Structural Or Institutional Racism Is Formed By The Social, Economic, Political Or Educational Forces Essay

Racism imposes additional health issues on people of color because it is an unnecessary stressor in their every day lives. “African Americans die earlier and have higher rates than whites of many chronic diseases across the social gradient” (Unnatural Causes, 2008). Increased cortisol levels, which are caused by stress have been linked to high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, and other health problems.

In Omi and Winant, Racial Formation the topic of what race is brought up. They bring up the question of "What is race?" Which lead to the use of pseudo-science to justify the physical difference that were observed. Race is later defined as a social construct which is shaped by broader societal forces.

To many people across a variety of different nationalities and cultures, race has been proven to be a key factor for how society views you in the eyes of those who are prominently in charge. The term race has been brought up in recent years, to be considered a form of identification, as the word race is used to describe physical characteristics such as a person’s color of skin, hair, and eyes. When in reality, the correct term they should be using is Ethnicity. As a result, the term race is used to separate people into sub-categories based on the color of their skin. This type of classification, is a man-made creation used by society to classify certain groups of people into lower classes, while keeping the predominate group in charge at the top.

Humans define race by how they conceive and categorize different social realities. Thus, race is often referred to as a social construct. The differences in skin color and facial characteristics have led most of society to classify humans into groups instead of individuals. These constructs affect us all, and they often result in situations where majority racial groups cause undue suffering to those that are part of the minority. The understanding of race as a social construct is best illustrated by the examination of racial issues within our own culture, specifically those that have plagued the history of the United States.

Racial formation theory is an analytical tool in sociology, developed by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, which is used to look at race as a socially constructed identity, where the content and importance of racial categories are determined by social, economic and political forces. Race has political, religious, and scientific components. Race can determine the treatment of certain individuals solely based on skin color, and can also determine the characteristics of a person associated with that skin color. Race is not synonymous with ethnicity or racism. Science and racism emerged during the 18th and 19th centuries as an attempt to justify the mistreatment of people of color, highlighting they are physiologically inferior to Europeans.

Racial Formation in the United States by Michael Omi and Howard Winant made me readjust my understanding of race by definition and consider it as a new phenomenon. Through, Omi and Winant fulfilled their purpose of providing an account of how concepts of race are created and transformed, how they become the focus of political conflict, and how they shape and permeate both identities and institutions. I always considered race to be physical characteristic by the complexion of ones’ skin tone and the physical attributes, such as bone structure, hair texture, and facial form. I knew race to be a segregating factor, however I never considered the meaning of race as concept or signification of identity that refers to different types of human bodies, to the perceived corporal and phenotypic makers of difference and the meanings and social practices that are ascribed to these differences, in which in turn create the oppressing dominations of racialization, racial profiling, and racism. (p.111). Again connecting themes from the previous readings, my westernized influences are in a direct correlation to how to the idea of how I see race and the template it has set for the rather automatic patterns of inequalities, marginalization, and difference. I never realized how ubiquitous and evolving race is within the United States.

One of the most prevalent themes throughout the world’s history is the dispute over race and racial differences. But, there is a problem: the majority of the population doesn’t have a clear understanding of what race is. Race is a socially constructed grouping of people that was created in order for people to differentiate themselves from one another and has many sources of influence. While most people believe race is determined by biological characteristics (hair type, skin color, eye shape, etc.), this is not true. To make things more complicated, there is no cut and dry definition to race. Authors of Race and Ethnicity in Society, Elizabeth Higginbotham and Margret Anderson, claim that there are seven different distinct ways to define race. They begin with the popular belief of biological characteristics, and, as mentioned before, through social construction. They go on to note that race can be formed from an ethnic group, from social class rank, from racial formation by institutions, and also can form from one’s self-definition (Higginbotham & Anderson, 2012, p. 13). All of these ways to define race have been seen throughout our history, and many of them have caused problems for minorities, especially in the United States.

Do you ever believe that you have been a victim to a microaggression and there was nothing ever done about it? A victim of institutional racism that made you feel doleful and surly? Institutional racism happens a lot, but not as much as microaggressions, but a lot of people wonder why they get this type of vibe from white supremacist. These are the same people in the same country, with the same daily schedule but somehow they judge people based on their skin color. Some reason you aren’t allowed to lead this country if you are any other skin than white. There's a lot of racism in America, and a lot of people really wonder will the microaggressions, microinsults, the institutional racism will ever stop. People look at our president Donald J. Trump with his campaign of “Make America Great Again” does he mean the bad times for the African Americans? The bad times, for the Asian Americans? Do white people in general categorize all cultures/ ethnicities other than white as minorities? There are two articles that come together, to grow on this idea, to answer the questions above and to explain in full detail. Both of these articles, compare on what and how plenty of “minorities” feel in America. The speech essay “Analyzing Some Thoughts On Mercy” and the argumentative essay “6 Reasons We Need to Dismantle the Model Minority Myth of Those ‘Hard-Working ‘ Asians” by Ross Gay and Rachel Kuo deal with the problem with racism shown by white supremacy. Through these texts the

1) Racism can be manifested in many forms, including poverty, housing problems, underemployment, unemployment, wage differences, lowered educational opportunities, high crime rates, and welfare dependency. What are the causes of racism. Describe the primary cause of individual and institutional racism. How are these factors dealt with by society?

You’re trapped, in a room with no doors or windows, and the walls are closing in on you. Drowning endlessly in raging waves of faceless racism and never-­ending segregation. This is the everyday life of ‘racial minorities’ in the United States of America. Suffering at the hands of government figures, employment grillers, educational systems, law enforcement officers, and medical practices; this, is Institutional Racism. I wanted to discover the extent of which Institutional Racism exists, how Institutional Racism affects people of colour, and what the government is doing to prevent Institutional Racism. This is what I found.

The concept of race is an ancient construction through which a single society models all of mankind around the ideal man. This idealism evolved from prejudice and ignorance of another culture and the inability to view another human as equal. The establishment of race and racism can be seen from as early as the Middle Ages through the present. The social construction of racism and the feeling of superiority to people of other ethnicities, have been distinguishably present in European societies as well as America throughout the last several centuries.

We have come to understand public education in the United States as a core principle of one’s rights as a citizen in spite of it not explicitly guaranteed within the Constitution. Despite the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, we continue to witness the fight for complete and total integration within our public schools and thus, racial equality. The 14th Amendment forbid states from denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, but was unclear in terms of it’s exact intention with respect to public education. As a result, were unable to see the effective use and enforcement of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments until approximately the 1940s for a number reasons, but I believe that structural racism is the foremost cause. Today, we find ourselves struggling to achieve full integration within our public school system due to the covert intentions behind structural racism and therefore, it’s ability to overpower the law. Structural racism has the ability to impact legal authority in such a way where we end up with a lack of appropriate enforcement legislation at the Supreme Court level and a lack of acknowledgement and remedies for de jure segregation and thus, it is the primary cause of the current segregation within the American public school system.

Institutional racism on the other hand is far broader in context and more complex. It refers to the ways in which racism has infiltrated into social institutions which govern, discriminate and oppress various groups within that society based on their race (McConnochie et al, 1988). These institutions within our societies, such as schools and healthcare services, use racism in a systematic manner which favours one group over all the others. Although racism as a notion is the same for both individual and institutional purposes, the consequences of the two are vastly different. Sociologists have argued that in the recent years racism has shifted from excluding groups on a biological basis, to more of a cultural basis of difference (Giddens, 2001; Van Krieken et al, 2010).

Race is a social construct that was created by the Europeans in order to minoritize different racial groups. In the reading by Bonilla-Silva, he defines race to be manmade, “This means that notions of racial difference are human creations rather than eternal, essential categories… racial categories have a history and are subject to change.” For example in a lecture by Dr. Aguilar-Hernandez, he stated that the Irish, Italians and Jews were called black before but are now considered white, Mexican-Americans were also considered white up until the 1980s. These ideas lead to the racialization of racial groups.

The idea of race has been constructed over hundreds of years, with numerous cultural implications arising from this construction. Since Johann Fredrich Blumenbach’s racial hierarchy, the inventor of a “…modern racial classification" (Gould 1994:66), the idea of race as a scientific truth justified slavery, colonisation and other existing racial structures. We see these racial hierarchies with notions of white superiority affecting events around the globe everyday; regardless of the fact that race has been proven as a flawed biological concept, with racial categories a result of ‘pseudo science’. The events following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 are evidence of the racist attitudes that linger in our society, institutionally and in everyday life – racism is more than simply individual attitudes, and is embedded in the social structures of society.