Racism Paper
(a) According to a number of authorities, there is a difference between prejudice and racism. How is institutional racism different from prejudice?
In order to give a proper answer to this question, we have to understand the meaning of notions “prejudice” and “institutional racism”. Generally prejudice can be defined as: - “an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason;- any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable;- unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding a racial, religious, or national group” (HubPages n.p.).
Head explains that the term “institutional racism” describes “societal patterns that have the net effect of imposing oppressive or otherwise negative conditions against identifiable groups on the basis of race or ethnicity” (n.p.).Macpherson stated that institutional racism is “the collective failure of an organisation “to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin” (qtd in McKenzi, Bhui n.p.). According to Macpherson institutional racism can be found in “processes, attitudes, and behavior that amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping which disadvantages people in ethnic minority groups” (qtd in K. McKenzi, K. Bhui n.p.).
Jones stated that institutionalized racism is standard, sometimes it is foreseen in the legislation and often it is shown as succeeded inconvenience (1212). Institutional racism is often covert. Randall noted that institutional racism contains a range of aspects which are developed through “polices, practices, and procedures of institutions”, all this have a great abusing effect on the ability to achieve of goods, services, and possibilities, their level and variety (n.p.). Taking into consideration all mentioned above, it can be concluded that prejudice can be defined as attitude, based on certain information. As Randall wrote that no one can state that he is free of prejudices, but still prejudice can bear different substance and is not always to concern a particular group (n.p.). Institutional racism results in intentional or unintentional discriminative behavior. It can appear in the negative attitude to the certain groups, which results in their access to particular goods or possibilities. Institutional character of racism takes roots in the ability to control: access to goods, perspectives, decision making process etc., in another words power is a platform it stands on (Randall n.p.).
(b) In what sense may white people be said to benefit from white privilege or conferred dominance?
Johnson explained that the concept of privilege is associated with benefits which are undeserved, preferential, and socially assigned (n.p.). As an example Johnson wrote about popular assumption that whites are considered to be law-abiding, if they will not act in opposite way, from the other side, people of other races are presumed to be criminals or possible criminals until they will demonstrate that they’re not (n.p.).
Adams, Bell, and White explained that the essence of whites privilege in racist society, is a particular advantage to use …
