It is important to learn about stereotypes before discussing the terms prejudice, discrimination, and racism that are often used interchangeably in everyday conversation. Stereotypes are oversimplified generalizations about groups of people. Stereotypes can be based on race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation—almost any characteristic. They may be positive (usually about one’s own group) but are often negative (usually toward other groups, such as when members of a dominant racial group suggest that a subordinate racial group is stupid or lazy). In either case, the stereotype is a generalization that doesn’t take individual differences into account.

Where do stereotypes come from? In fact, new stereotypes are rarely created; rather, they are recycled from subordinate groups that have integrated into dominant society and are reused to describe newly subordinate groups. For example, many stereotypes that are currently used to characterize new immigrants were used earlier in American history to characterize Irish and Eastern European immigrants.

11.4.1 Prejudice

Prejudice refers to the beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and attitudes someone holds about a group. A prejudice is not based on personal experience; instead, it is a prejudgment, originating outside actual experience. Recall from Chapter 7 that the criminalization of marijuana was based on anti-immigrant sentiment; proponents used fictional, fear-instilling stories and rampant immoral and illegal activities to justify new laws and harsh treatment of marijuana users. Many people who supported criminalizing marijuana had never met any of the new immigrants who were rumored to use it; the ideas were based in prejudice.

While prejudice is based in beliefs outside of experience, experience can lead people to feel that their prejudice is confirmed or justified. This is a type of confirmation bias. For example, if someone is taught to believe that a certain ethnic group has negative attributes, every negative act committed by someone in that group can be seen as confirming the prejudice. Even a minor social offense committed by a member of the ethnic group, like crossing the street outside the crosswalk or talking too loudly on a bus, could confirm the prejudice.

Prejudice—as well as the stereotypes that lead to it and the discrimination that stems from it—is most often taught and learned. The teaching arrives in many forms, from direct instruction or indoctrination, to observation and socialization. Movies, books, charismatic speakers, and even a desire to impress others can all support the development of prejudices.

11.4.2 Discrimination

While prejudice refers to biased thinking, discrimination consists of actions against a group of people. Discrimination can be based on race, ethnicity, age, religion, health, and other categories. For example, discrimination based on race or ethnicity can take many forms, from unfair housing practices such as redlining to biased hiring systems. Overt discrimination has long been part of United States history. In the late nineteenth century, it was not uncommon for business owners to hang signs that read, “Help Wanted: No Irish Need Apply.” And southern Jim Crow laws, with their “Whites Only” signs, exemplified overt discrimination that is not tolerated today.

Discrimination also manifests in different ways. The scenarios above are examples of individual discrimination, but other types exist. Institutional discrimination occurs when a societal system has developed with embedded disenfranchisement of a group, such as the U.S. military’s historical nonacceptance of minority sexualities. For example, the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy (1993–2011) reflected this norm.

11.4.2.1 Intersection of Prejudice and Discrimination

Prejudice and discrimination can overlap and intersect in many ways. To illustrate, here are four examples of how prejudice and discrimination can occur:

1. Unprejudiced nondiscriminators are open-minded, tolerant, and accepting individuals.
2. Unprejudiced discriminators might be those who unthinkingly practice sexism in their workplace by not considering women or gender nonconforming people for certain positions that have traditionally been held by men.
3. Prejudiced nondiscriminators are those who hold racist beliefs but don’t act on them, such as a racist store owner who serves minority customers.
4. Prejudiced discriminators include those who actively make disparaging remarks about others or who perpetuate hate crimes.

11.4.3 Racism

Racism is a type of prejudice and discrimination used to justify inequalities against individuals by maintaining that one racial category is somehow superior or inferior to others; it is a set of practices used by a racial dominant group to maximize advantages for itself by disadvantaging racial minority groups. Such practices have affected wealth accumulation, employment, housing discrimination, government surveillance, incarceration, drug arrests, immigration arrests, infant mortality, and much more (Race Forward 2021).

Broadly, individuals belonging to minority groups experience both individual racism and systemic racism during their lifetime. While reading the following common forms of racism, ask yourself, “Am I a part of this racism?” or “How can I contribute to stopping racism?”:

• Individual or interpersonal racism: Prejudice and discrimination executed by individuals consciously and unconsciously that occurs between individuals.
• Systemic racism:Also called structural racism or institutional racism, this involves systems and structures that have procedures or processes that disadvantages racial minority groups.
• Racial profiling: This type of systemic racism involves the singling out of racial minorities for differential treatment, usually harsher treatment.
• Historical racism: Economic inequality or social disparity caused by past racism.
• Cultural racism: The assumption of inferiority of one or more races is built into the culture of the subordinate group.
• Colorism: A form of racism in which someone believes one type of skin tone is superior or inferior to another within a racial group.

In the next section, “Pedagogical Element: Myths of Racism” you will learn more about the myths surrounding racism that serve to preserve this type of prejudice and discrimination. Take a moment to read through each fallacy, or mistaken belief before answering the question for discussion.

11.4.5 Structural Racism and Antiracism

A common definition of racism is racial prejudice plus power equals racism. In other words, racist ideas, which can be conscious or unconscious, can inspire interpersonal hostility, but personal or institutional power is required for racist actions to occur. Historian Ibram X Kendi describes racism as, “A marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produce and sustain racial inequity.” Racist ideas or racial prejudice are ideas that one race is superior or inferior to another. Structural racism describes the social structures that emerge from racist policies and practices (Kendi 2017). You have an opportunity to learn more about Kendi’s approach in the next section, “Pedagogical Element: Understanding Antiracism.”

Where do racist ideas come from? Why do racist ideas exist? Put in more functionalist terms, what do racist ideas do? According to Kendi, racist ideas normalize and justify racial inequity. For example, if we ask why people who are black get arrested at a higher rate than people who are white, derogatory racist ideas about black people can do the work of making inequity seem regrettable but understandable. When we ask why people who are black are killed by police at a higher rate than people who are white, racist ideas can keep us from seeing the humanity and vulnerability of people who are black. Racist ideas are available to fill in the blank when the answer is, “It happens because ____. “

Structural and systemic racism can be identified by the presence of racial inequity. Racial inequity shows up as either disproportionality or as disparities. Disproportionality is the overrepresentation or underrepresentation of a racial or ethnic group compared with its percentage in the total population. Disparities are unequal outcomes of one racial or ethnic group compared with outcomes for another racial or ethnic group. For example, when people who are black are killed by Portland police 3.9 times more than people who are white, we recognize outcome disparities. Similarly, since Portland police arrest people who are black at a rate 4.3 higher than people who are white, we can say that people who are black are over-represented in Portland jails, and can confidently conclude that policing in Portland is dealing with issues of systemic racism .

This structural definition of racism does a good job of helping us understand how conscious or unconscious racist ideas can normalize institutions and social systems that impact racialized populations in uneven and harmful ways. Because those inequities are racially defined, we can say that the institution or system is racist. Once constructed, racist systems and institutions can continue to impact people unevenly, even if the people who currently hold power do not share all of the same founding racist ideas, (Bonilla-Silva 2014). Understanding the structural and systemic dimensions of racism help us understand how persistent racist policies, procedures and systems can sustain racial inequity, even as racist ideas begin to recede, or at least change.