregation, many White people, including University faculty, see a Black person on campus and—assuming they realize this is a student—they presume the person comes from a low-income background, unprepared for college, with uneducated parents, native born, but with little experience outside the imagined ghetto, etc. This may be true for some small fraction of students, but not just the Black ones, and not true of most Black students on campus today. A third reason to remind the reader of Black diversity on campus is to highlight experiences of inter-racial contact as important one mechanism for overcoming racial bias, and—if scaled up to integrated neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces—for shifting systemic racism.

Contact: exposure to racial diversity

People with least exposure to diversity have the most differentiated images of the outgroups they have never met (Bai et al., 2020 ). And the prospect and first experience of diversity is not salutary; newly diverse contexts show lower well-being (Putnam, 2007 ; Ramos, Bennett, Massey & Hewstone, 2019 ). But over time, people get used to each other: well-being is higher and stereotypes melt into each, forming an undifferentiated cluster of people like us, mostly warm and competent.

Psychology has 70 years of research to explain how this works, following Allport’s ( 1954 ) contact hypothesis. In one meta-analytic perspective (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006 ), intergroup contact reduces prejudice, the more it meets Allport’s conditions: shared goals, non-trivial interactions, authority sanctions, and rewarding results. Much of the process seems to be affect-driven. If the contact setting would afford the opportunity for friendship, the contact effect is stronger (Tropp & Pettigrew, 2005 ). This is a useful reminder that much prejudice is emotional, not cognitive. In fact, a meta-analysis of 50 years of research on racist attitudes found that they predict racist behavior the most when they are emotions (“hating them”) rather than stereotypes (“they are lazy”) or even simple evaluations (2 on a 5-point scale) (Talaska et al., 2008 ).

Nevertheless, the core element of successful contact, goal interdependence, does operate via information processing. In laboratory experiments, interdependence makes people attend specifically to unexpected, stereotype-inconsistent information, and they make dispositional inferences, generating an individualized coherent impression of the teammate (Ames & Fiske, 2013 ; Erber & Fiske, 1984 ). Neural signatures of mindreading prominently include the mPFC regions that reliably activate when people are inferring another’s predispositions. The mind-reading mPFC activates most for an interdependent partner’s stereotype-inconsistent attributes. Although supporting evidence includes these mechanisms, a subsequent meta-analysis (Paluck, Porat, Clark & Green, 2021 ) notes that few high-quality intergroup studies have focused on race per se, few look at adults, few are experiments. We have much to learn.

Conclusion: systemic racism is individual/interpersonal and institutional/societal but rarely recognized

Segregated housing disadvantages many Black Americans, and its effects are far-reaching, not only in life opportunities and outcomes (education, employment, health, well-being) but also in the psychology of systemic racism. We have argued that case here. Most Whites fail to recognize and appreciate the growing diversity of America’s Black population, which has arisen from a mixture of Black resilience, a growing middle class, rising intermarriage, and global-South immigration. Generally, White Americans—because of the segregation perpetuated to sustain their advantage—have limited exposure to Black Americans, so their knowledge is indirect, and based on cultural caricatures. Segregation allows White people to be clueless about race, and because racial bias is more automatic, ambiguous, and ambivalent than people think, they fail to detect it in themselves and others. As a result, White people have many unexamined biases, undergirded by earlier stages of information processing (e.g., attention, perception, learning, memory, reasoning) that sustain such a lack of awareness. These cognitive errors and biases stem from lack of exposure, lack of the accurate evidence, and a lack of necessary knowledge.

The assumption here is that if people were simply made aware of the facts that have been described in the earlier sections, they would slap their palm to their head and immediately vote for reparations. But as readers may no doubt deduce on their own, confronting accurate data and internalizing it is not a smooth or pretty process. That our minds resist information that challenges certain types of prior beliefs is a fundamental discovery from the mind sciences. Basic cognitive processes such as motivated cognition help to maintain a lack of awareness of racial experiences as they exist on the ground. But no lack of awareness need exist.

The human ability for conscious awareness, deliberate thought, and the motivation to link values to behavior cannot be underestimated as vehicles of change. We have accomplished this regarding how we understand the relationship of Earth to our Sun, so we know it is not as it seems. If we choose, we can similarly put our minds to derive the best evidence to learn about the presence or absence of systemic racism. If we can acquire the appropriate knowledge (often hidden from our conscious perception), we will be more likely to remain open to evidence that shows its presence.

If we do not undertake this effort, it is at our own peril. If, in the twenty-first century, we cannot mount a new struggle to see the social world for what it is, we are by choice dooming ourselves to extended ignorance that will be costly to us, our society, and the world we inevitably leave to our descendants. Earlier we provided evidence about unexpected (by scientists) decreases in implicit sexuality bias (massive drop) and race bias (more modest change) since 2007. These data provide optimism that mental content that we cannot change at will is nonetheless capable of movement toward racial neutrality across the US.

In other words, who-we-have-been need not be the future-selves-we-are-becoming. Here, we demonstrated that grappling with the correct data is a necessary step on the path to understanding our role in the creation of systemic racism. Among the blind spots that we will need to shake off, once and for all, is the belief that racism is the product of a few bad people in our society, and that removing them from power will suffice to deal with the issue.

Space and time preclude our covering the targets’ perspective, identity, resilience. Nor do we cover racial socialization in children.

Through the sensory and perceptual systems granted to our species by evolution, these dyadic and small-group social interactions evolve into larger and larger social units, such as the hundreds of so-called friends or millions of so-called followers on more recent forms of social media. Today we transcend ancestral, small-group interactions to generate larger-scale groups whose interactions occur on an exponential scale. The internet provides avenues for the high-speed transmission of individual attitudes, beliefs, values, as well as for propelling action across communities and nations. These communications have the potential to spread both social good and social harm, with explicit racial animus and implicit prejudicial bias being examples of the latter.

Using the most common measure of segregation (the dissimilarity index), in that year 94% Black metropolitan residents lived under conditions of “high” segregation (an index of 60 or greater on a 0–100 scale), meaning that at least 60% of Blacks would have to exchange neighborhoods with Whites to achieve an even distribution of the races across neighborhoods (Rugh & Massey, 2014 ). Moreover, in a subset of metropolitan areas, not only were Black residents unevenly distributed across neighborhoods, they were also isolated within overwhelmingly Black districts that were themselves densely clustered near the central business district, a geographic pattern that Massey and Denton ( 1989 ) labeled "hypersegregation.”

The NLP fits more traditional findings, a form of cross-validation. Based on content analysis of an 84-adjective checklist, the language describing Black Americans did not change much, across samples from 1933 to 2007 (Bergsieker, Leslie, Constantine, & Fiske, 2012 , Study 4): The most recent data describe ambivalent view of sociality (aggressive, gregarious, passionate), and some specific stereotypes (loud, talkative, religious, loyal to family, sportsmanlike, musical, materialistic), but saying nothing about competence. Neglecting to mention an obvious dimension can reveal taboo topics, stereotyping by omission (Bergsieker et al., 2012 ).

Black people may distrust Whites, too, but they have less standing (status and power) to do damage.

An odd anomaly: Abundant research describes Black people’s generalized trust as lower then Whites’ generalized trust. Also, social science has studied Black Americans’ mistrust of government, business, healthcare, and education systems that have historically abused them (see next section). This would hardly seem puzzling enough to be the lion’s share of the trust literature and to eclipse White Americans’ pockets of mistrust. Specifically, no one seems to study Whites’ mistrust of Black people. Overlooking the obvious is one symptom of a systemic bias.

The combination of status-competence and warmth-trustworthiness creates remarkably stable perceptions of social structure (Durante et al., 2015). In social systems across the globe, middle classes are stereotypically competent and warm (trustworthy) whereas homeless people are neither. And in the mixed quadrants, rich people seem competent but cold, whereas old people seem well-intentioned but incompetent. These class and age patterns are nearly universal. In contrast, ethnic, racial, religious, and other cultural stereotypes are accidents of history, reflecting what subset of a group arrived under what circumstances. Compare stereotypes of Chinese railroad workers in the nineteenth century to stereotypes of Chinese entrepreneurs in the twenty-first century.

Implicit bias is difficult to monitor, as noted. Yet another way that prejudice goes undetected, is in its modern form, of being exhibited less as outgroup harm and instead as ingroup help (Greenwald & Pettigrew, 2014 ). Despite this ambiguity, the net effect is the same—just harder to detect, and even lauded, because helping is a prosocial act that garners praise.

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Banaji, M.R., Fiske, S.T. & Massey, D.S. Systemic racism: individuals and interactions, institutions and society. Cogn. Research 6 , 82 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00349-3

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Mitigating the Negative Mental Health Impact of Racism on Black Adolescents—A Preventive Perspective

1 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
2 Division of Addiction Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
3 Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
4 Center for Behavioral Health and Wellness, Boston Public Health Commission, Boston, Massachusetts
Original Investigation Family-Centered Prevention to Reduce Depressive Symptoms Among Black Adolescents Steven M. Kogan, PhD; Elizabeth Kwon, PhD; Gene H. Brody, PhD; Rabeeh Azarmehr, MA; Ava J. Reck, MS; Tracy Anderson, PhD; Megan Sperr, MPA JAMA Network Open

Racism is a public health crisis with adverse mental health impacts that affect youths and endure from adolescence through adulthood. 1 The intricate fabric of racism in the United States represents a multilevel, multidimensional, and pervasive context that systematically engenders racial disparities across generations and throughout individuals’ lives. 2 As a firmly entrenched element of our society, racism goes beyond isolated incidents of bias to infuse the systems and structures that define everyday life. The adverse impacts of racism, particularly on mental health among Black adolescents, are devastating and widespread. 3 The link between racial discrimination and negative mental health outcomes, including depression, has been well established by a vast body of research. 4

In this growing awareness era, deepening our understanding of these implications and developing effective preventive interventions is critical. Herein lies the importance of the study by Kogan et al. 5 The study by Kogan et al 5 rigorously demonstrates the positive mental health impact that a culturally tailored prevention program, Strong African American Families (SAAF), can have on Black adolescents through a secondary analysis focused on moderation effects. SAAF is a 7-session program targeting youth aged 10 to 14 years and their caregivers. 5 SAAF aims to capitalize on the strength of Black families, support parents and children during the pivotal transition to teen years, and ultimately prevent substance use. 5

The data in the study by Kogan et al 5 came from a randomized prevention trial, conducted between June 2013 and June 2019, that included 472 Black adolescents and their primary caregivers from 7 rural counties in Georgia. Participants were drawn from lists of Black fifth-grade students in regional public schools. The post hoc analysis by Kogan et al 5 found that exposure to racial discrimination at age 13 years was associated with increased depressive symptoms at age 14 years. The researchers’ findings contribute to the evolving body of evidence emphasizing the significant mental health burden that racial discrimination places on Black youth. 6 , 7 The multigroup analyses by Kogan et al 5 indicated that experimental conditions significantly moderated the association of racial discrimination with depressive symptoms.

While the original SAAF study was meticulously conducted with a broad demographic reach, its primary focus was on a specific subset: rural US Black adolescents. As a result, the post-hoc analysis by Kogan et al 5 carries this inherent limitation. This means that their findings might not fully apply to urban Black individuals or other racial and ethnic groups. Nonetheless, the research offers significant insight into the effects of racial discrimination on Black adolescents’ mental health. 5

Placing this study by Kogan et al 5 in the context of earlier research and the current state of science on racial discrimination and mental health, it becomes evident how it complements and expands on prior work. For example, a study by Seaton and Linda 4 explored the association of daily exposure to racial discrimination with racial identity among Black youth and found a strong association, but their study did not delve into potential mitigation strategies. In contrast, Kogan et al 5 not only substantiate this association but also venture further by evaluating the effect of a preventative intervention program, providing a potential solution for the mental health challenges Black adolescents face due to racial discrimination. The study by Kogan et al 5 builds on the understanding that racial discrimination negatively affects Black adolescents’ mental health, a notion previously established, and illuminates a pathway for mitigating this impact.

The unique focus of the study by Kogan et al 5 on rural Black adolescents and its demonstration of a positive preventive intervention makes it a standout contribution to the existing literature. It aligns with prior research and builds on it by introducing a novel aspect of inquiry. In this way, the study by Kogan et al 5 lays a foundation for future research to generalize these findings for a broader, historically marginalized, and undersupported demographic.

The study by Kogan et al 5 further complements the American Academy of Pediatrics’ landmark policy statement, “The Impact of Racism on Child and Adolescent Health,” which describes the profound effects of racism on general health by providing empirical evidence of the specific mental health impact on Black adolescents. 1 By providing empirical evidence of specific mental health impacts on Black adolescents, this study by Kogan et al adds value. 5 It highlights the effectiveness of a culturally sensitive prevention program—SAAF—implemented by trained Black facilitators. In doing so, Kogan et al 5 advance the conversation from problem identification to solution exploration.

The implications of this study for clinical practice and policy are substantial. The evidence that racial discrimination experienced at age 13 years was associated with increased depressive symptoms by age 14 years underscores the importance of proactive mental health care strategies for Black adolescents. These strategies include early mental health screenings and effective interventions to address known challenges.

When considering the broader community from which the participants in the study by Kogan et al 5 originate, the impacts of racial discrimination extend beyond individual mental health, seeping into entire communities and significantly influencing public health. By focusing on the mental health toll of racial discrimination on Black adolescents, this study brings a pressing public health issue into sharp focus.

Moreover, the findings in the study by Kogan et al 5 underscore the pivotal role of prevention programs focusing on racial identity, racial socialization processes, and parenting behavior. Such initiatives could alleviate the mental health impacts of racial discrimination, foster positive coping mechanisms, and prevent the internalization of harmful narratives related to racial inferiority.

In conclusion, this study by Kogan et al 5 provides a comprehensive look into the mental health consequences of racial discrimination among Black adolescents in the US. By situating the study within broader clinical and community contexts, it becomes clear that addressing the mental health effects of racial discrimination demands urgent systemic changes and preventative measures. This study by Kogan et al 5 is a poignant reminder of the critical role that academic communities play in opposing the mental health effects of racial discrimination.

Published: November 1, 2023. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.40577

Corresponding Author: Kevin M. Simon, MD, MPH, Boston Children’s Hospital, 300 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA 02115 ( [email protected] ).

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Simon reported receiving grants from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and National Institute on Drug Abuse.

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Simon KM. Mitigating the Negative Mental Health Impact of Racism on Black Adolescents—A Preventive Perspective. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(11):e2340577. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.40577

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The Sociology of Discrimination: Racial Discrimination in Employment, Housing, Credit, and Consumer Markets

Persistent racial inequality in employment, housing, and a wide range of other social domains has renewed interest in the possible role of discrimination. And yet, unlike in the pre–civil rights era, when racial prejudice and discrimination were overt and widespread, today discrimination is less readily identifiable, posing problems for social scientific conceptualization and measurement. This article reviews the relevant literature on discrimination, with an emphasis on racial discrimination in employment, housing, credit markets, and consumer interactions. We begin by defining discrimination and discussing relevant methods of measurement. We then provide an overview of major findings from studies of discrimination in each of the four domains; and, finally, we turn to a discussion of the individual, organizational, and structural mechanisms that may underlie contemporary forms of discrimination. This discussion seeks to orient readers to some of the key debates in the study of discrimination and to provide a roadmap for those interested in building upon this long and important line of research.

Persistent racial inequality in employment, housing, and other social domains has renewed interest in the possible role of discrimination. Contemporary forms of discrimination, however, are often subtle and covert, posing problems for social scientific conceptualization and measurement. This article reviews the relevant literature on racial discrimination, providing a roadmap for scholars who wish to build on this rich and important tradition. The charge for this article was a focus on racial discrimination in employment, housing, credit markets, and consumer interactions, but many of the arguments reviewed here may also extend to other domains (e.g., education, health care, the criminal justice system) and to other types of discrimination (e.g., gender, age, sexual orientation). We begin this discussion by defining discrimination and discussing methods for measuring discrimination. We then provide an overview of major findings from studies of discrimination in employment, housing, and credit and consumer markets. Finally, we turn to a discussion of the individual, organizational, and structural mechanisms that may underlie contemporary forms of discrimination.

WHAT IS DISCRIMINATION?

According to its most simple definition, racial discrimination refers to unequal treatment of persons or groups on the basis of their race or ethnicity. In defining racial discrimination, many scholars and legal advocates distinguish between differential treatment and disparate impact, creating a two-part definition: Differential treatment occurs when individuals are treated unequally because of their race. Disparate impact occurs when individuals are treated equally according to a given set of rules and procedures but when the latter are constructed in ways that favor members of one group over another ( Reskin 1998 , p. 32; National Research Council 2004 , pp. 39–40). The second component of this definition broadens its scope to include decisions and processes that may not themselves have any explicit racial content but that have the consequence of producing or reinforcing racial disadvantage. Beyond more conventional forms of individual discrimination, institutional processes such as these are important to consider in assessing how valued opportunities are structured by race.

A key feature of any definition of discrimination is its focus on behavior. Discrimination is distinct from racial prejudice (attitudes), racial stereotypes (beliefs), and racism (ideologies) that may also be associated with racial disadvantage (see Quillian 2006 ). Discrimination may be motivated by prejudice, stereotypes, or racism, but the definition of discrimination does not presume any unique underlying cause.

HOW CAN WE MEASURE DISCRIMINATION?

More than a century of social science interest in the question of discrimination has resulted in numerous techniques to isolate and identify its presence and to document its effects ( National Research Council 2004 ). Although no method is without its limitations, together these techniques provide a range of perspectives that can help to inform our understanding of whether, how, and to what degree discrimination matters in the lives of contemporary American racial minorities.

Perceptions of Discrimination

Numerous surveys have asked African Americans and other racial minorities about their experiences with discrimination in the workplace, in their search for housing, and in other everyday social settings ( Schuman et al. 2001 ). One startling conclusion from this line of research is the frequency with which discrimination is reported. A 2001 survey, for example, found that more than one-third of blacks and nearly 20% of Hispanics and Asians reported that they had personally been passed over for a job or promotion because of their race or ethnicity ( Schiller 2004 ). A 1997 Gallup poll found that nearly half of all black respondents reported having experienced discrimination at least once in one of five common situations in the past month ( Gallup Organ. 1997 ). Further, the frequency with which discrimination is reported does not decline among those higher in the social hierarchy; in fact, middle-class blacks are as likely to perceive discrimination as are working-class blacks, if not more ( Feagin & Sikes 1994 , Kessler et al. 1990 ). Patterns of perceived discrimination are important findings in their own right, as research shows that those who perceive high levels of discrimination are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, and other negative health outcomes ( Kessler et al. 1990 ). Furthermore, perceived discrimination may lead to diminished effort or performance in education or the labor market, which itself gives rise to negative outcomes ( Ogbu 1991 ; Steele 1997 ; Loury 2002 , pp. 26–33). What remains unclear from this line of research, however, is to what extent perceptions of discrimination correspond to some reliable depiction of reality. Because events may be misperceived or overlooked, perceptions of discrimination may over- or underestimate the actual incidence of discrimination.

Reports by Potential Discriminators

Another line of social science research focuses on the attitudes and actions of dominant groups for insights into when and how racial considerations come into play. In addition to the long tradition of survey research on racial attitudes and stereotypes among the general population (cf. Schuman et al. 2001 , Farley et al. 1994 ), a number of researchers have developed interview techniques aimed at gauging propensities toward discrimination among employers and other gatekeepers. Harry Holzer has conducted a number of employer surveys in which employers are asked a series of questions about “the last worker hired for a noncollege job,” thereby grounding employers’ responses in a concrete recent experience (e.g., Holzer 1996 ). In this format, race is asked about as only one incidental characteristic in a larger series of questions concerning this recent employee, thereby reducing the social desirability bias often triggered when the subject of race is highlighted. Likewise, by focusing on a completed action, the researcher is able to document revealed preferences rather than expressed ones and to examine the range of employer, job, and labor market characteristics that may be associated with hiring decisions.

A second prominent approach to investigating racial discrimination in employment has relied on in-depth, in-person interviews, which can be effective in eliciting candid discussions about sensitive hiring issues. Kirschenman & Neckerman (1991) , for example, describe employers’ blatant admission of their avoidance of young, inner-city black men in their search for workers. Attributing characteristics such as “lazy” and “unreliable” to this group, the employers included in their study were candid in their expressions of strong racial preferences in considering low wage workers (p. 213; see also Wilson 1996 , Moss & Tilly 2001 ). These in-depth studies have been invaluable in providing detailed accounts of what goes through the minds of employers—at least consciously— as they evaluate members of different groups. However, we must keep in mind that racial attitudes are not always predictive of corresponding behavior ( LaPiere 1934 , Allport 1954 , Pager & Quillian 2005 ). Indeed, Moss & Tilly (2001) report the puzzling finding that “businesses where a plurality of managers complained about black motivation are more likely to hire black men” (p. 151). Hiring decisions (as with decisions to rent a home or approve a mortgage) are influenced by a complex range of factors, racial attitudes being only one. Where understanding persistent racial prejudice and stereotypes is surely an important goal in and of itself, this approach will not necessarily reveal the extent of discrimination in action.

Statistical Analyses

Perhaps the most common approach to studying discrimination is by investigating inequality in outcomes between groups. Rather than focusing on the attitudes or perceptions of actors that may be correlated with acts of discrimination, this approach looks to the possible consequences of discrimination in the unequal distribution of employment, housing, or other social and economic resources. Using large-scale datasets, researchers can identify systematic disparities between groups and chart their direction over time. Important patterns can also be detected through detailed and systematic case studies of individual firms, which often provide a richer array of indicators with which to assess patterns of discrimination (e.g., Castilla 2008 , Petersen & Saporta 2004 , Fernandez & Friedrich 2007 ).

Discrimination in statistical models is often measured as the residual race gap in any outcome that remains after controlling for all other race-related influences. Differences may be identified through the main effect of race, suggesting a direct effect of race on an outcome of interest, or through an interaction between race and one or more human capital characteristics, suggesting differential returns to human capital investments on the basis of race ( Oaxaca 1973 ; National Research Council 2004 , chapter 7). The main liability of this approach is that it is difficult to effectively account for the multitude of factors relevant to unequal outcomes, leaving open the possibility that the disparities we attribute to discrimination may in fact be explained by some other unmeasured cause(s). In statistical analyses of labor market outcomes, for example, even after controlling for standard human capital variables (e.g., education, work experience), a whole host of employment-related characteristics typically remain unaccounted for. Characteristics such as reliability, motivation, interpersonal skills, and punctuality, for example, are each important to finding and keeping a job, but these are characteristics that are often difficult to capture with survey data (see, for example, Farkas & Vicknair 1996 , Farkas 2003 ). Complicating matters further, some potential control variables may themselves be endogenous to the process under investigation. Models estimating credit discrimination, for example, typically include controls for asset accumulation and credit history, which may themselves be in part the byproduct of discrimination ( Yinger 1998 , pp. 26–27). Likewise, controls for work experience or firm tenure may be endogenous to the process of employment discrimination if minorities are excluded from those opportunities necessary to building stable work histories (see Tomaskovic-Devey et al. 2005 ). While statistical models represent an extremely important approach to the study of race differentials, researchers should use caution in making causal interpretations of the indirect measures of discrimination derived from residual estimates. For a more detailed discussion of the challenges and possibilities of statistical approaches to measuring discrimination, see the National Research Council (2004 , chapter 7).

Experimental Approaches to Measuring Discrimination

Experimental approaches to measuring discrimination excel in exactly those areas in which statistical analyses flounder. Experiments allow researchers to measure causal effects more directly by presenting carefully constructed and controlled comparisons. In a laboratory experiment by Dovidio & Gaertner (2000) , for example, subjects (undergraduate psychology students) took part in a simulated hiring experiment in which they were asked to evaluate the application materials for black and white job applicants of varying qualification levels. When applicants were either highly qualified or poorly qualified for the position, there was no evidence of discrimination. When applicants had acceptable but ambiguous qualifications, however, participants were nearly 70% more likely to recommend the white applicant than the black applicant (see also Biernat & Kobrynowicz’s 1997 discussion of shifting standards). 1

Although laboratory experiments offer some of the strongest evidence of causal relationships, we do not know the extent to which their findings relate to the kinds of decisions made in their social contexts—to hire, to rent, to move, for example—that are most relevant to understanding the forms of discrimination that produce meaningful social disparities. Seeking to bring more realism to the investigation, some researchers have moved experiments out of the laboratory and into the field. Field experiments offer a direct measure of discrimination in real-world contexts. In these experiments, typically referred to as audit studies, researchers carefully select, match, and train individuals (called testers) to play the part of a job/apartment-seeker or consumer. By presenting equally qualified individuals who differ only by race or ethnicity, researchers can assess the degree to which racial considerations affect access to opportunities. Audit studies have documented strong evidence of discrimination in the context of employment (for a review, see Pager 2007a ), housing searches ( Yinger 1995 ), car sales ( Ayres & Siegelman 1995 ), applications for insurance ( Wissoker et al. 1998 ), home mortgages ( Turner & Skidmore 1999 ), the provision of medical care ( Schulman et al. 1999 ), and even in hailing taxis ( Ridley et al. 1989 ).

Although experimental methods are appealing in their ability to isolate causal effects, they nevertheless suffer from some important limitations. Critiques of the audit methodology have focused on questions of internal validity (e.g., experimenter effects, the problems of effective tester matching), generalizability (e.g., the use of overqualified testers, the limited sampling frame for the selection of firms to be audited), and the ethics of audit research (see Heckman 1998 , Pager 2007a for a more extensive discussion of these issues). In addition, audit studies are often costly and difficult to implement and can only be used for selective decision points (e.g., hiring decisions but not training, promotion, termination, etc.).

Studies of Law and Legal Records

Since the civil rights era, legal definitions and accounts of discrimination have been central to both popular and scholarly understandings of discrimination. Accordingly, an additional window into the dynamics of discrimination involves the use of legal records from formal discrimination claims. Whether derived from claims to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the courts, or state-level Fair Employment/Fair Housing Bureaus, official records documenting claims of discrimination can provide unique insight into the patterns of discrimination and antidiscrimination enforcement in particular contexts and over time.

Roscigno (2007) , for example, analyzed thousands of “serious claims” filed with the Civil Rights Commission of Ohio related to both employment and housing discrimination. These claims document a range of discriminatory behaviors, from harassment, to exclusion, to more subtle forms of racial bias. [See also Harris et al. (2005) for a similar research design focusing on federal court claims of consumer discrimination.] Although studies relying on formal discrimination claims necessarily overlook those incidents that go unnoticed or unreported, these records provide a rare opportunity to witness detailed descriptions of discrimination events across a wide range of social domains not typically observed in conventional research designs.

Other studies use discrimination claims, not to assess patterns of discrimination, but to investigate trends in the application of antidiscrimination law. Nielsen & Nelson (2005) provide an overview of research in this area, examining the pathways by which potential claims (or perceived discrimination) develop into formal legal action, or conversely the many points at which potential claims are deflected from legal action. Hirsh & Kornrich (2008) examine how characteristics of the workplace and institutional environment affect variation in the incidence of discrimination claims and their verification by EEOC investigators. Donohue & Siegelman (1991 , 2005 ) analyze discrimination claims from 1970 through 1997 to chart changes in the nature of antidiscrimination enforcement over time. The overall volume of discrimination claims increased substantially over this period, though the composition of claims shifted away from an emphasis on racial discrimination toward a greater emphasis on gender and disability discrimination. Likewise, the types of employment discrimination claims have shifted from an emphasis on hiring discrimination to an overwhelming emphasis on wrongful termination, and class action suits have become increasingly rare. The authors interpret these trends not as indicators of changes in the actual distribution of discrimination events, but rather as reflections of the changing legal environment in which discrimination cases are pursued (including, for example, changes to civil rights law and changes in the receptivity of the courts to various types of discrimination claims), which themselves may have implications for the expression of discrimination ( Donohue & Siegelman 1991 , 2005 ).

Finally, a number of researchers have exploited changes in civil rights and antidiscrimination laws as a source of exogenous variation through which to measure changes in discrimination (see Holzer & Ludwig 2003 ). Freeman (1973 , see table 6 therein), for example, investigates the effectiveness of federal EEO laws by comparing the black-white income gap before and after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Heckman & Payner (1989) use microdata from textile plants in South Carolina to study the effects of race on employment between 1940 and 1980, concluding that federal antidiscrimination policy resulted in a significant improvement in black economic status between 1965 and 1975. More recent studies exploiting changes in the legal context include Kelly & Dobbin (1998) , who examine the effects of changing enforcement regimes on employers’ implementation of diversity initiatives; Kalev & Dobbin (2006) , who examine the relative impact of compliance reviews and lawsuits on the representation of women and minorities in management positions; and a volume edited by Skrentny (2001) , which examines many of the complex and unexpected facets related to the rise, expansion, and impact of affirmative action and diversity policies in the United States and internationally.

Although no research method is without flaws, careful consideration of the range of methods available helps to match one’s research question with the appropriate empirical strategy. Comparisons across studies can help to shed light on the relative strengths and weaknesses of existing methodological approaches (see National Research Council 2004 ). At the same time, one must keep in mind that the nature of discrimination may itself be a moving target, with the forms and patterns of discrimination shifting over time and across domains (see Massey 2005 , p. 148). These complexities challenge our traditional modes of operationalization and encourage us to continue to update and refine our measures to allow for an adequate accounting of contemporary forms of racial discrimination.

IS DISCRIMINATION STILL A PROBLEM?

Simple as it may be, one basic question that preoccupies the contemporary literature on discrimination centers around its continuing relevance. Whereas 50 years ago acts of discrimination were overt and widespread, today it is harder to assess the degree to which everyday experiences and opportunities may be shaped by ongoing forms of discrimination. Indeed, the majority of white Americans believe that a black person today has the same chance at getting a job as an equally qualified white person, and only a third believe that discrimination is an important explanation for why blacks do worse than whites in income, housing, and jobs ( Pager 2007a ). Academic literature has likewise questioned the relevance of discrimination for modern-day outcomes, with the rising importance of skill, structural changes in the economy, and other nonracial factors accounting for increasing amounts of variance in individual outcomes ( Heckman 1998 , Wilson 1978 ). Indeed, discrimination is not the only nor even the most important factor shaping contemporary opportunities. Nevertheless, it is important to understand when and how discrimination does play a role in the allocation of resources and opportunities. In the following discussion, we examine the evidence of discrimination in four domains: employment, housing, credit markets, and consumer markets. Although not an exhaustive review of the literature, this discussion aims to identify the major findings and debates within each of these areas of research.

Although there have been some remarkable gains in the labor force status of racial minorities, significant disparities remain. African Americans are twice as likely to be unemployed as whites (Hispanics are only marginally so), and the wages of both blacks and Hispanics continue to lag well behind those of whites (author’s analysis of Current Population Survey, 2006). A long line of research has examined the degree to which discrimination plays a role in shaping contemporary labor market disparities.

Experimental audit studies focusing on hiring decisions have consistently found strong evidence of racial discrimination, with estimates of white preference ranging from 50% to 240% ( Cross et al. 1989 , Turner et al. 1991 , Fix & Struyk 1993 , Bendick et al. 1994 ; see Pager 2007a for a review). For example, in a study by Bertrand & Mullainathan (2004) , the researchers mailed equivalent resumes to employers in Boston and Chicago using racially identifiable names to signal race (for example, names like Jamal and Lakisha signaled African Americans, while Brad and Emily were associated with whites). 2 White names triggered a callback rate that was 50% higher than that of equally qualified black applicants. Further, their study indicated that improving the qualifications of applicants benefited white applicants but not blacks, thus leading to a wider racial gap in response rates for those with higher skill.

Statistical studies of employment outcomes likewise reveal large racial disparities unaccounted for by observed human capital characteristics. Tomaskovic-Devey et al. (2005) present evidence from a fixed-effects model indicating that black men spend significantly more time searching for work, acquire less work experience, and experience less stable employment than do whites with otherwise equivalent characteristics. Wilson et al. (1995) find that, controlling for age, education, urban location, and occupation, black male high school graduates are 70% more likely to experience involuntary unemployment than whites with similar characteristics and that this disparity increases among those with higher levels of education. At more aggregate levels, research points to the persistence of occupational segregation, with racial minorities concentrated in jobs with lower levels of stability and authority and with fewer opportunities for advancement ( Parcel & Mueller 1983 , Smith 2002 ). Of course, these residual estimates cannot control for all relevant factors, such as motivation, effort, access to useful social networks, and other factors that may produce disparities in the absence of direct discrimination. Nevertheless, these estimates suggest that blacks and whites with observably similar human capital characteristics experience markedly different employment outcomes.

Unlike the cases of hiring and employment, research on wage disparities comes to more mixed conclusions. An audit study by Bendick et al. (1994) finds that, among those testers who were given job offers, whites were offered wages that were on average 15 cents/hour higher than their equally qualified black test partners; audit studies in general, however, provide limited information on wages, as many testers never make it to the wage setting stage of the employment process. Some statistical evidence comes to similar conclusions. Cancio et al. (1996) , for example, find that, controlling for parental background, education, work experience, tenure, and training, white men earn roughly 15% more than comparable blacks (white women earned 6% more than comparable black women). Farkas & Vicknair (1996) , however, using a different dataset, find that the addition of controls for cognitive ability eliminates the racial wage gap for young black and white full-time workers. According to the authors, these findings suggest that racial differences in labor market outcomes are due more to factors that precede labor market entry (e.g., skill acquisition) rather than discrimination within the labor market (see also Neal & Johnson 1996 ).

Overall, then, the literature points toward consistent evidence of discrimination in access to employment, but less consistent evidence of discrimination in wages. Differing methodologies and/or model specification may account for some of the divergent results. But there is also reason to believe that the processes affecting access to employment (e.g., the influence of first impressions, the absence of more reliable information on prospective employees, and minimal legal oversight) may be more subject to discriminatory decision making than those affecting wages. Further, the findings regarding employment and wages may be in part causally related, as barriers to labor market entry will lead to a more select sample of black wage earners, reducing measured racial disparities (e.g., Western & Pettit 2005 ). These findings point to the importance of modeling discrimination as a process rather than a single-point outcome, with disparities in premarket skills acquisition, barriers to labor market entry, and wage differentials each part of a larger employment trajectory and shaped to differing degrees by discrimination.

Residential segregation by race remains a salient feature of contemporary American cities. Indeed, African Americans were as segregated from whites in 1990 as they had been at the start of the twentieth century, and levels of segregation appear unaffected by rising socioeconomic status ( Massey & Denton 1993 ). Although segregation appears to have modestly decreased between 1980 and 2000 ( Logan et al. 2004 ), blacks (and to a lesser extent other minority groups) continue to experience patterns of residential placement markedly different from whites. The degree to which discrimination contributes to racial disparities in housing has been a major preoccupation of social scientists and federal housing agents ( Charles 2003 ).

The vast majority of the work on discrimination in housing utilizes experimental audit data. For example, between 2000 and 2002 the Department of Housing and Urban Development conducted an extensive series of audits measuring housing discrimination against blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans, including nearly 5500 paired tests in nearly 30 metropolitan areas [see Turner et al. (2002) , Turner & Ross (2003a) ; see also Hakken (1979) , Feins & Bratt (1983) , Yinger (1986) , Roychoudhury & Goodman (1992 , 1996 ) for additional, single-city audits of housing discrimination]. The study results reveal bias across multiple dimensions, with blacks experiencing consistent adverse treatment in roughly one in five housing searches and Hispanics experiencing consistent adverse treatment in roughly one out of four housing searches (both rental and sales). 3 Measured discrimination took the form of less information offered about units, fewer opportunities to view units, and, in the case of home buyers, less assistance with financing and steering into less wealthy communities and neighborhoods with a higher proportion of minority residents.

Generally, the results of the 2000 Housing Discrimination Study indicate that aggregate levels of discrimination against blacks declined modestly in both rentals and sales since 1989 (although levels of racial steering increased). Discrimination against Hispanics in housing sales declined, although Hispanics experienced increasing levels of discrimination in rental markets.

Other research using telephone audits further points to a gender and class dimension of racial discrimination in which black women and/or blacks who speak in a manner associated with a lower-class upbringing suffer greater discrimination than black men and/or those signaling a middle-class upbringing ( Massey & Lundy 2001 , Purnell et al. 1999 ). Context also matters in the distribution of discrimination events ( Fischer & Massey 2004 ). Turner & Ross (2005) report that segregation and class steering of blacks occurs most often when either the housing or the office of the real estate agent is in a predominantly white neighborhood. Multi-city audits likewise suggest that the incidence of discrimination varies substantially across metropolitan contexts ( Turner et al. 2002 ).

Moving beyond evidence of exclusionary treatment, Roscigno and colleagues (2007) provide evidence of the various forms of housing discrimination that can extend well beyond the point of purchase (or rental agreement). Examples from a sample of discrimination claims filed with the Civil Rights Commission of Ohio point to the failure of landlords to provide adequate maintenance for housing units, to harassment or physical threats by managers or neighbors, and to the unequal enforcement of a residential association’s rules.

Overall, the available evidence suggests that discrimination in rental and housing markets remains pervasive. Although there are some promising signs of change, the frequency with which racial minorities experience differential treatment in housing searches suggests that discrimination remains an important barrier to residential opportunities. The implications of these trends for other forms of inequality (health, employment, wealth, and inheritance) are discussed below.

Credit Markets

Whites possess roughly 12 times the wealth of African Americans; in fact, whites near the bottom of the income distribution possess more wealth than blacks near the top of the income distribution ( Oliver & Shapiro 1997 , p. 86). Given that home ownership is one of the most significant sources of wealth accumulation, patterns that affect the value and viability of home ownership will have an impact on wealth disparities overall. Accordingly, the majority of work on discrimination in credit markets focuses on the specific case of mortgages.

Available evidence suggests that blacks and Hispanics face higher rejection rates and less favorable terms in securing mortgages than do whites with similar credit characteristics ( Ross & Yinger 1999 ). Oliver & Shapiro (1997 , p. 142) report that blacks pay more than 0.5% higher interest rates on home mortgages than do whites and that this difference persists with controls for income level, date of purchase, and age of buyer.

The most prominent study of the effect of race on rejection rates for mortgage loans is by Munnell et al. (1996) , which uses 1991 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data supplemented by data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, including individual applicants’ financial, employment, and property background variables that lenders use to calculate the applicants’ probability of default. Accounting for a range of variables linked to risk of default, cost of default, loan characteristics, and personal and neighborhood characteristics, they find that black and Hispanic applications were 82% more likely to be rejected than were those from similar whites. Critics argued that the study was flawed on the basis of the quality of the data collected ( Horne 1994 ), model specification problems ( Glennon & Stengel 1994 ), omitted variables ( Zandi 1993 , Liebowitz 1993 , Horne 1994 , Day & Liebowitz 1996 ), and endogenous explanatory variables (see Ross & Yinger 1999 for a full explication of the opposition), although rejoinders suggest that the race results are affected little by these modifications ( Ross & Yinger 1999 ; S.L. Ross & G.M.B. Tootell, unpublished manuscript).

Audit research corroborates evidence of mortgage discrimination, finding that black testers are less likely to receive a quote for a loan than are white testers and that they are given less time with the loan officer, are quoted higher interest rates, and are given less coaching and less information than are comparable white applicants (for a review, see Ross & Yinger 2002 ).

In addition to investigating the race of the applicant, researchers have investigated the extent to which the race of the neighborhood affects lending decisions, otherwise known as redlining. Although redlining is a well-documented factor in the origins of contemporary racial residential segregation (see Massey & Denton 1993 ), studies after the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which outlawed redlining, and since the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which made illegal having a smaller pool of mortgage funds available in minority neighborhoods than in similar white neighborhoods, find little evidence of its persistence ( Benston & Horsky 1991 , Schafer & Ladd 1981 , Munnell et al. 1996 ). This conclusion depends in part, however, on one’s definition of neighborhood-based discrimination. Ross & Yinger (1999) distinguish between process-based and outcome-based redlining, with process-based redlining referring to “whether the probability that a loan application is denied is higher in minority neighborhoods than in white neighborhoods, all else equal” whereas outcome-based redlining refers to smaller amounts of mortgage funding available to minority neighborhoods relative to comparable white neighborhoods. Although evidence on both types of redlining is mixed, several studies indicate that, controlling for demand, poor and/or minority neighborhoods have reduced access to mortgage funding, particularly from mainstream lenders ( Phillips-Patrick & Rossi 1996 , Siskin & Cupingood 1996 ; see also Ladd 1998 for methodological issues in measuring redlining).

As a final concern, competition and deregulation of the banking industry have led to greater variability in conditions of loans, prompting the label of the “new inequality” in lending ( Williams et al. 2005 , Holloway 1998 ). Rather than focusing on rejection rates, these researchers focus on the terms and conditions of loans, in particular whether a loan is favorable or subprime ( Williams et al. 2005 , Apgar & Calder 2005 , Squires 2003 ). Immergluck & Wiles (1999) have called this the “dual-mortgage market” in which prime lending is given to higher income and white areas, while subprime and predatory lending is concentrated in lower-income and minority communities (see also Dymski 2006 , pp. 232–36). Williams et al. (2005) , examining changes between 1993 and 2000, find rapid gains in loans to under-served markets from specialized lenders: 78% of the increase in lending to minority neighborhoods was from subprime lenders, and 72% of the increase in refinance lending to blacks was from subprime lenders. Further, the authors find that “even at the highest income level, blacks are almost three times as likely to get their loans from a subprime lender as are others” (p. 197; see also Calem et al. 2004 ). Although the disproportionate rise of subprime lending in minority communities is not solely the result of discrimination, some evidence suggests that in certain cases explicit racial targeting may be at work. In two audit studies in which creditworthy testers approached sub-prime lenders, whites were more likely to be referred to the lenders’ prime borrowing division than were similar black applicants (see Williams et al. 2005 ). Further, subprime lenders quoted the black applicants very high rates, fees, and closing costs that were not correlated with risk ( Williams et al. 2005 ). 4

Not all evidence associated with credit market discrimination is bad news. Indeed, between 1989 and 2000 the number of mortgage loans to blacks and Hispanics nationwide increased 60%, compared with 16% for whites, suggesting that some convergence is taking place ( Turner et al. 2002 ). Nevertheless, the evidence indicates that blacks and Hispanics continue to face higher rejection rates and receive less favorable terms than whites of equal credit risk. At the time of this writing, the U.S. housing market is witnessing high rates of loan defaults and foreclosures, resulting in large part from the rise in unregulated subprime lending; the consequences of these trends for deepening racial inequalities have yet to be fully explored.

Consumer Markets

Relative to employment, housing, and credit markets, far less research focuses on discrimination in consumer transactions. Nevertheless, there are some salient disparities. A 2005 report by New Jersey Citizen Action using data from two New Jersey lawsuits found that, between 1993 and 2000, blacks and Hispanics were disproportionately subject to financing markup charges at car dealerships, with minority customers paying an average of $339 more than whites with similar credit histories. Harris et al. (2005) analyze federal court cases of consumer discrimination filed from 1990 to 2002, examining the dimensions of subtle and overt degradation (including extended waiting periods, prepay requirements, and higher prices, as well as increased surveillance and verbal and/or physical attacks) and subtle and overt denial of goods and services. They report cases filed in hotels, restaurants, gas stations, grocery/food stores, clothing stores, department stores, home improvement stores, and office equipment stores filed by members of many racial minority groups. Likewise, Feagin & Sikes (1994) document the myriad circumstances in which their middle-class African American respondents report experiences of discrimination, ranging from poor service in restaurants to heightened surveillance in department stores to outright harassment in public accommodations. Together, these studies suggest that discrimination in consumer markets continues to impose both psychic and financial costs on minority consumers.

Much of the empirical work on discrimination in consumer markets has focused specifically on the case of car purchases, which, aside from housing, represent one of the most significant forms of personal consumption expenditures ( Council of Economic Advisers 1997 , table B-14). 5 Ayres & Siegelman (1995) conducted an audit study in Chicago in which testers posed as customers seeking to purchase a new car, approaching dealers with identical rehearsed bargaining strategies. The results show that dealers were less flexible in their negotiations with blacks, resulting in a significant disparity in the ultimate distribution of prices (relative to white men, black men and black women paid on average $1132 and $446 more, respectively) ( Ayres 1995 ). Although analyses using microdata have come to more mixed conclusions about the relevance of race in actual car purchase prices (see Goldberg 1996 , Morton et al. 2003 ), the audit evidence suggests that simply equating information, strategy, and credit background is insufficient to eliminate the effects of race on a customer’s bargaining position.

Although much of the literature on consumer discrimination focuses on the race of the individual customer, a few studies have also investigated the effects of community characteristics on the pricing of goods and services. Graddy (1997) , for example, investigated discrimination in pricing among fast food chains on the basis of the race and income characteristics of a local area. Using information about prices from over 400 fast food restaurants, matched with 1990 census data for zip code–level income, race, crime, and population density, and controlling for a host of neighborhood, business, and state-level characteristics, the author finds that a 50% increase in a zip code’s percent black is associated with a 5% increase in the price of a meal, corresponding to roughly 15 cents per meal. The study is a useful example of how discrimination, especially in consumer markets, might be examined as a function of segregated residential patterns, suggesting a more contextualized approach to studying discrimination (see also Moore & Roux 2006 ).

Evidence of consumer discrimination points to a range of situations in which minority customers receive poorer service or pay more than their white counterparts. Although few individual incidents represent debilitating experiences in and of themselves, the accumulation of such experiences over a lifetime may represent an important source of chronic stress ( Kessler et al. 1990 ) or distrust of mainstream institutions ( Feagin & Sikes 1994 , Bobo & Thompson 2006 ). Indeed, the cumulative costs of racial discrimination are likely to be far higher than any single study can document.

WHAT CAUSES DISCRIMINATION?

Measuring the prevalence of discrimination is difficult; identifying its causes is far more so. Patterns of discrimination can be shaped by influences at many different levels, and the specific mechanisms at work are often difficult to observe. Following Reskin (2003) , in this discussion we consider influences that operate at the individual, organizational, and societal level. Each level of analysis contains its own range of dynamics that may instigate or mediate expressions of discrimination. Although by no means an exhaustive catalog, this discussion provides some insight into the range of factors that may underlie various forms of discriminatory behavior.

Intrapsychic Factors

Much of the theoretical work on discrimination aims to understand what motivates actors to discriminate along racial lines. Although internal motivations are difficult to measure empirically ( Reskin 2003 ), their relevance to the understanding and conceptualization of discrimination has been central ( Quillian 2006 ). Classical works in this area emphasized the role of prejudice or racial animus as key underpinnings of discrimination, with feelings and beliefs about the inferiority or undesirability of certain racial groups associated with subsequent disadvantaging behavior ( Allport 1954 , Pettigrew 1982 ). Conceptualizations of prejudice range from individual-level factors, such as an authoritarian personality ( Adorno et al. 1950 ) or a “taste for discrimination” ( Becker 1957 ), to more instrumental concerns over group competition and status closure ( Blumer 1958 , Blalock 1956 , Jackman 1994 , Tilly 1998 ).

Scholars have characterized changes in the nature of racial prejudice over the past 50 years—as expressed through racial attitudes— as shifting toward the endorsement of equal treatment by race and a repudiation of overt forms of prejudice and discrimination ( Schuman et al. 2001 ). Some, however, question the degree to which these visible changes reflect the true underlying sentiments of white Americans or rather a more superficial commitment to racial equality. Theories of “symbolic racism” ( Kinder & Sears 1981 ), “modern racism” ( McConahay 1986 ), and “laissez-faire racism” ( Bobo et al. 1997 ), for example, each point to the disconnect between attitudes of principle (e.g., racial equality as an ideal) and policy attitudes (e.g., government action to achieve those ideals) as indicative of limited change in underlying racial attitudes (but see Sniderman et al. 1991 for a countervailing view). These new formulations of prejudice include a blending of negative affect and beliefs about members of certain groups with more abstract political ideologies that reinforce the status quo.

Whereas sociological research on prejudice is based largely on explicit attitudes measured through large-scale surveys, psychologists have increasingly turned to measures of implicit prejudice, or forms of racial bias that operate without conscious awareness yet can influence cognition, affect, and behavior ( Greenwald & Banaji 1995 , Fazio & Olson 2003 ). Experiments in which subjects are unconsciously primed with words or images associated with African Americans reveal strong negative racial associations, even among those who consciously repudiate prejudicial beliefs. Whereas the links between explicit and implicit forms of prejudice and between implicit prejudice and behavior remain less well understood, the presence of widespread unconscious racial biases has been firmly established across a multitude of contexts (see Lane et al. 2007 ).

Parallel to the study of racial prejudice (the more affective component of racial attitudes) is a rich history of research on racial stereotypes (a more cognitive component). Whereas many general racial attitudes have shifted toward more egalitarian beliefs, the content and valence of racial stereotypes appears to have changed little over time ( Devine & Elliot 1995 , Lane et al. 2007 ). 6 White Americans continue to associate African Americans with characteristics such as lazy, violence-prone, and welfare-dependent and Hispanics with characteristics such as poor, unintelligent, and unpatriotic ( Smith 1991 , Bobo & Kluegel 1997 ). Culturally embedded stereotypes about racial differences are reflected in both conscious and unconscious evaluations ( Greenwald & Banaji 1995 ) and may set the stage for various forms of discriminatory treatment ( Farley et al. 1994 ).

Researchers differ in perspectives regarding the cognitive utility and accuracy of stereotypes. Whereas many social psychologists view stereotypes as “faulty or inflexible generalization[s]” ( Allport 1954 ), economic theories of statistical discrimination emphasize the cognitive utility of group estimates as a means of dealing with the problems of uncertainty ( Phelps 1972 , Arrow 1972 ). Group-level estimates of difficult-to-observe characteristics (such as average productivity levels or risk of loan default) may provide useful information in the screening of individual applicants. Although some important research questions the accuracy of group-level estimates (e.g., Bielby & Baron 1986 ), the mechanism proposed in models of statistical discrimination—rational actors operating under conditions of uncertainty—differ substantially from those based on racial prejudice. Indeed, much of the literature across the various domains discussed above attempts to discern whether discrimination stems primarily from racial animus or from these more instrumental adaptations to information shortages (e.g., Ayres & Siegelman 1995 ).

The various factors discussed here, including prejudice, group competition, modern racism, stereotypes, and statistical discrimination, represent just a few of the varied intrapsychic influences that may affect discrimination. It is important to emphasize, however, that the behavioral manifestation of discrimination does not allow one readily to assume any particular underlying intrapsychic motivation, just as a lack of discrimination does not presume the absence of prejudice (see Merton 1970 ). Continued efforts to measure the processes by which internal states translate into discriminatory action [or what Reskin (2003) calls a shift from “motives” to “mechanisms”] will help to illuminate the underlying causes of contemporary racial discrimination.

Organizational Factors

Beyond the range of interpersonal and intrapsychic factors that may influence discrimination, a large body of work directs our attention toward the organizational contexts in which individual actors operate. Baron & Bielby’s (1980) classic article established a central role for organizations in stratification research, arguing for a framework that links “the ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ dimensions of work organization and inequality” (p. 738). More recent theoretical and empirical advances in the field of discrimination have maintained a strong interest in the role of organizations as a key structural context shaping inequality.

Tilly’s (1998) analysis of durable inequality emphasizes the importance of organizational dynamics in creating and maintaining group boundaries. “Durable inequality arises because people who control access to value-producing resources solve pressing organizational problems by means of categorical distinctions” (p. 8). Although actors “rarely set out to manufacture inequality as such,” their efforts to secure access to valued resources by distinguishing between insiders and outsiders, ensuring solidarity and loyalty, and monopolizing important knowledge often make use of (and thereby reinforce the salience of) established categories in the service of facilitating organizational goals (p. 11). Tilly’s analysis places organizational structure at the center stage, arguing that “the reduction or intensification of racist, sexist, or xenophobic attitudes will have relatively little impact on durable inequality, whereas the introduction of new organizational forms … will have great impact” (p. 15). In line with these arguments, an important line of sociological research has sought to map the dimensions of organizational structures that may attenuate or exacerbate the use of categorical distinctions and, correspondingly, the incidence of discrimination ( Vallas 2003 ).

Much of the empirical literature exploring organizational mechanisms of discrimination has focused specifically on how organizational practices mediate the cognitive biases and stereotypes of actors ( Baron & Pfeffer 1994 ). Indeed, Reskin (2000) argues that “the proximate cause of most discrimination is whether and how personnel practices in work organizations constrain the biasing effects of… automatic cognitive processes” (p. 320). Petersen & Saporta (2004) take a bolder stance, starting with the assumption that “discrimination is widespread, and employers discriminate if they can get away with it” (p. 856). Rather than asking why employers discriminate, then, these authors look to the “opportunity structure for discrimination” (in their case, features of job ladders within organizations) that allow or inhibit the expression of discriminatory tendencies (pp. 855–56).

In the following discussion, we briefly consider several important themes relevant to the literature on organizational mechanisms of discrimination. In particular, we examine how organizational structure and practices influence the cognitive and social psychological processes of decision makers (the role of formalized organizational procedures and diversity initiatives), how organizational practices create disparate outcomes that may be independent of decision makers (the role of networks), and how organizations respond to their broader environment.

The role of formalization

One important debate in this literature focuses on the degree to which formalized organizational procedures can mitigate discrimination by limiting individual discretion. The case of the military ( Moskos & Butler 1996 ), for example, and the public sector more generally ( DiPrete & Soule 1986 , Moulton 1990 ) provide examples in which highly rationalized systems of hiring, promotion, and remuneration are associated with an increasing representation of minorities, greater racial diversity in positions of authority, and a smaller racial wage gap. Likewise, in the private sector, formal and systematic protocols for personnel management decisions are associated with increases in the representation of racial minorities ( Reskin et al. 1999 , Szafran 1982 , Mittman 1992 ), and the use of concrete performance indicators and formalized evaluation systems has been associated with reductions in racial bias in performance evaluations ( Krieger 1995 , Reskin 2000 ).

Individual discretion has been associated with the incidence of discrimination in credit markets as well. For example, Squires (1994) finds that credit history irregularities on policy applications were often selectively overlooked in the case of white applicants. Conversely, Gates et al. (2002) report that the use of automated underwriting systems (removing lender discretion) was associated with a nearly 30% increase in the approval rate for minority and low-income clients and at the same time more accurately predicted default than traditional methods. These findings suggest that formalized procedures can help to reduce racial bias in ways that are consistent with goals of organizational efficiency.

At the same time, increased bureaucratization does not necessarily mitigate discriminatory effects. According to Bielby (2000) , rules and procedures are themselves subject to the influence of groups inside and outside the organization who “mobilize resources in a way that advances their interests,” with competition between groups potentially undermining the neutrality of bureaucratic procedures ( Bielby 2000 , p. 123; see also Ross & Yinger 2002 , Acker 1989 ). Additionally, there is evidence that formalized criteria are often selectively enforced, with greater flexibility or leeway applied in the case of majority groups ( Wilson et al. 1999 , Squires 1994 ). Likewise, indications of racial bias in performance evaluations cast doubt on the degree to which even formalized assessments of work quality can escape the influence of race ( McKay & McDaniel 2006 ). The degree to which formalization can reduce or eliminate discrimination, thus, remains open to debate, with effects depending on the specific context of implementation.

Diversity initiatives

Since the passage of Title VII in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, most large organizations have taken active steps to signal compliance with antidiscrimination laws. Deliberate organizational efforts to address issues of discrimination (or the perception thereof), either in disparate treatment or disparate impact, often are labeled as diversity initiatives, and these practices are widespread. Winterle (1992) cites a 1991 survey of organizations demonstrating that roughly two-thirds provided diversity training for managers, half provided a statement on diversity from top management, and roughly one-third provided diversity training for employees and/or had a diversity task force (see also Wheeler 1995 , Edelman et al. 2001 ). Not all such initiatives, however, have any proven relationship to actual diversity outcomes. Kalev et al. (2006) examine the efficacy of active organizational efforts to promote diversity, focusing specifically on three of the most common organizational practices: the implementation of organizational accountability by creating new positions or taskforces designed specifically to address diversity issues, managerial bias training, and mentoring and network practices. They find that practices designed to increase organizational authority and accountability are the most effective in increasing the number of women and minorities in management positions. Networking and mentoring programs appear somewhat useful, whereas programs focused on reducing bias (e.g., diversity training) have little effect. These results suggest that organizational initiatives to reduce racial disparities can be effective, but primarily when implemented with concrete goals to which organizational leadership is held accountable. 7

Taking a broader look at race-targeted employment policies, Holzer & Neumark (2000) investigate the effects of affirmative action on the recruitment and employment of minorities and women. They find that affirmative action is associated with increases in the number of recruitment and screening practices used by employers, increases in the number of minority applicants and employees, and increases in employers’ tendencies to provide training and formal evaluations of employees. Although the use of affirmative action in hiring is associated with somewhat weaker credentials among minority hires, actual job performance appears unaffected.

The role of networks

In addition to examining how organizational policies and practices shape the behavior of decision makers and gatekeepers, researchers must acknowledge that some mechanisms relevant to the perpetuation of categorical inequality might operate independently of the actions of individuals. Indeed, many organizational policies or procedures can impose disparate impact along racial lines with little direct influence from individual decision makers. The case of networks represents one important example. The role of networks in hiring practices is extremely well documented, with networks generally viewed as an efficient strategy for matching workers to employers with advantages for both job seekers (e.g., Granovetter 1995 ) and employers (e.g., Fernandez et al. 2000 ). At the same time, given high levels of social segregation (e.g., McPherson et al. 2001 ), the use of referrals is likely to reproduce the existing racial composition of the company and to exclude members of those groups not already well represented ( Braddock & McPartland 1987 ). In an analysis of noncollege jobs, controlling for spatial segregation, occupational segregation, city, and firm size, Mouw (2002) finds that the use of employee referrals in predominantly white firms reduces the probability of a black hire by nearly 75% relative to the use of newspaper ads. 8 Petersen et al. (2000) using data on a high-technology organization over a 10-year period find that race differences in hiring are eliminated when the method of referral is considered, suggesting that the impact of social networks on hiring outcomes is strong and may be more important than any direct action taken by organization members. Irrespective of an employer’s personal racial attitudes, the use of employee referrals is likely to reproduce the existing racial composition of an organization, restricting valuable employment opportunities from excluded groups (see also Royster 2003 , Waldinger & Lichter 2003 ).

Networks and network composition may matter not only for the purposes of obtaining information and referrals for jobs, but also within jobs for the purposes of informal mentoring, contacts, and relevant information important to advancement ( Ibarra 1993 , Grodsky & Pager 2001 ). Mechanisms of homosocial reproduction, or informal preferences for members of one’s own group, can lead to network configurations of informal mentorship and sponsorship that contribute to the preservation of existing status hierarchies ( Kanter 1977 ; see also Elliot & Smith 2001 , Sturm 2001 ). The wide-ranging economic consequences that follow from segregated social networks corresponds to what Loury (2001 , p. 452) refers to as the move from “discrimination in contract” to “discrimination in contact.” According to Loury, whereas earlier forms of discrimination primarily reflected explicit differences in the treatment of racial groups, contemporary forms of discrimination are more likely to be perpetuated through informal networks of opportunity that, though ostensibly race-neutral, systematically disadvantage members of historically excluded groups.

Organizations in context

Much of the research discussed above considers the organization as a context in which decisions and procedures that affect discriminatory treatment are shaped. But organizations themselves are likewise situated within a larger context, with prevailing economic, legal, and social environments conditioning organizational responses ( Reskin 2003 ). When labor markets expand or contract, organizations shift their recruitment and termination/retention strategies in ways that adapt to these broader forces (e.g., Freeman & Rodgers 1999 ). When antidiscrimination laws are passed or amended, organizations respond in ways that signal compliance ( Dobbin et al. 1993 ), with the impact of these measures varying according to shifting levels or strategies of government enforcement ( Kalev & Dobbin 2006 , Leonard 1985 ). At the same time, organizations are not merely passive recipients of the larger economic and legal context. In the case of the legal environment, for example, organizations play an active role in interpreting and shaping the ways that laws are translated into practice. Edelman (1992) , Dobbin et al. (1993) , and Dobbin & Sutton (1998) have each demonstrated ways in which the U.S. federal government’s lack of clear guidance regarding compliance with antidiscrimination laws and regulations allowed organizations to establish and legitimate their own compliance measures. According to Edelman (1992 , p. 1542), “organizations do not simply ignore or circumvent weak law, but rather construct compliance in a way that, at least in part, fits their interests.” Organizational actors, then, can wind up playing the dual role of both defining and demonstrating compliance, with important implications for the nature, strength, and impact of antidiscrimination laws and likewise for the patterns of discrimination that emerge in these contexts.

Organizations occupy a unique position with respect to shaping patterns of discrimination. They mediate both the cognitive and attitudinal biases of actors within the organization as well as the influence of broader economic and legal pressures applied from beyond. Recognizing the specific features of organizational action that affect patterns of discrimination represents one of the most important contributions of sociological research in this area. To date, the vast majority of organizational research has focused on the context of labor markets; investigations of organizational functioning in other domains (e.g., real estate, retail sales, lending institutions) would do much to further our understanding of how collective policies and practices shape the expression of discrimination.

Structural Factors

The majority of research on discrimination focuses on dynamics between individuals or small groups. It is easiest to conceptualize discrimination in terms of the actions of specific individuals, with the attitudes, prejudices, and biases of majority group members shaping actions toward minority group members. And yet, it is important to recognize that each of these decisions takes place within a broader social context. Members of racial minority groups may be systematically disadvantaged not only by the willful acts of particular individuals, but because the prevailing system of opportunities and constraints favors the success of one group over another. In addition to the organizational factors discussed above, broader structural features of a society can contribute to unequal outcomes through the ordinary functioning of its cultural, economic, and political systems (see also National Research Council 2004 , chapter 11). The term structural discrimination has been used loosely in the literature, along with concepts such as institutional discrimination and structural or institutional racism, to refer to the range of policies and practices that contribute to the systematic disadvantage of members of certain groups. In the following discussion, we consider three distinct conceptualizations of structural discrimination, each of which draws our attention to the broader, largely invisible contexts in which group-based inequalities may be structured and reproduced.

A legacy of historical discrimination

This first conceptualization of structural discrimination stands furthest from conventional definitions of discrimination as an active and ongoing form of racial bias. By focusing on the legacies of past discrimination, this emphasis remains agnostic about the relevance of contemporary forms of discrimination that may further heighten or exacerbate existing inequalities. And yet, the emphasis on structural discrimination—as opposed to just inequality— directs our attention to the array of discriminatory actions that brought about present day inequalities. The origins of contemporary racial wealth disparities, for example, have well-established links to historical practices of redlining, housing covenants, racially targeted federal housing policies, and other forms of active discrimination within housing and lending markets (e.g., Massey & Denton 1993 ). Setting aside evidence of continuing discrimination in each of these domains, these historical practices themselves are sufficient to maintain extraordinarily high levels of wealth inequality through the intergenerational transition of advantage (the ability to invest in good neighborhoods, good schools, college, housing assistance for adult children, etc.) ( Oliver & Shapiro 1997 ). According to Conley (1999) , even if we were to eliminate all contemporary forms of discrimination, huge racial wealth disparities would persist, which in turn underlie racial inequalities in schooling, employment, and other social domains (see also Lieberson & Fuguitt 1967 ). Recent work based on formal modeling suggests that the effects of past discrimination, particularly as mediated by ongoing forms of social segregation, are likely to persist well into the future, even in the absence of ongoing discrimination (see Bowles et al. 2007 , Lundberg & Startz 1998 ).

These historical sources of discrimination may become further relevant, not only in their perpetuation of present-day inequalities, but also through their reinforcement of contemporary forms of stereotypes and discrimination. As in Myrdal’s (1944) “principle of cumulation,” structural disadvantages (e.g., poverty, joblessness, crime) come to be seen as cause, rather than consequence, of persistent racial inequality, justifying and reinforcing negative racial stereotypes (pp. 75–78). Bobo et al. (1997 , p. 23) argue that “sharp black-white economic inequality and residential segregation…provide the kernel of truth needed to regularly breathe new life into old stereotypes about putative black proclivities toward involvement in crime, violence, and welfare dependency.” The perpetuation of racial inequality through structural and institutional channels can thus be conducive to reinforcing negative racial stereotypes and shifting blame toward minorities for their own disadvantage (see also Sunstein 1991 , p. 32; Fiske et al. 2002 ).

Contemporary state policies and practices

This second conceptualization of structural discrimination accords more with conventional understandings of the term, placing its emphasis on those contemporary policies and practices that systematically disadvantage certain groups. Paradigmatic cases of structural discrimination include the caste system in India, South Africa under apartheid, or the United States during Jim Crow—each of these representing societies in which the laws and cultural institutions manufactured and enforced systematic inequalities based on group membership. Although the vestiges of Jim Crow have long since disappeared in the contemporary United States, there remain features of American society that may contribute to persistent forms of structural discrimination (see Massey 2007 , Feagin 2006 ).

One example is the provision of public education in the United States. According to Orfield & Lee (2005 , p. 18), more than 60% of black and Latino students attend high poverty schools, compared with 30% of Asians and 18% of whites. In addition to funding disparities across these schools, based on local property taxes, the broader resources of schools in poor neighborhoods are substantially limited: Teachers in poor and minority schools are likely to have less experience, shorter tenure, and emergency credentials rather than official teaching certifications ( Orfield & Lee 2005 ).At the same time, schools in high poverty neighborhoods are faced with a greater incidence of social problems, including teen pregnancy, gang involvement, and unstable households ( Massey & Denton 1993 ). With fewer resources, these schools are expected to manage a wider array of student needs. The resulting lower quality of education common in poor and minority school districts places these students at a disadvantage in competing for future opportunities ( Massey 2006 ).

A second relevant example comes from the domain of criminal justice policy. Although evidence of racial discrimination at selective decision points in the criminal justice system is weak ( Sampson & Lauritsen 1997 ), the unprecedented growth of the criminal justice system over the past 30 years has had a vastly disproportionate effect on African Americans. 9 Currently, nearly one out of three young black men will spend time in prison during his lifetime, a figure that rises to nearly 60% among young black high school dropouts ( Bonczar & Beck 1997 , Pettit & Western 2004 ). Given the wide array of outcomes negatively affected by incarceration—including family formation, housing, employment, political participation, and health—decisions about crime policy, even when race-neutral in content, represent a critical contemporary source of racial disadvantage ( Pattillo et al. 2003 , Pager 2007b , Manza & Uggen 2006 ).

These examples point to contexts in which ostensibly race-neutral policies can structure and reinforce existing social inequalities. According to Omi & Winant (1994) , “through policies which are explicitly or implicitly racial, state institutions organize and enforce the racial politics of everyday life. For example, they enforce racial (non)discrimination policies, which they administer, arbitrate, and encode in law. They organize racial identities by means of education, family law, and the procedures for punishment, treatment, and surveillance of the criminal, deviant and ill” (p. 83). Even without any willful intent, policies can play an active role in designating the beneficiaries and victims of a particular system of resource allocation, with important implications for enduring racial inequalities.

Accumulation of disadvantage

This third category of structural discrimination draws our attention to how the effects of discrimination in one domain or at one point in time may have consequences for a broader range of outcomes. Through spillover effects across domains, processes of cumulative (dis)advantage across the life course, and feedback effects, the effects of discrimination can intensify and, in some cases, become self-sustaining.

Although traditional measures of discrimination focus on individual decision points (e.g., the decision to hire, to rent, to offer a loan), the effects of these decisions may extend into other relevant domains. Discrimination in credit markets, for example, contributes to higher rates of loan default, with negative implications for minority entrepreneurship, home ownership, and wealth accumulation ( Oliver & Shapiro 1997 ). Discrimination in housing markets contributes to residential segregation, which is associated with concentrated disadvantage ( Massey & Denton 1993 ), poor health outcomes ( Williams 2004 ), and limited educational and employment opportunities ( Massey & Fischer 2006 , Fernandez & Su 2004 ). Single point estimates of discrimination within a particular domain may substantially underestimate the cumulative effects of discrimination over time and the ways in which discrimination in one domain can trigger disadvantage in many others.

In addition to linkages across domains, the effects of discrimination may likewise span forward in time, with the cumulative impact of discrimination magnifying initial effects. Blau & Ferber (1987) , for example, point to how the channeling of men and women into different job types at career entry “will virtually ensure sex differences in productivity, promotion opportunities, and pay” (p. 51). Small differences in starting points can have large effects over the life course (and across generations), even in the absence of continuing discrimination [for a rich discussion of cumulative (dis)advantage, see DiPrete & Eirich (2006) ].

Finally, anticipated or experienced discrimination can lead to adaptations that intensify initial effects. Research points to diminished effort or valuation of schooling ( Ogbu 1991 ), lower investments in skill-building ( Farmer & Terrell 1996 ), and reduced labor force participation ( Castillo 1998 ) as possible responses to perceived discrimination against oneself or members of one’s group. These adaptations can easily be coded as choices rather than constraints, as characteristics to be controlled for in estimates of discrimination rather than included as one part of that estimate. And yet, for an understanding of the full range of effects associated with discrimination, these indirect pathways and self-fulfilling prophesies should likewise be examined (see Loury 2002 , pp. 26– 33).

A focus on structural and institutional sources of discrimination encourages us to consider how opportunities may be allocated on the basis of race in the absence of direct prejudice or willful bias. It is difficult to capture the structural and cumulative consequences of discrimination using traditional research designs; advances in this area will require creative new approaches (see National Research Council 2004 , chapter 11). Nevertheless, for an accurate accounting of the impact of discrimination, we must recognize how historical practices and contemporary policies may contribute to ongoing and cumulative forms of racial discrimination.

Discrimination is not the only cause of racial disparities in the United States. Indeed, persistent inequality between racial and ethnic groups is the product of complex and multifaceted influences. Nevertheless, the weight of existing evidence suggests that discrimination does continue to affect the allocation of contemporary opportunities; and, further, given the often covert, indirect, and cumulative nature of these effects, our current estimates may in fact understate the degree to which discrimination contributes to the poor social and economic outcomes of minority groups. Although great progress has been made since the early 1960s, the problem of racial discrimination remains an important factor in shaping contemporary patterns of social and economic inequality.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Barbara Reskin, Douglas Massey, Frank Dobbin, and Lincoln Quillian for their generous comments and suggestions. Support for this research came from grants from NSF (SES-0547810) and NIH (K01-HD053694). The second author also received support from an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

1 Dovidio & Gaertner (2000) also examined changes over time, comparing parallel data collected at two time points, 1989 and 1999. Although the level of self-reported prejudice declined significantly over the decade, the extent of discrimination did not change.

2 Field experiments that rely on contact by mail (rather than in person) are referred to as correspondence studies. Although these studies are typically limited to a more restricted range of job openings than are in-person audit studies, and although the signaling of race is some what more complicated (see Fryer & Levitt 2004 for a discussion of the race-class association among distinctively African American names), these studies are not vulnerable to the concerns over experimenter effects that are relevant in in-person studies (see Heckman 1998 ). For a review of correspondence studies in international contexts, including a range of ethnic groups, see Riach & Rich (2002) .

3 Asian renters and homebuyers experienced similar levels of consistent adverse treatment, though the effects were not statistically significant for renters. The highest levels of discrimination among the groups was experienced by Native American renters, for whom reduced access to information comprised the bulk of differential treatment ( Turner & Ross 2003a , b ).

4 See Stuart (2003) for a useful discussion of how economic risk became defined in the mortgage lending industry and how this approach has impacted discrimination.

5 There is also a growing literature in economics that focuses on online auctions (e.g., eBay®), allowing researchers to test theories about consumer discrimination in more highly controlled (but real-world) environments (e.g., List 2004 ).

6 Indeed, social psychological research points to the hardwired tendency toward categorization, with preferences for in-groups and the stereotyping of out–groups a natural outgrowth of human cognition ( Fiske 1998 ). Although the social context certainly shapes the boundaries of social groups and the content of stereotypes, this cognitive impulse likely contributes to the resilience of social categorization and stereotypes ( Massey 2007 ).

7 Note, however, that the creation of new positions for diversity management may have its own disadvantages, inadvertently diverting minority employees away from more desirable management trajectories. Collins (1989 , 1993 ), for example, finds that upwardly mobile blacks are frequently tracked into racialized management jobs or into jobs that specifically deal with diversity issues, with black customers, or with relations with the black community. According to Collins, these jobs are also characterized by greater vulnerability to downsizing and fewer opportunities for advancement.

8 Mouw (2002) does not find evidence that this sorting process affects aggregate employment rates, although the segregation of job opportunities is itself associated with racial differences in job quality and stability ( Parcel & Mueller 1983 ).

9 The case of drug policy and enforcement is one area for which evidence of direct racial discrimination is stronger (see Beckett et al. 2005 , Tonry 1995 ).

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The authors are not aware of any biases that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.

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Fact Sheet: U.S. Efforts to Combat Systemic Racism

“The prevalence, and pervasiveness, of racial discrimination might make the situation look hopeless, but we remain hopeful. Let us expose the racism and racial discrimination endemic to every society, around the globe. Let us press forward, to root out that discrimination and remove the rot from our foundations. And on this day dedicated to ending racial discrimination, let us leave our children a less hateful, more hopeful world.”

— U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield

Combating systemic racism requires aggressive action to address structures, policies, and practices that contribute to the wealth gap, to health disparities, and to inequalities in educational access, outcomes, and beyond. Today, on the occasion of the United Nations’ (UN) International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the United States reiterates its determination to address these challenges at home and abroad, and to make clear to the world that nations with genuine devotion to human rights and equality do not conceal their own failings – they confront them honestly, transparently, and with a determination to make things right.

Here is what the administration is doing to address systemic racism:

Advancing Racial Equity in the Federal Government: On Day 1 of this administration, the President issued Executive Order (EO) 13985 which established that the Federal Government should pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all and creating opportunities for the improvement of communities that have been historically underserved.

Condemning and Combating Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance Against the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Community: On January 26, President Biden issued a Memorandum Condemning and Combating Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. The memorandum orders executive departments and agencies to take all appropriate steps to ensure that official actions, documents, and statements, including those that pertain to the COVID-19 pandemic, do not exhibit or contribute to racism, xenophobia, and intolerance against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Assessing Domestic Violent Extremism: President Biden directed the U.S. government interagency to study the threat of domestic violent extremism in the United States. Earlier this week, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the unclassified executive summary of the comprehensive assessment acknowledging that domestic violent extremist motivations include biases against minority populations.

Creating a Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer (CDIO) at the State Department: Secretary of State Blinken created the position of a Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer (CDIO) at the State Department, in recognition of the crucial role diversity, equity, and inclusion can and should play in U.S. foreign policy. Reporting directly to the Secretary, the CDIO will align and advance Diversity and Inclusion policies across the department, bring transparency to these initiatives, and hold senior leadership accountable on progress.

Incorporating Racial Justice into U.S. Foreign Policy Goals: Addressing systemic racism and strengthening democracy in the United States is a critical part of President Biden’s foreign policy vision. The Secretary of State shall submit a report to the appropriate congressional committees describing initiatives that address racial and ethnic discrimination abroad, to include a list of Department efforts that explicitly focus on addressing racial and ethnic prejudice and discriminations, funding for civil society grants and Embassy programs and initiatives, exchange and leadership programs, and related efforts. This includes State Department programming through the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Supporting Historically Marginalized Populations Around the World: Globally, the United States supports organizations to empower racial and ethnic minority communities, and uphold the dignity of people who are systematically denied their human rights and fundamental freedoms. Programs support locally-led efforts to combat all types of racial and ethnic hatred and violence and facilitate access to justice for victims of racism. Initiatives are intersectional and support individuals who face discrimination on account of gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, race or ethnicity, religion, and national origin.

Calling for Action at the UN Human Rights Council: At the UN Human Rights Council, more than 140 nations joined the United States in a statement outlining the continuing scourge of racism and racial discrimination, xenophobia, and other forms of intolerance. This historic cross-regional statement is a call to action for all nations to:

acknowledge and address the legacy and persistence of systemic racism
review and revise long-standing practices and policies to ensure all individuals are treated equally
embed fairness and inclusivity in decision-making processes
redress inequities in policies that serve as barriers to equal opportunity
eliminate barriers to political participation

Nominating a U.S. Representative to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination: The United States nominated Professor Gay McDougall to serve on the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a body of 18 independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by its State parties. Her nomination underscores the value that the Biden administration places on the Committee’s work.

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5 Examples of Thesis statements about racism For your Next Paper
Here are a few examples of thesis statements about racism in the workplace: 1. Despite being in the The 21st century, racial discrimination is still rampant in the workplace. The efforts made by governments and world organizations have not helped to do away with this discrimination completely. 2.
How To Write Racism Thesis Statement (with Examples)
Step 2: Refine your idea. One of the proven best methods of doing this is using the following model: On a piece of paper, write this: "I think that ____________. Using your initial brainstorming idea, fill in the blank. In our case, it will be this: "I think that racism remains a problem on our college campus.".
Origins of Racial Discrimination
Racism: Origin and theory. Journal of Black Studies, 48(6), 572-590. In 2017, Bowser introduced a review of racial discrimination as a concept with its specific theoretical development. Being coined at the beginning of the 20 th century, racism was significantly revised in the 1930s (antisemitism) and the 1960s (civil rights activists).
398 Racism Essay Titles & Writing Examples
To determine the effect of slavery and racism to modern society. The Problem of Explicit Racism. The murder of George Floyd was one example of the police's brutal racism, and there are many more cases of horrible discrimination that takes people's lives. Racial Discrimination and Residential Segregation.
Racism Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas
328 essay samples found. It is difficult to imagine a more painful topic than racism. Violation of civil rights based on race, racial injustice, and discrimination against African American people are just a small part of issues related to racial inequality in the United States. Such a topical issue was also displayed in the context of school ...
Racism and History of Discrimination
Racism and History of Discrimination Essay. Racism and other kinds of discrimination have existed for centuries and still prevail in modern-day society. While many people view racism as a social construct that only exists among ordinary people, it is much more frequent among government authorities and law enforcement agencies, with police ...
Black Lives Matter: Essay Thesis Statement
Analysis: Taylor's "From #blacklivesmatter to black liberation" was an informative read about racial discrimination and how nothing has changed. Taylor made several allegations about mass incarceration, police brutality, the destruction of public housing, and other areas where Black Americans suffer disproportionality.
Dying for a Diagnosis: The Impact of Racial Discrimination in Healthcare
Previous studies have found that healthcare providers are affected by unconscious racial. bias, reducing the quality of care and outcomes for African American patients (Yearby, 2010). This undergraduate study hypothesized when healthcare providers show more. empathy, they provide higher quality care to their patients.
The Effectiveness of Diversity & Inclusion Programs Within the Workplace
This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors College and Center for Interdisciplinary ... focus on creating equality among black and white and illegalize racial discrimination. Among the peak moments within the Civil Rights era lies the 1960s, where the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 ...
#BlackLivesMatter: This Generation's Civil Rights Movement
The Black Lives Matter Movement is a new civil rights movement to fight against this. new form of racism. It's stating that race matters in a society where race is considered. insignificant. The Black Lives Matter Movement is trying to shift away from colorblindness to.
Systemic racism: individuals and interactions, institutions and society
Systemic racism is a scientifically tractable phenomenon, urgent for cognitive scientists to address. This tutorial reviews the built-in systems that undermine life opportunities and outcomes by racial category, with a focus on challenges to Black Americans. From American colonial history, explicit practices and policies reinforced disadvantage across all domains of life, beginning with ...
PDF THE THESIS STATEMENT
THE THESIS STATEMENT The thesis statement is the key to a paper. Before you begin an essay, you must know what you are writing about (the topic) and what you think about it (the thesis statement). A thesis statement is an opinion you have formed or a judgment you have made based on your experience or reading. It is also your controlling idea.
(PDF) Racism, racial discrimination, and trauma: a ...
For example, Pieterse et al. (2010) found that racial discrimination was a stronger predictor of trauma-related symptoms than general life stress in a sample of Black college students.
Racial Discrimination in the United States
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination should direct the United States government to take immediate, tangible measures to dismantle structural racism in the ...
PDF Coping With Racial Discrimination: a New Way For
health. Racial discrimination and overall discrimination, regardless of attribution, are associated with negative health outcomes (Mouzon 2017). This abuse is not limited to physical health. Racial discrimination affects minority groups across the world and has a negative impact on both physical and mental health (Berger 2015).
Structural Racism In Historical And Modern US Health Care Policy
Structural racism operates through laws and policies that allocate resources in ways that disempower and devalue members of racial and ethnic minority groups, resulting in inequitable access to ...
PDF Implicit bias and racism in higher education
hierarchy exists, racial contestation prevails, and racial lines are socially constructed (pp. 465, 468-469, 473-474). Harper and Hurtado (2007) analyzed published research on campus racial climates and found that racial conflicts and accusations of intellectual inferiority created and generated inordinate stresses on Black students (p. 13).
African American Studies: Theses and Dissertations
African American Theses and Dissertations 1907-2001. This bibliography lists 600 theses and dissertations on African American topics completed at the University of California, Berkeley. The earliest thesis, by Emmet Gerald Alexander, State Education of the Negro in the South, was completed in 1907 in the Department of Education, while the most ...
Mitigating the Negative Mental Health Impact of Racism on Black
Racism is a public health crisis with adverse mental health impacts that affect youths and endure from adolescence through adulthood. 1 The intricate fabric of racism in the United States represents a multilevel, multidimensional, and pervasive context that systematically engenders racial disparities across generations and throughout individuals' lives. 2 As a firmly entrenched element of ...
Critical race theory : a lens for viewing racism in American education
CRT is an American theory based upon the sociopolitical history of the United States and mainly. is applied to study and change policies that affect unequal treatments based upon race, especially. in education and criminal justice issues. CRT is important in framing this thesis because.
The Sociology of Discrimination: Racial Discrimination in Employment
Although evidence of racial discrimination at selective decision points in the criminal justice system is weak (Sampson & Lauritsen 1997), the unprecedented growth of the criminal justice system over the past 30 years has had a vastly disproportionate effect on African Americans. 9 Currently, nearly one out of three young black men will spend ...
Fact Sheet: U.S. Efforts to Combat Systemic Racism
"The prevalence, and pervasiveness, of racial discrimination might make the situation look hopeless, but we remain hopeful. Let us expose the racism and racial discrimination endemic to every ...
Microsoft Word
With Honors in Psychology from the. University of Michigan. 2013. Advisor: Dr. Patricia Gurin Abstract. This study looked at how Intergroup Dialogue Program students' use of race/ethnic-gender. intersectionality terms relate to their intersectional race/ethnic-gender identity and their dialogue. topic of race/ethnicity or gender, and how ...