Confronting Institutionalized Racism

2002 ◽  
Vol 50 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camara Phyllis Jones
Keyword(s):  
Institutionalized Racism

Discourse within University Presidents’ Responses to Racism: Revealing Patterns of Power and Privilege

2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Veronica Jones
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Social Power ◽  
University Presidents ◽  
University Administrators ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
Student Protests ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Colorblind Ideology ◽  
Research Questions

Background Recent incidents of racism at predominantly White institutions (PWIs) have gained increased national attention. The backlash to individuals speaking out against racialized practices is often masked through discourse that dismisses the adverse effects of racism. Because university administrators often center their responses to incidents of racism on upholding free speech, scholars should analyze the ways that administrators’ responses might reinforce the existence of such racist behaviors and affect marginalized students. Purpose and Research Questions Rather than placing the burden on students to disrupt institutionalized racism, the author critically analyzed the discourse administrators utilized in their responses to understand the role of power in language. The following research questions informed the study: (a) what are the various characteristics of the discourse of university administrators as they respond to incidents of racism? and (b) how do university administrators’ responses to racism support or disrupt larger patterns of social power and privilege? Research Design The author utilized critical discourse analysis (CDA) to deconstruct relationships between the speech patterns of university presidents and larger Discourses about social power. Through a process of description, interpretation, and explanation, the author sought to reveal the underlying ideologies that go beyond surface-level discourse about free speech. Data Collection and Analysis Based on the context of increased police brutality and student protests on college campuses, the author reviewed data on recent incidents of racism at PWIs. The three final cases chosen for analysis represented varying approaches utilized by administrators to respond to racist incidents. Through multiple phases of coding, the author interpreted relationships between textual patterns to reveal a larger narrative about administrative accountability. Findings Each university president utilized a different approach to campus racism. The major discourse patterns represented were (a) a direct reproach of individuals as accountable for racism; (b) an indirect and theoretical approach to the reality of racism; and (c) a denial of or diversion from racism through authority. Conclusions and Recommendations Across the cases, administrators utilized speech that either downplayed the existence of racism or defined it through privilege or colorblind ideology. With the last incident resulting in the firing of the president, the analysis revealed ways that presidents can utilize emotional speech without substantial action. In order to be more responsive to marginalized communities, administrators need to intentionally engage with marginalized groups who are often silenced because their beliefs do not fit the standard of the dominant norm.

scholarly journals Transformative Action: A Theoretical Framework for Breaking New Ground

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Institutions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Transformative Action

Developed by Paulo Freire, critical consciousness (CrC) is a philosophical, theoretical, and practice-based framework encompassing an individual’s understanding of and action against the structural roots of inequity and violence. This article explores divergent CrC scholarship regarding CrC theory and practice; provides an in-depth review of inconsistencies within the CrC “action” domain; and, in an effort to resolve discrepancies within the existing CrC literature, presents a new construct—transformative action (TA)—and details the process of TA development. Comprising three hierarchical levels of action (critical, avoidant, and destructive) for each level of the socio-ecosystem, TA serves as a model for community-based practitioners, such as those working in the fields of social work and public affairs. The authors argue that transformation is necessary to deconstruct the social institutions in the United States that maintain and perpetuate systemic inequity, creating dehumanizing consequences. Through critical TA, community workers can make visible hidden socio-structural factors, such as institutionalized racism and White privilege, countering the historic trend of community workers acting as tools of social control—that is, socializing individuals to adapt to marginalized roles and accept inferior treatment; maintaining and enforcing the status quo; and facilitating conformity with inequitable societal norms and practices. The authors also discuss the implications of community-based TA practice.

Humanity in War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christy Pichichero
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Corporal Punishment ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
New France ◽  
Military Psychology ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
Intellectual Community ◽  
Culture Of Care ◽  
Saint Domingue ◽  
Military Life

Chapter three traces the rise of reforms founded on sensibilité and humanité. Arguing against Foucault’s notion of “discipline,” this chapter contends that philosophical medicine and the cult of sentiment shaped a new military culture of care for the soldierly body, mind, and emotions. This led to ground-breaking contemplations on emotional reactions to war and military life that founded what we now call military psychology. In the 1760s, these ideas also coalesced into a humanitarian and human rights campaign in which military reformers and the intellectual community galvanized surrounding the condemnation of capital and corporal punishment for soldiers guilty of desertion and petty crimes. In New France, India, and in Saint-Domingue, the concepts of humanity and sensibilité were evoked to communicate human and cultural compatibilities between different peoples, but also to justify institutionalized racism.

From Black Power to Class Action

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Black Power ◽  
Employment Discrimination ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Community Control ◽  
Fire Departments ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
Black Representation ◽  
The People ◽  
Urban Fire

This chapter focuses on the influence that the Black Power movement and rise of employment discrimination litigation had on the Vulcan Society and Black firefighters across the country. The dialectical relationships between the civil rights and Black Power movements and the Vulcan Society’s old and new guard eventually transformed the organization and its objectives and helped facilitate the IABPFF, a national Black caucus group formed to combat discrimination and increase Black representation in — and community control of — urban fire departments. Both the IABPFF and the Vulcan Society embraced “separatism without separation,” and used their “outsider status within a white-dominated institution,” as well as shifts in employment discrimination case law, to “reveal the inner workings of institutional racism” within the FDNY and urban fire departments more generally. This shift was instrumental in the fight to establish legal remedies to address institutionalized racism and its impact on the racial composition of urban fire departments and became the primary method used by the Vulcan Society and the IABPFF and its local affiliates to make fire departments more representative of and responsive to the people and communities they served

Automated Risk Assessment in the Criminal Justice Process

Prejudice ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 135-154
Author(s):  
Endre Begby
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
Risk Assessment Tools ◽  
History Of ◽  
Justice Process ◽  
Criminal Justice Process ◽  
Algorithmic Bias

This chapter addresses recent concerns about “algorithmic bias,” specifically in the context of the criminal justice process. Starting from a recent controversy about the use of “automated risk assessment tools” in criminal sentencing and parole hearings, where evidence suggests that such tools effectively discriminate against minority defendants, this chapter argues that the problem here has nothing in particular to do with algorithm-assisted reasoning, nor is it in any clear sense a case of epistemic bias. Rather, given the data set that we are given to work with, there is reason to think that no improvement to our epistemic routines would deliver significantly better results. Instead, the bias is effectively encoded into the data set itself, via a long history of institutionalized racism. This suggests a different diagnosis of the problem: in deeply divided societies, there may just be no way to simultaneously satisfy our moral ideals and our epistemic ideals.

Promoting Social and Academic Wellness Among African American Adolescent Males

2021 ◽  
pp. 154-171
Author(s):  
Carole Rene' Collins Ayanlaja ◽  
Catherine Lenna Polydore ◽  
Danielle Anita Beamon
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
African American ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
School Personnel ◽  
Poor Mental Health ◽  
Adolescent Males ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
African American Adolescent ◽  
Effective Interventions ◽  
African American Adolescent Males

African American adolescent males are at increasing risk for mental health challenges. Statistics indicate that depression and anxiety are of primary concern. Historical and social conditions, including institutionalized racism, produce stressors for Black males and propel negative public attitudes. The responses of healthcare professionals and school personnel to the mental health needs of Black adolescent males are generalized with limited focus on this specific population and effective interventions. The authors identify and describe predominant mental health conditions in Black male adolescents and describe the current landscape of emotional health impacting this population. They identify determinant factors that lead to poor mental health. Activating a social-constructivist approach, the authors recommend culturally responsive approaches to address the problem and improve outcomes, along with future directions.

TRENDS: Economic Interests Cause Elected Officials to Liberalize Their Racial Attitudes

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 511-525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian R. Grose ◽  
Jordan Carr Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Public Spaces ◽  
Elected Officials ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
White Southerners ◽  
Southern States ◽  
Racial Issue ◽  
Racial Issues

Do attitudes of elected officials toward racial issues change when the issues are portrayed as economic? Traditionally, scholars have presented Confederate symbols as primarily a racial issue: elites supporting their eradication from public life tend to emphasize the association of Confederate symbols with slavery and institutionalized racism, while those elected officials who oppose the removal of Confederate symbols often cite the heritage of white southerners. In addition to these racial explanations, we argue that there is an economic component underlying support for removal of Confederate symbols among political elites. Racial issues can also be economic issues, and framing a racial issue as an economic issue can change elite attitudes. In the case of removal of Confederate symbols, the presence of such imagery is considered harmful to business. Two survey experiments of elected officials in eleven U.S. southern states show that framing the decision to remove Confederate symbols as good for business causes those elected officials to favor removing the Confederate flag from public spaces. Elected officials can be susceptible to framing, just like regular citizens.

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