11.4 Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism
Jennifer Puentes and Nora Karena
It is important to learn about stereotypes before discussing the terms prejudice, discrimination, and racism, which 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 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? 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 previously used to characterize Irish and Eastern European immigrants.
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 one’s 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 people who used marijuana. Many people who supported criminalizing marijuana had never met any of the new immigrants who were rumored to use it; the ideas were based on prejudice.
While prejudice is based on 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, such as 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 may take many forms, from direct instruction and indoctrination to observation and socialization. Movies, books, charismatic speakers, and even a desire to impress others can all support the development of prejudices.
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. It 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.” Similarly, “Whites Only” signs existed in the South through much of the twentieth century, exemplifying overt discrimination that is generally 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. If you want to learn more, review this optional example, the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell [Website] policy (1993–2011), which reflected this norm.
Prejudice and discrimination can overlap and intersect in many ways. To illustrate, here are four examples of how prejudice and discrimination can intersect:
- Unprejudiced nondiscriminators are open-minded, tolerant, and accepting individuals.
- 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.
- Prejudiced nondiscriminators are those who hold racist beliefs but don’t act on them, such as a racist store owner who serves minority customers.
- Prejudiced discriminators include those who actively make disparaging remarks about others or perpetuate hate crimes.
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.
- Institutionalized or systemic racism: Also called structural racism or institutional racism, this involves systems and structures that have procedures or processes that disadvantage 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 (for example see figure 11.9).
In the next subsection, “A Closer Look: 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.
A Closer Look: Myths of Racism
Sociologists Matthew Desmond and Mustafa Emirbayer (2009) identify five common misconceptions about racism in the United States:
- Individualistic fallacy: A person assumes that racism is a byproduct of the ideas and prejudices a “racist individual” has about a group.
- Legal fallacy: A person assumes removing racist laws eliminates racism in practice.
- Tokenistic fallacy: A person assumes that having a few people of color in influential positions means that there are no longer racial obstacles.
- Ahistorical fallacy: A person overlooks the way that racial discrimination created blocked opportunities that continue to affect people today.
- Fixed fallacy: A person tends to view racism as something that does not change, instead of acknowledging that the ways racism is experienced and embodied changes over time. (2009:342)
These five myths show that racism is more than racial violence. Rather than focusing on questions like “Has racism increased or decreased in the past decade?” Desmond and Emirbayer suggest it is more useful to understand how racism has changed over generations (2009:344). Keep this approach in mind as you participate in the question for discussion
Question for discussion: After getting familiar with these five myths of racism, identify examples of each from media, pop culture, and your lived experience.
Institutionalized Racism
Institutionalized racism, or systemic racism, refers to systems and structures that have policies and processes in place that disadvantage racial minority groups. When discriminatory practices are built into the structure of social institutions, we see inequitable outcomes for people of color.
Racism commonly involves racial prejudice and the ability to act on that prejudice through power. 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, “Activity: 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 for 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 often than people who are White, we recognize outcome disparities. If you want to learn more, you can review Portland’s racial disparity data [Website]. Similarly, since Portland police arrest people who are Black at a rate 4.3 times 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 helps us understand how persistent racist policies, procedures, and systems can sustain racial inequity, even as racist ideas begin to recede, or at least change.
Activity: Understanding Antiracism
Let’s take a closer look at the concept of antiracism. Antiracism refers to an active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies, practices, and attitudes so that power is redistributed and shared equitably (California Speech Language and Hearing Association 2024). Learn more about what it means to be antiracist from Dr. Kendi in the following video (figure 11.10).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCUOX3NMd4U
Be sure to come back and answer these questions:
- What does it mean to be antiracist?
- Why is being antiracist in the interest of White people?
Licenses and Attributions for Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism
Open Content, Original
“Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism” by Jennifer Puentes is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
“A Closer Look: Myths of Racism” by Jennifer Puentes is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
“Activity: Understanding Antiracism” is adapted from ”Dr. Ibram X. Kendi: Creating A More Equitable Society Is In White Americans’ Self Interest” by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, licensed under the Standard YouTube License.
Open Content, Shared Previously
“Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism” adapted from “11.3 Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism” by Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang in Introduction to Sociology 3e, Openstax, which is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Edited for consistency, clarity, and brevity.
“Activity: Understanding Antiracism” is adapted from “Dr. Ibram X. Kendi: Creating A More Equitable Society Is In White Americans’ Self Interest” by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, licensed under the Standard YouTube License. Modifications by Jennifer Puentes include framing activity and authoring questions and are licensed under CC BY 4.0.
All Rights Reserved Content
Figure 11.9. Photo from “Skin-lightening creams: Woman ‘not recognised’ by father” in BBC, June 2021. Used under fair use.
Figure 11.10. “Dr. Ibram X. Kendi: Creating A More Equitable Society Is In White Americans’ Self Interest” by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is licensed under the Standard YouTube License.
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.
actions against a group of people. Discrimination can be based on race, ethnicity, age, religion, health, and other categories.
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.
a category of identity that ascribes social, cultural, and political meaning and consequence to physical characteristics.
categories of difference organized around shared language, culture and faith tradition.
a term that refers to the behaviors, personal traits, and social positions that society attributes to being female or male
enduring patterns of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender.
any collection of at least two people who interact with some frequency and who share some sense of aligned identity.
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).
a group of people who live in a defined geographic area, interact with one another, and share a common culture.
the process wherein people come to understand societal norms and expectations, to accept society’s beliefs, and to be aware of societal values.
the discriminatory practice of refusing loans to creditworthy applicants in neighborhoods that banks deem undesirable or racially occupied.
the belief that some individuals or groups are superior to others based on sex or gender.
a group that holds the most power in a given society, while subordinate groups are those who lack power compared to the dominant group.
the net value of money and assets a person has. It is accumulated over time.
also called structural racism or systemic racism; involves systems and structures that have procedures or processes that disadvantage racial minority groups.
a type of systemic racism involves the singling out of racial minorities for differential treatment, usually harsher treatment.
mechanisms or patterns of social order focused on meeting social needs, such as government, the economy, education, family, healthcare, and religion.
an active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies, and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably.