Ch. 2: Question 4 (Effects of Institutional Racism)
Racism exists not only within a group of individuals but also within a society. The combination of individual racism and the power makes the institutional racism. Institutional racism is dominating in the society and penetrating through all aspects of life. It exists everywhere such as educational system, legal system, and economic system.
Institutional racism has bad influences on minorities. However, it is also harmful to White people. If you take the educational system as an example, teachers have high expectations for all the White students, both academically and behaviorally. Also in schools, White students are treated differently compared to students of other races. In schools where the Whites are minorities, they feel insecure, and they are separated from students of other races.
People have misconceptions like, “All White people are racists.” This misunderstanding leads the minority groups to develop hatred towards whites. Even if a White is a good human being, the society trained him to feel superiority, fear and separated from African American people and other minority groups.
People also make bad assumptions like, “Whites only get promoted in businesses because they are Caucasians,” but actually it is because they are highly qualified. Any constructive feedback given by the managing person of Caucasian origin could be misunderstood as being biased due to racism by people of other races.
Based on my observations, for White people, it takes a long time to build relationships with other racial groups because people think that Whites are racists, and they don’t want to mingle with people of other races even when they really want to.
After reading this I started thinking about "White Guilt." I vividly remember my son, in elementary school at the time, asking me are white people mean? They had been studying slavery and he was mad that one race could do that to another. When his own race was the one that was portrayed as evil he began questioning me. My explanation is that no race of people have a monopoly on hate. There are people in this world that don't take the time to get to know others and judge them on the really small things in life, like the color of their skin. He understood and to this day he still gets offended when a documentary of Dr. Martin Luther King airs on The Discovery Channel or something else that exhibits institutional racism is aired on television. It makes people of that race that is being shown to be insensitive question how could someone who looks like me, talks like me, and is where I'm from be so completely different from me. It makes me feel the same way. When I see the police in Alabama turn on the hoses to those peaceful protestors back inthe 1960's it makes me feel like I have something to apologize for. I think that's a good thing really. Recognizing the flaws of the past help create remedies that may prevent that same behavior from being repeated in the future. I think that many of us learn as much by knowing what not to do as we do by trying to know what to do. Being a student of history and knowing the responsibility we have to each other to acknowledge that bad things have happened to others by the people of our own race helps to heal and understand that we can't allow these things to ever happen again.
ReplyDeletePhani, thank you for your reflection. I'm curious to talk more about your comment and observations of White people and building relationships with other racial groups. I wonder how prevalent this is among other races.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. I just wanted to add a couple of things. When I came to USA in 1998, I heard so many people saying that Whites are racists and don’t mingle with other minor races. After a few years, I started to substitute in American public schools with the same misconception. Later, I realized from my experiences how friendly and generous White people are. I made very good friends with Whites and some of them are very close to our family. They like our culture and food. Also my husband, who is an IT manager, also says that many minor groups in his office have the same misconception about Whites. However, he made very good friends with Whites, and some of those friends are his bosses. I think institutional racism is really hurtful to White people.
DeleteI think any minority in schools feel insecure regardless of race. When I worked down in Miami, I was a minority and felt insecure. This could be the cause as to why it might take a while for minorities to build relationships. I also believe that if one is a minority in an environment they are separated from other students of other races. I see separation of race in our school; however, I do not see our white students being treated differently than the other races. High expectations both academically and behaviorally, regardless of race, should be a norm in all schools and society.
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