Chapter 2: What is Racism?

I want to move people away from thinking of racism as a feeling of hatred, because it’s rare to find someone who blatantly hates people of color. But the impact of racial bias isn’t lessened because it’s not blatant,” Oluo said. “If someone denies me a job because I’m ‘not the right fit,’ without realizing that their idea of the right fit is almost always a White person, it doesn’t hurt me any less than if I’m told, ‘I won’t hire you because you’re Black.’ Racism is not necessarily an intention or a feeling. It is a system that produces predictable results.”

-from "Perspectives: Ijeoma Oluo on Racism in America" (cited and linked below)

Being antiracist is fighting against racism. Racism takes several forms and works most often in tandem with at least one other form to reinforce racist ideas, behavior, and policy. Types of racism are:

• Individual racism​ refers to the beliefs, attitudes, and actions of individuals that support or perpetuate racism in conscious and unconscious ways. The U.S. cultural narrative about racism typically focuses on individual racism and fails to recognize systemic racism.
   
• Interpersonal racism​ occurs between individuals. These are public expressions of racism, often involving slurs, biases, or hateful words or actions.
   
• Institutional racism​ occurs in an organization. These are discriminatory treatments, unfair policies, or biased practices based on race that result in inequitable outcomes for whites over people of color and extend considerably beyond prejudice. These institutional policies often never mention any racial group, but the intent is to create advantages.
   
• Structural racism​ is the overarching system of racial bias across institutions and society. These systems give privileges to white people resulting in disadvantages to people of color.

-From "Being Antiracist" on the National Museum of African American History website (cited and linked below)

Background Articles 

These are articles that come from encyclopedias, overview reports, books, or similarly sourced aimed at providing the basic facts on a topic.

Popular Source Articles 

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Scholarly Articles

These are articles from scholarly/academic journals that are written by researchers and other experts in their fields to share the findings of their original research with others in the field. 

Source citations: "Perspectives: Ijeoma Oluo on Racism in America." Capital One, 16 Sept. 2020, www.capitalone.com/ about/newsroom/ijeoma-oluo/. Accessed 16 Aug. 2021.

National Museum of African American History. "Talking About Race: Being Antiracist." National Museum of African American History, Smithsonian Institution, nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/ being-antiracist. Accessed 16 Aug. 2021.