Major Notions of Race and Racism - Essay Example

Race and Racism Introduction This page aims to give a brief introduction to what really is racism and how ethnic minorities face the plague of racism everyday. This paper will also discuss how health facilities given to minorities differ and how racial discrimination affects health. And finally it will give facts and statistics regarding racism present in Britain. What is Racism? People tend to categorize themselves and others around them into different cliques and factions according to their physical and communal features. These divisions are called races. This is more of a social than a biological category as there is no biological evidence. People in the same race may be very different from each other in terms of appearance and even genes, even more different than someone who is not in the same race. Therefore, dividing people into races makes no sense biologically. (Weston T, 2008) What exactly is Racism? Many people equate this with mistreatment of minorities while some equate this prejudice and stereotyping. It is not that easy to be defined because racism is not a thing. It has no mass and it can have subjective opinions. A lot of different definitions of racism have been given by a lot of different people. For the ease of understanding, we will be using the following definition of Racism throughout this paper. As stated by Ester I. Jusuf, ‘Racism is the belief that human beings can be divided and that some are inferior to members of other races.’ (Jusuf, E. I. 2000). Racism and the theory of evolution have a connection. People justify racism by saying that according to the theory of evolution, the strongest continue to exist. Hence any group that has a advantage over another group has a right to dominate and completely eradicate the weaker faction. Therefore the week cliques get removed from the gene-pool, which makes the species strong and more powerful as a whole. In short, they say that by practising racism, they remove the weak from the society and this in turn benefits the world as a whole. These people either misinterpret the true theory of evolution or use it to justify what their actions. Evolution does not lead to racism - ignorance, fear and bigotry do. (Barnett, A., 1998) What they don’t realise is that racism only creates frustration among the weaker groups and by practising this, the third generation of human rights are breached. The trend in racism has changed dramatically since the 9/11 attacks on the world trade centre. At first it was more of racial discrimination. Now racism is more about religion. Muslims all over the world are now looked down upon and the world has now experienced something called ‘Islamophobia.’ Racial Inequality in Health As Kevin Smith said, Access to healthcare should be a right, not a fight. (Smith, K., 2007). Every man, woman and child has the right to the highest attainable health. But its distressing how this right is taken away from people because they are psychologically, physically, morally, or racially inferior to them. There have been many case studies in the past regarding heath and discrimination. According to these, mental health was the most common outcome. A few women reported self reported heart diseases. A positive relationship was also seen between discrimination and low birth weight. (Williams, D., 2003) According to the International Journal of Mental Health Systems, there is scientific evidence that prejudice and discrimination causes negative mental health effects. (Thornicroft, G et al., 2008) Also a recent review by William et al. in 2003, 53 studies based on different ethnicities were tested and the results showed the same relation between discrimination and health. But studies that study chronic effects of discrimination on health have still not been confirmed. (Bulatao, R. et al., 2004) Although there has not been much evidence to prove this, but verbal and physical attacks on ethnic minorities may also be responsible for inequalities in health. Instead it is largely assumed that this inequality in health is because of genetic and cultural factors. Interpersonal discrimination is when someone is discriminated by another individual. A correlation between interpersonal discrimination has been noticed as interpersonal discrimination causes high blood pressure, psychological distress, low self worth and people also tend to smoke in such conditions. Institutional discrimination is when policies are implemented that go against ethnic minorities. Hence, these people have a low standard of living and lead unhealthy lives. However the health effects of discrimination may vary from person to person. A person’s age, sex and social position may influence how discrimination will affect them. Studies prove that reporting and challenging racism results in lower blood pressure when compared to bearing it. There is no concrete evidence that establish the fact that racism may have serious health effects. (Karlsen, S. and Nazroo, J. 2002) Also, another case study was carried out by Gilbert C. Gee in 2002, and the results supported the hypothesis that discrimination influences the health of races in minority. (Gee, G., 2002) According to HES, 2002/03 high risk conditions associated with ethnicity include Infant health, Diabetes, CHD, Stroke, Hypertension, Mental health, Maternal health, Sexual health and Patient experience. Even if racism is dealt with, the damage that this has caused to people’s health will take generations to mend. (HES, 2002) Health care is often shaped by racism (Smedley, B. et al. 2003) People in serious conditions are turned away by doctors and miss out on basic health care. They have to struggle in order to get the treatment that they need. Either they end up getting very ineffective or health care at all. A report reveals that the refugees in Britain are not given health care because of language problems. (Vonledebur, C., 2008) Social class and inability to speak English also results in impaired heath care that is given to a patient. (Smedley, B. Stith, A. Nelson, A.) Another factor that might contribute to this difference in health is because of ethnic differences in reporting bad or poor health. Usually, people from ethnic minority fail to report about their bad health for a variety of reasons. Maybe they cannot afford the treatment and do not have social security or maybe they do not report because of fear of being mistreated. (Nazroo, J. 2003) When social differences in health and disease are discovered, individual’s lifestyle must be considered instead of the lifestyle of that particular society. Usually what happens is that when a disease is detected in a person from an ethnic minority, it is concluded that the lifestyle of the culture is very unhealthy so it cannot be treated. Medicine is able to intervene in human lifestyle but fails to be available to all. (Goulbourne, H., 2001) Racism in Europe One place that always comes to mind when discussing racism is Europe. There have been events in Europe’s history that present racism in its worst form. In P. Gilroy’s book, foreign settlers are regarded as “The Enemy Within” (Causes of Racism in Britain, 2003) Europe is a small land with a lot of cultures so this is a reason why there are so many conflicts in the past. According to ONS Population Estimates by Ethnic Group, 14.2 percent of the total population is ethnic minorities. (National Statistics, 2008) According to Simpson and Akinwale, these minorities include Caribbean Black, African Black, Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshi, Chinese and other Asians. (Simpson and Akinwale, 2006). Most of these Britain’s ethnic minorities have experienced racism and this is the reason they feel that do not belong to Britain. In a report titled Immigration, Faith, and Cohesion by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, in which 319 interviews were carried out in 2006-2007, showed that nearly half of the ethnic communities in Britain experienced racism. These included people from 40 different backgrounds. 30 percent of Muslims also reported that they experienced racial discrimination. (Racism still plaguing UKs ethnic minorities, 2008) Another source reports that in 2002 7.1 percent of Britain is non-white minorities and they suffer from racism everyday. According to Home Office, Statistic on Race and Criminal Justice System, 2004, between 2001 and 2003 there was a 302% increase in ‘stop and search’ incidents among Asian people, compared with 118% among white people. This difference is huge. (National Youth Agency, 2008) Difference in health is very common in terms of morbidity and mortality United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, Chinese and the Whites report the best health conditions. While Pakistanis and Bangladeshis report the worst health conditions followed by Caribbean Africans and Indians. (Nazroo, J., 2003) According to a source, in a recent study, ethnic minorities in United Kingdom who faced discrimination were more likely to experience negative health conditions such as respiratory illness, hypertension, a long term limiting illness, depression and also psychological stress. It affects psychological health to a great extent. According to a case study carried out in Maastricht, 4800 residents were interviewed and those who reported having experienced discrimination were two times more likely to get affected psychologically. (McKenzie, K., 2003) In order to find out the relationship between racism and health, a case study was carried out in 2002. The sample of the study included 5196 people of Caribbean, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Chinese origin and 2867 whites who were selected using stratified random sampling. These people were interviewed in full detail. They were given a questionnaire which had questions regarding their health and any interpersonal discrimination experiences that they had. The questions included if they thought that they would be denied a job by a British employer because of their ethnic background. Their own health was self assessed by them. (Karlsen, S. and Nazroo, J. 2002) After the results were collected, regression analysis was done to find out the relation between racism and health. The participant’s age, sex and social class was kept in mind while doing this. 12 percent of the participants reported verbal abuse in the past year. 64 percent thought that a British employer would refuse a job because of their ethnic background while 37 percent thought that a British employer would do so at least half the time. Participants who reported verbal abuse were 50 percent more likely to report their health as fair or poor as compared to those who were not abused. While respondents who thought that a British employer would refuse a job because of his ethnic background were 40 percent more likely to report fair or poor health. Females were 60 percent more likely to report bad health compared to males. (Karlsen, S. and Nazroo, J. 2002) The sample size was small so the relationship between heath and racism could not be investigated in full detail and secondly, the self assessment of health could also be inaccurate. Nevertheless, when the same case study was repeated with different samples, similar results were produced. So it can be concluded that if not to a great extent, racism and discrimination does affect health to some extent. (Karlsen, S. and Nazroo, J. 2002) The infant mortality rate of Pakistani, African and Bangladeshi women is 100 percent higher than that of white women. Most of these people live in the worst housing conditions. One aspect in which the blacks face most of the racism is justice. Most of the prisoners are blacks as they are more likely to get searched. However, not many of these incidents are reported. Only one in twenty are reported. This may be because of lack of confidence (Racism in the UK, 2002). In 2001, there were 1.6 million Muslims living in the UK, compared to a total population of 58.7 people. (National Youth Agency, 2008) Recently since the 9/11 attacks, Islamophobia has become a term we hear a lot. It is basically fear of Islam. Because of this, Muslims all over the world are facing problems in all fields of life. In Britain, Muslims have to face a lot. British Muslims are now used to endless abuse, discrimination and violence. Mosques are attacked and nothing gets reported in the news. The face problems at work, in schools and everywhere they go. According to Federation of Student Islamic Societies survey, 2005, 47% of Muslim students have experienced Islamophobia (National Youth Agency, 2008). This issue of ‘Islamphobia’ is very pressing because Islam has now become Britain’s second religion. Why are we calling this all racism? If we compare this with Ester I. Jusuf’s definition, which states that racism when it is believed people can be divided and some races are superior to other, it makes sense as these ethnic minorities are treated this way because white majority believes that they are superior to them. In the health sector, ethnic minorities are not getting good treatment because they are considered as inferior to the others. Also ethnic minorities face discrimination because the majorities, mostly white consider themselves as superior to them. And this discrimination results in different health problems for the minorities. People’s rights are being taken away from them because of social factors. They have a right to be equal in terms of opportunity, outcome, human essence and condition. But these are not being given to them. (Racism, Ethnicity and Social Policy, 1996) Conclusion Racism is not only a problem for the person suffering from it and his family but it’s a problem for the society as a whole. This is why eradication of this has to be done collectively. Individualistic approach must be used in the health care. (Goulbourne, H. 2001) It is frustrating to see that in this world of globalization, racism is still very common. However, we see things changing now. People are now so exposed to other cultures that they have realized that necessity of adapting to this change. It is distressing how we are still not able to comfortably address the problem of racism and how we fail as a society to deal with this problem openly. There is no inflexible rule of dealing with this problem. The first step is to teach the coming generations tolerance. If this is not done, another generation of extremists will be born. We are at advantage as we get to see many different cultures and races everyday. If exposed to only our race, changing our mentality will nearly impossible. We will keep on following how our forefathers lived their lives and a positive change will not be achievable. (Social, academic education key to fighting racism, 2008) The main aim of the health sector should be public interest. Transparent treatment should be given to everyone without considering the patients background. Turning away patients with serious illness just because of their race should be stopped and to make sure this does not happen, a regulatory authority should be established. According to Office of Minority Health (1997) United Kingdom along with United States is not dealing with the problem of racial and ethnic health but this mainly concentrates on differences in Health status than differences in Health care given to people (Smedley, B. Stith, A. Nelson, A.) Experience and perception of interpersonal racism has negative heath effects on people. This relationship has been ignored for way too long now. Even if theres no relationship between discrimination and health, actions must be taken against racism. (Saffron Karlsen, and James Y. Nazroo, 2002) Since the influence of social determinants like racism on health care are now open to everyone, institutional and interpersonal discrimination must be removed. Discrimination in health and health care must be avoided. (Fitzpatrick, J., 2006) United Nations Commission On Human Rights has started World Conference Against Racism. Since it has been created, the United Nations has struggled to find procedures to fight racial discrimination and ethnic violence. European Union also officially banned racism in 2001. March 21st has also been announced as the International Day for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by the General Assembly of the United Nations. More organizations like these should come up and work on this matter as people are suffering out there. The world needs to get united and work on this issue as it is now not an individual problem but a problem for the whole society at large. Racism is an ideology. Behavior can be changed but ideology is not that easy to change. Actions need to be taken that will change not only behavior but also the ideology. WORK CITED 1. Adams, M. S. (2006). A New Definition of Racism. Townhall. Available from: [Accessed 14 April 2008] 2. 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