What Is Institutional Racism - Essay Example

According to the source cited above the term was coined by Black Nationalist, pan-Africanist, and honorary prime minister of the Black Panther Party, Stokely Carmichael. In the late 1960s, Carmichael defined the term as "the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their color, culture or ethnic origin".There is resonating concurrence in various theories and perspectives on institutional racism that this form is an elaborate form of racism that purports to circumvent the acute nature, application, and effects of orthodox racism.

Some examples drawn from American history illustrate the dynamics of institutional racism. In 1935, the U.S. Congress promulgated the Social Security Act. The act was guaranteeing an income for millions of workers after retirement. Notably, the act elaborately excluded domestic and agricultural workers, many of whom were Mexican-American, African-American, and Asian-American. These workers were therefore not guaranteed an income after retirement and had less opportunity to save, accumulate, and pass wealth on to future generations.

The Property Appraisal System created in the U.S in the 1930s tied property value and eligibility for government loans to race. In the milieu created by the system, all-White neighborhoods received the government's highest property value ratings, and White people were eligible for government loans. Between 1934 and 1962, less than 2% of government-subsidized housing went to non-White people. "These examples depend not on the individual, isolated, and idiosyncratic beliefs or biases of individuals, but rather on biases embedded in social structures and in institutions.

Moreover, in the first example, no (race) was specifically named to be excluded from the Social Security Act, but the Act effectively allowed wealth benefits to accrue to certain racial groups and not to others. There need not be, therefore, any explicit intent associated with institutional racism in order for it to benefit certain races over others." (Race, Richard W: 2001).In published institutional racism forums various victims of this monster have presented various deplorable forms of racial prejudice.

One woman states that after the September 11 terror attacks people she worked with did not want to look at her nor talk to her. Her ordeal culminated from the fact that she was the only veiled Muslim at her workplace. The woman indicates however that gestures of race and prejudice were a common feature at her workplace even before the terror attacks. The worker had to request a week of stress leave. Her situation deteriorated despite her supervisor's efforts to conduct anti-discrimination training at work.

She felt that it was a case of "too little too late" and left the company. The non-committal stance of the organizational authority in nipping such conduct in the bud represents one form or dimension of institutional racism. In another instance, a Muslim woman working for the New South Wales Department of Public Prosecutions cited an incident where after setting off a scanner before entering into the court, she was jokingly yet prejudicially told by a security guard to 'take off her weapons'.

It emerged that she had been held in regard to her profession because she was wearing the hijab. The security guard in the cited incident was only talked to. This again presents one elaborate form of institutional racism where unlike in the orthodox forms of racism authorities with every capacity to address and redress the antics of this monster become accomplices through lethargy which in fact points to the reality of the perpetration of racism in various subtle forms. These instances are a tip of an iceberg of countless unchronicled acts of institutional racial prejudice.

Institutionalized racism lingers within organizations and is far more difficult to ferret out. Members of affected organizations redefine racism's manifestations as other issues. This is the case of our criminal justice system that controls a disproportionately high number of black males. In many ways, these institutional manifestations of racism, in our electoral political institutions and the justice system, present a greater challenge for society to overcome than individual acts of racism.

Mindful of some of our institution's founding values, we must find ways to eliminate racist attributes manifested within these institutions rather than redefining racism as conservative American values. (op cit)Apparently, the realm of institutional racism is complex and can not be explored through one isolated theory or instance. Tim J. Berard (The Neglected Social Psychology of Institutional Racism: February 2008) agrees, "Theories of institutional racism and institutionalized discrimination have been remarkably influential in the understanding of continuing racial inequality and contemporary race relations.

These theories and related claims have also been criticized as being improperly conceptualized, employing circular reasoning, neglecting nonracial dimensions of inequality, failing to specify causal mechanisms, and employing questionable inferences and attributions.