racial bias essay

Working together against racism

Vol. 51, No. 3 Print version: page 20

• Racism, Bias, and Discrimination
• Race and Ethnicity

When psychologist Milo Dodson, PhD, traveled to Wisconsin to direct hip-hop artist Common’s Dreamers & Believers Summer Camp for youth in 2013, he was still scrambling to finish his dissertation. But after a few late nights of writing, Dodson realized his doctoral work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign—on race-related stress, the N-word and racial identity development—was highly relevant to his campers, black youth from Chicago. So he began weaving it into their nightly fireside chats.

Dodson led conversations among 30 or so boys about what it means to be black and how race-related barriers and values shape their experience—for instance, their interactions with law enforcement officers.

“It quickly became clear how critical it is to use research and how applicable research is when brought straight into the community,” he says.

Historically, psychological research has been used both to fight and to perpetuate racism. In 1954, a “friend of the court” brief highlighting the damaging effects of segregation, including the seminal doll study by psychologists Kenneth B. Clark, PhD, and Mamie Phipps Clark, PhD, was a key piece of evidence in the Brown v. Board of Education case that ultimately led to the desegregation of public schools. Yet psychological research has also been exploited to promote racist ideologies, for instance, through efforts to tie race to intelligence (Neisser, U., et al., American Psychologist , Vol. 51, No. 2, 1996).

“When it comes to racism, psychologists have moved the needle both in very positive ways and unfortunately also in some harmful ways,” says Shawn Jones, PhD, an assistant professor of counseling psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University who studies racism­-related stress. “We as a field now have a responsibility to be on the right side more often than not.”

Today, psychologists are conducting research on the causes and effects of racism, including disparities in mental health care and the effects of racial microaggressions; designing interventions to mitigate those effects; adapting clinical practice and pedagogy to reflect the diversity of patient and student populations; and working to shift national policies to address racism and racial disparities. They are also working to “decolonize” psychology by incorporating more inclusive practices into the discipline, such as indigenous approaches to healing and wellness.

“Racism can be a nefarious stressor that impacts us individually, interpersonally, institutionally and structurally,” Jones says, “which is why addressing it requires psychologists to work at a variety of levels.”

The work involves partnering with experts from other disciplines, including public health professionals, sociologists and psychiatrists, all of whom bring specialized knowledge to the table.

“This isn’t something that any one person can solve,” says Dodson, now a senior staff psychologist at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) counseling center. “Fighting racism is going to be an ongoing struggle and battle. As we continue to resist hate, we also need to find ways to support each other and to be increasingly collaborative.”

Defining and documenting racism

In recent years, psychologists have helped redefine the way we understand racism as a society. Much of the public used to think that only discriminatory laws or overt acts of interpersonal discrimination, such as the use of racial slurs, counted as racism. But today, many people recognize that systemic disadvantage and more subtle microaggressions are also a key part of the racial-minority experience in America and cause great harm. Psychologists have helped to document those consequences. For example, a meta-analysis on microaggressions—subtle yet hostile racial slights—found they were linked to negative outcomes such as stress and anxiety (Lui, P.P., & Quezada, L., Psychological Bulletin , Vol. 145, No. 1, 2019).

Systemic disadvantages, meanwhile, manifest themselves in many ways, including disparities in employment, housing, health care—and mental health care.

Psychologists and other researchers at The Ohio State University’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity analyze both explicit bias and implicit bias—unconscious stereotypes that can contribute to systemic discrimination—and release yearly reports that provide a global view of disparities across criminal justice, education, health and housing. Researchers there have demonstrated that African American children are more likely to be disciplined than white children for the same action, that mortgage applications from whites are more likely to be accepted than those from African Americans with the same credit scores, and that Asian Americans may receive differential treatment from mental health-care providers because of the assumption that they are a high-achieving group ( State of the Science: Implicit Bias Review , 5th ed., Kirwan Institute, 2017).

New large-scale studies that disaggregate results by race and ethnicity are also revealing low mental health service utilization among African Americans, Latinx, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders ( National Survey on Drug Use and Health , Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2018).

And the ongoing lack of racially inclusive research—as evidenced by, for instance, the dearth of studies with Latinx participants in clinical and forensic psychology and the lower enrollments of racial and ethnic-minority participants in many clinical trials and other health research—means that persistent disparities in outcomes continue to be ignored.

Pernicious effects, effective interventions

As the data stack up on these racial inequities that continue to define American society, some psychologists are studying how this climate affects minority youth and what might be done to cope with and mitigate that reality.

Jones studies racism-related stress, including how vicarious experiences of racism—such as discrimination against a loved one or a nationally publicized police shooting—can have a deleterious effect on the psychological well-being of black youth. For instance, he and his colleagues staged a vicarious discrimination experience in his lab in which black research participants witnessed an experimenter favoring white individuals, and then documented participants’ increased distress, especially among those who believed that whites hold negative views of blacks (Hoggard, L.S., et al., Journal of Black Psychology , Vol. 43, No. 4, 2017).

Jones is also exploring strategies parents and caregivers can use to help black youth learn to navigate their racialized world—by developing a positive racial identity, but also by recognizing the inevitable barriers and biases they will face because of their race. His work builds on foundational research by psychiatrists James Comer, MD, and Alvin Poussaint, MD, by integrating family systems and therapeutic perspectives.

“How do these conversations unfold, what do the dynamics between parents and children look like and how might they be improved?” Jones asks. To answer these questions, he’s conducting a series of mixed-methods studies of how parents discuss race with children and how those conversations differ based on age and gender ( Journal of Child and Family Studies , Vol. 28, No. 1, 2019).

The body of research that Jones helped build has informed a family-based intervention known as EMBRace, or Engaging, Managing, and Bonding through Race, which was developed by psychologist Riana Anderson, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health. In five sessions, EMBRace provides guidance and structure for black parents and children to explore racial socialization, including by cultivating cultural pride and learning stress management skills (Anderson, R.E., et al., Family Process , Vol. 58, No. 1, 2019).

“Shawn and I are collaborating in the research world, but we’re also seeing that these findings aren’t always trickling down to the folks who need it,” Anderson says. “So, we’re also thinking creatively about how to reach people.”

In that same vein, Anderson and Jones launched a YouTube series, Our Mental Health Minute , to share psychological insights about racial socialization, stereotypes, substance use and other topics with a broader audience.

Other psychologists are also connecting with racial-minority communities in innovative ways. Dodson led discussions about anxiety, depression, emotional vulnerability and race-related stress at Common’s youth camp for five consecutive summers. Now, he speaks regularly at athlete and activist Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp , where he engages kids and teens of color in discussions about mental health.

“It’s really insidious how white supremacy has caused kids of color to internalize thoughts like, ‘I don’t deserve to take care of myself,’” Dodson says. “Part of my work is teaching them that we all have the right to be healthy, and that also means taking care of our mental health.”

Dodson also delivers traditional clinical services at UCI, including a weekly group counseling session aimed at destigmatizing mental health care among black men, and serves as the mental health liaison to the school’s athletics department and esports program.

His racially conscious approach points to a gap that persists in clinical settings: a dearth of services that are culturally relevant for racial- and ethnic-minority patients, despite evidence that culturally adapted psychological interventions are more effective than unadapted versions of the same interventions (Hall, G.C.N., et al., Behavior Therapy , Vol. 47, No. 6, 2016). A recent review of culturally appropriate mental and physical health-care services found a shortage of interventions and significant gaps in the literature evaluating them (Butler, M., et al., Improving Cultural Competence to Reduce Health Disparities, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality , 2016).

“The general consensus is that there is a continuing lack of culturally relevant services,” says Stanley Sue, PhD, former director of the Center for Excellence in Diversity at Palo Alto University and co-founder of the Asian American Psychological Association. But the situation is improving, he says, citing an increased focus on disparities research and the APA Guidelines on Race and Ethnicity in Psychology , released in 2019.

Psychologist Iva GreyWolf, PhD, has found a creative way to address the shortage of services tailored for racial- and ethnic-minority groups. As an indigenous behavioral health consultant, GreyWolf helps bridge the gap between American Indian and Alaska Native people receiving treatment for trauma and the clinical psychologists hired to provide it, who are typically unfamiliar with indigenous cultures. She travels with providers to Native villages, mentors providers serving these communities and leads training efforts on the history of the indigenous peoples and cultural practices. For example, nonverbal communication and the participation of family members are seen as key parts of the therapeutic experience in many indigenous cultures.

“Unfortunately, it’s common for outside psychologists completely new to the culture to secure short-lived contract positions serving indigenous communities,” GreyWolf says, adding that these temporary appointments can be dangerous and disorienting for patients. “It’s essential to understand the different values and ways of communicating in order to provide true support.”

Activism and advocacy

Other psychologists are helping to address racism through their work as administrators and activists. At Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, one of the country’s first historically black colleges and universities, psychologist and university president Brenda Allen, PhD, relies on her research background in race and educational outcomes to inform her racial equity work. She created the school’s Office of Institutional Equity, which crafts policies and programs to promote racial equity. For example, the campus police force, which is primarily white, completed its first training course on implicit bias during the summer of 2019.

At the University of California, Berkeley, clinical psychologist Élida Bautista, PhD, directs inclusion and diversity efforts for the Haas School of Business. Her role involves training students, faculty, staff and senior leadership on the value of diversity and best practices for inclusion, revising admission and hiring policies to improve racial equity, and consulting on diversity issues when they arise.

“The demographics here have looked the same for a long time, but they’re not reflective of the state we live in,” Bautista says. “I’ve started creating opportunities to question the status quo.”

Across academia, psychologists have also created crucial opportunities to bolster research efforts by and about racial-minority groups. To improve opportunities for Latina doctoral-­level researchers, Silvia Mazzula, PhD, associate professor of psychology at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, founded the multi­disciplinary Latina Researchers Network (LRN) in 2012. With nearly 3,000 members across psychology, public health, political science and other disciplines, the LRN provides mentorship and collaboration opportunities for a demographic underrepresented in academia.

“Often psychologists of color enter spaces and they’re the only one in their department or institution,” Mazzula says. “That’s a very difficult place to be, which is why networks like this are so important to provide additional support and mentorship.”

While collaboration among academics is essential, some psychologists have turned their gaze outward to focus on addressing racial issues in the public sphere. Dodson co-hosts a podcast, Mental Health Is R.E.A.L. (Reflecting Empathy and Love) , with Los Angeles radio personality Yesi Ortiz. The program, which reaches tens of thousands of listeners, most of whom are black or Latinx, seeks to normalize mental health, for instance, by featuring celebrities like Common and artist-activist Gina Belafonte discussing their experiences in therapy.

“My primary goal is to put research directly in the hands and hearts of people of color,” Dodson says. “Podcasts, radio and TV are avenues that allow me to connect directly with the people.”

Meanwhile, applying the insights about racism gained from ongoing research and practice, some psychologists are also working to shift policies at the highest levels of government to improve racial equity in the United States.

At SAMHSA, for example, licensed clinical-community psychologist Larke Huang, PhD, helped launch in 2012 and now directs the Office of Behavioral Health Equity, where she works at the interface of research, practice and policy.

She has focused on reducing racial disparities in substance use and mental health care by requiring SAMHSA grantees to demonstrate—rather than merely claim—that they are serving racial-minority groups. A new policy Huang helped institute requires grant recipients to submit a disparity impact statement showing their efforts to serve vulnerable populations, including racial minorities. For example, an analysis found that a jail diversion program was disproportionately diverting white people from jail because of mental health problems and not equitably diverting people of color with similar problems. In such cases, the policy requires grantees to show how they will reduce disparities using practices supported in the psychological, organizational management and quality improvement literatures. For instance, the jail diversion program might serve more people of color by minimizing the role of implicit bias in decisions about who should be diverted to a mental health facility.

Huang also helped launch the National Network to Eliminate Disparities in Behavioral Health (NNED), a network of nearly 2,000 community organizations that primarily serve Latinx, African American, Asian American and Native American populations. NNED supports such groups by providing training and technical assistance to both fledgling and established organizations working to develop and test behavioral health interventions for minority populations. Huang says many of these organizations develop innovative and promising programs but would benefit from partnerships with research psychologists trained to conduct formal evaluations, who could help them build stronger evidence bases to support their expansion.

“We also need to talk more about how we pay for these initiatives,” Huang says. “Oftentimes, health disparities and inequities are left out of the financing formula.”

Psychologists are working in the legislative branch as well. Judy Chu, PhD, a psychologist and U.S. representative for California’s 27th Congressional District, has fought several of the Trump administration’s racially problematic policies, including the effort to bar citizens of several Muslim-­majority countries from entering the United States. Her National Origin–Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants (NO BAN) Act, which would reverse the travel and asylum ban and eliminate the extreme vetting requirements authorized by a recent executive order on refugees, now has more than 200 co-sponsors in the House. Chu also helped apply pressure to shut down a temporary shelter for unaccompanied immigrant children in Tornillo, Texas, and has passed bills that set humanitarian standards for such facilities.

“It’s so important to have psychologists in Congress, because the policies of this administration have so much impact on people’s mental health and on their experiences of trauma,” Chu says. “We have a responsibility to stop the permanent harm these policies can cause.”

Chu is also spearheading the Increasing Access to Mental Health in Schools Act —which would provide student loan forgiveness to mental health professionals who deliver services in low-income schools—as a way to improve care for racial- and ethnic-minority communities.

Ultimately, some psychologists say that speaking up about racial inequities is a professional obligation that’s essential for moving the field forward.

“It’s incumbent upon psychologists to have conversations with one another and the public about race, and not just rely on activists to do that work for us,” Dodson says. “We ourselves need to be activists.”

Interdependent roles

Psychologists apply their expertise on racism from all areas of the discipline, including:

• Basic science Psychologists conduct research on the causes and effects of racism, including disparities in mental health care.
• Clinical research Clinician-scientists design interventions to mitigate the effects of racism.
• Clinical psychology Clinicians treat patients in culturally competent practices to address the consequences of racism.
• Advocacy and policy Policy influencers advocate for local and national policies that will address racism and racial disparities.

Further reading

APA Guidelines on Race and Ethnicity in Psychology 2019

The Racial Healing Handbook Singh, A.A., New Harbinger Publications, 2019

Toward a Racially Just Workplace Roberts, L.M., & Mayo, A.J., Harvard Business Review , 2019

About this series 

In this Monitor series, we explore how psychologists address some of society’s greatest challenges through the work they do in their distinct—yet interdependent—roles as researchers, practitioners, applied experts, educators, advocates and more. 

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A pandemic that disproportionately affected communities of color, roadblocks that obstructed efforts to expand the franchise and protect voting discrimination, a growing movement to push anti-racist curricula out of schools – events over the past year have only underscored how prevalent systemic racism and bias is in America today.

What can be done to dismantle centuries of discrimination in the U.S.? How can a more equitable society be achieved? What makes racism such a complicated problem to solve? Black History Month is a time marked for honoring and reflecting on the experience of Black Americans, and it is also an opportunity to reexamine our nation’s deeply embedded racial problems and the possible solutions that could help build a more equitable society.

Stanford scholars are tackling these issues head-on in their research from the perspectives of history, education, law and other disciplines. For example, historian Clayborne Carson is working to preserve and promote the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and religious studies scholar Lerone A. Martin has joined Stanford to continue expanding access and opportunities to learn from King’s teachings; sociologist Matthew Clair is examining how the criminal justice system can end a vicious cycle involving the disparate treatment of Black men; and education scholar Subini Ancy Annamma is studying ways to make education more equitable for historically marginalized students.

Learn more about these efforts and other projects examining racism and discrimination in areas like health and medicine, technology and the workplace below.

Update: Jan. 27, 2023: This story was originally published on Feb. 16, 2021, and has been updated on a number of occasions to include new content.

Understanding the impact of racism; advancing justice

One of the hardest elements of advancing racial justice is helping everyone understand the ways in which they are involved in a system or structure that perpetuates racism, according to Stanford legal scholar Ralph Richard Banks.

“The starting point for the center is the recognition that racial inequality and division have long been the fault line of American society. Thus, addressing racial inequity is essential to sustaining our nation, and furthering its democratic aspirations,” said Banks , the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and co-founder of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice .

This sentiment was echoed by Stanford researcher Rebecca Hetey . One of the obstacles in solving inequality is people’s attitudes towards it, Hetey said. “One of the barriers of reducing inequality is how some people justify and rationalize it.”

How people talk about race and stereotypes matters. Here is some of that scholarship.

For Black Americans, COVID-19 is quickly reversing crucial economic gains

Research co-authored by SIEPR’s Peter Klenow and Chad Jones measures the welfare gap between Black and white Americans and provides a way to analyze policies to narrow the divide.

How an ‘impact mindset’ unites activists of different races

A new study finds that people’s involvement with Black Lives Matter stems from an impulse that goes beyond identity.

For democracy to work, racial inequalities must be addressed

The Stanford Center for Racial Justice is taking a hard look at the policies perpetuating systemic racism in America today and asking how we can imagine a more equitable society.

The psychological toll of George Floyd’s murder

As the nation mourned the death of George Floyd, more Black Americans than white Americans felt angry or sad – a finding that reveals the racial disparities of grief.

Seven factors contributing to American racism

Of the seven factors the researchers identified, perhaps the most insidious is passivism or passive racism, which includes an apathy toward systems of racial advantage or denial that those systems even exist.

Scholars reflect on Black history

Humanities and social sciences scholars reflect on “Black history as American history” and its impact on their personal and professional lives.

The history of Black History Month

It's February, so many teachers and schools are taking time to celebrate Black History Month. According to Stanford historian Michael Hines, there are still misunderstandings and misconceptions about the past, present, and future of the celebration.

Numbers about inequality don’t speak for themselves

In a new research paper, Stanford scholars Rebecca Hetey and Jennifer Eberhardt propose new ways to talk about racial disparities that exist across society, from education to health care and criminal justice systems.

Changing how people perceive problems

Drawing on an extensive body of research, Stanford psychologist Gregory Walton lays out a roadmap to positively influence the way people think about themselves and the world around them. These changes could improve society, too.

Welfare opposition linked to threats of racial standing

Research co-authored by sociologist Robb Willer finds that when white Americans perceive threats to their status as the dominant demographic group, their resentment of minorities increases. This resentment leads to opposing welfare programs they believe will mainly benefit minority groups.

Conversations about race between Black and white friends can feel risky, but are valuable

New research about how friends approach talking about their race-related experiences with each other reveals concerns but also the potential that these conversations have to strengthen relationships and further intergroup learning.

Defusing racial bias

Research shows why understanding the source of discrimination matters.

Many white parents aren’t having ‘the talk’ about race with their kids

After George Floyd’s murder, Black parents talked about race and racism with their kids more. White parents did not and were more likely to give their kids colorblind messages.

Stereotyping makes people more likely to act badly

Even slight cues, like reading a negative stereotype about your race or gender, can have an impact.

Why white people downplay their individual racial privileges

Research shows that white Americans, when faced with evidence of racial privilege, deny that they have benefited personally.

Clayborne Carson: Looking back at a legacy

Stanford historian Clayborne Carson reflects on a career dedicated to studying and preserving the legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

How race influences, amplifies backlash against outspoken women

When women break gender norms, the most negative reactions may come from people of the same race.

Examining disparities in education

Scholar Subini Ancy Annamma is studying ways to make education more equitable for historically marginalized students. Annamma’s research examines how schools contribute to the criminalization of Black youths by creating a culture of punishment that penalizes Black children more harshly than their white peers for the same behavior. Her work shows that youth of color are more likely to be closely watched, over-represented in special education, and reported to and arrested by police.

“These are all ways in which schools criminalize Black youth,” she said. “Day after day, these things start to sediment.”

That’s why Annamma has identified opportunities for teachers and administrators to intervene in these unfair practices. Below is some of that research, from Annamma and others.

New ‘Segregation Index’ shows American schools remain highly segregated by race, ethnicity, and economic status

Researchers at Stanford and USC developed a new tool to track neighborhood and school segregation in the U.S.

New evidence shows that school poverty shapes racial achievement gaps

Racial segregation leads to growing achievement gaps – but it does so entirely through differences in school poverty, according to new research from education Professor Sean Reardon, who is launching a new tool to help educators, parents and policymakers examine education trends by race and poverty level nationwide.

School closures intensify gentrification in Black neighborhoods nationwide

An analysis of census and school closure data finds that shuttering schools increases gentrification – but only in predominantly Black communities.

Ninth-grade ethnic studies helped students for years, Stanford researchers find

A new study shows that students assigned to an ethnic studies course had longer-term improvements in attendance and graduation rates.

Teaching about racism

Stanford sociologist Matthew Snipp discusses ways to educate students about race and ethnic relations in America.

Stanford scholar uncovers an early activist’s fight to get Black history into schools

In a new book, Assistant Professor Michael Hines chronicles the efforts of a Chicago schoolteacher in the 1930s who wanted to remedy the portrayal of Black history in textbooks of the time.

How disability intersects with race

Professor Alfredo J. Artiles discusses the complexities in creating inclusive policies for students with disabilities.

Access to program for black male students lowered dropout rates

New research led by Stanford education professor Thomas S. Dee provides the first evidence of effectiveness for a district-wide initiative targeted at black male high school students.

How school systems make criminals of Black youth

Stanford education professor Subini Ancy Annamma talks about the role schools play in creating a culture of punishment against Black students.

Reducing racial disparities in school discipline

Stanford psychologists find that brief exercises early in middle school can improve students’ relationships with their teachers, increase their sense of belonging and reduce teachers’ reports of discipline issues among black and Latino boys.

Science lessons through a different lens

In his new book, Science in the City, Stanford education professor Bryan A. Brown helps bridge the gap between students’ culture and the science classroom.

Teachers more likely to label black students as troublemakers, Stanford research shows

Stanford psychologists Jennifer Eberhardt and Jason Okonofua experimentally examined the psychological processes involved when teachers discipline black students more harshly than white students.

Why we need Black teachers

Travis Bristol, MA '04, talks about what it takes for schools to hire and retain teachers of color.

Understanding racism in the criminal justice system

Research has shown that time and time again, inequality is embedded into all facets of the criminal justice system. From being arrested to being charged, convicted and sentenced, people of color – particularly Black men – are disproportionately targeted by the police.

“So many reforms are needed: police accountability, judicial intervention, reducing prosecutorial power and increasing resources for public defenders are places we can start,” said sociologist Matthew Clair . “But beyond piecemeal reforms, we need to continue having critical conversations about transformation and the role of the courts in bringing about the abolition of police and prisons.”

Clair is one of several Stanford scholars who have examined the intersection of race and the criminal process and offered solutions to end the vicious cycle of racism. Here is some of that work.

Police Facebook posts disproportionately highlight crimes involving Black suspects, study finds

Researchers examined crime-related posts from 14,000 Facebook pages maintained by U.S. law enforcement agencies and found that Facebook users are exposed to posts that overrepresent Black suspects by 25% relative to local arrest rates.

Supporting students involved in the justice system

New data show that a one-page letter asking a teacher to support a youth as they navigate the difficult transition from juvenile detention back to school can reduce the likelihood that the student re-offends.

Race and mass criminalization in the U.S.

Stanford sociologist discusses how race and class inequalities are embedded in the American criminal legal system.

New Stanford research lab explores incarcerated students’ educational paths

Associate Professor Subini Annamma examines the policies and practices that push marginalized students out of school and into prisons.

Derek Chauvin verdict important, but much remains to be done

Stanford scholars Hakeem Jefferson, Robert Weisberg and Matthew Clair weigh in on the Derek Chauvin verdict, emphasizing that while the outcome is important, much work remains to be done to bring about long-lasting justice.

A ‘veil of darkness’ reduces racial bias in traffic stops

After analyzing 95 million traffic stop records, filed by officers with 21 state patrol agencies and 35 municipal police forces from 2011 to 2018, researchers concluded that “police stops and search decisions suffer from persistent racial bias.”

Stanford big data study finds racial disparities in Oakland, Calif., police behavior, offers solutions

Analyzing thousands of data points, the researchers found racial disparities in how Oakland officers treated African Americans on routine traffic and pedestrian stops. They suggest 50 measures to improve police-community relations.

Race and the death penalty

As questions about racial bias in the criminal justice system dominate the headlines, research by Stanford law Professor John J. Donohue III offers insight into one of the most fraught areas: the death penalty.

Diagnosing disparities in health, medicine

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted communities of color and has highlighted the health disparities between Black Americans, whites and other demographic groups.

As Iris Gibbs , professor of radiation oncology and associate dean of MD program admissions, pointed out at an event sponsored by Stanford Medicine: “We need more sustained attention and real action towards eliminating health inequities, educating our entire community and going beyond ‘allyship,’ because that one fizzles out. We really do need people who are truly there all the way.”

Below is some of that research as well as solutions that can address some of the disparities in the American healthcare system.

Stanford researchers testing ways to improve clinical trial diversity

The American Heart Association has provided funding to two Stanford Medicine professors to develop ways to diversify enrollment in heart disease clinical trials.

Striking inequalities in maternal and infant health

Research by SIEPR’s Petra Persson and Maya Rossin-Slater finds wealthy Black mothers and infants in the U.S. fare worse than the poorest white mothers and infants.

More racial diversity among physicians would lead to better health among black men

A clinical trial in Oakland by Stanford researchers found that black men are more likely to seek out preventive care after being seen by black doctors compared to non-black doctors.

A better measuring stick: Algorithmic approach to pain diagnosis could eliminate racial bias

Traditional approaches to pain management don’t treat all patients the same. AI could level the playing field.

5 questions: Alice Popejoy on race, ethnicity and ancestry in science

Alice Popejoy, a postdoctoral scholar who studies biomedical data sciences, speaks to the role – and pitfalls – of race, ethnicity and ancestry in research.

Stanford Medicine community calls for action against racial injustice, inequities

The event at Stanford provided a venue for health care workers and students to express their feelings about violence against African Americans and to voice their demands for change.

Racial disparity remains in heart-transplant mortality rates, Stanford study finds

African-American heart transplant patients have had persistently higher mortality rates than white patients, but exactly why still remains a mystery.

Finding the COVID-19 Victims that Big Data Misses

Widely used virus tracking data undercounts older people and people of color. Scholars propose a solution to this demographic bias.

Studying how racial stressors affect mental health

Farzana Saleem, an assistant professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education, is interested in the way Black youth and other young people of color navigate adolescence—and the racial stressors that can make the journey harder.

Infants’ race influences quality of hospital care in California

Disparities exist in how babies of different racial and ethnic origins are treated in California’s neonatal intensive care units, but this could be changed, say Stanford researchers.

Immigrants don’t move state-to-state in search of health benefits

When states expand public health insurance to include low-income, legal immigrants, it does not lead to out-of-state immigrants moving in search of benefits.

Excess mortality rates early in pandemic highest among Blacks

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been starkly uneven across race, ethnicity and geography, according to a new study led by SHP's Maria Polyakova.

Decoding bias in media, technology

Driving Artificial Intelligence are machine learning algorithms, sets of rules that tell a computer how to solve a problem, perform a task and in some cases, predict an outcome. These predictive models are based on massive datasets to recognize certain patterns, which according to communication scholar Angele Christin , sometimes come flawed with human bias . 

“Technology changes things, but perhaps not always as much as we think,” Christin said. “Social context matters a lot in shaping the actual effects of the technological tools. […] So, it’s important to understand that connection between humans and machines.”

Below is some of that research, as well as other ways discrimination unfolds across technology, in the media, and ways to counteract it.

IRS disproportionately audits Black taxpayers

A Stanford collaboration with the Department of the Treasury yields the first direct evidence of differences in audit rates by race.

Automated speech recognition less accurate for blacks

The disparity likely occurs because such technologies are based on machine learning systems that rely heavily on databases of English as spoken by white Americans.

New algorithm trains AI to avoid bad behaviors

Robots, self-driving cars and other intelligent machines could become better-behaved thanks to a new way to help machine learning designers build AI applications with safeguards against specific, undesirable outcomes such as racial and gender bias.

Stanford scholar analyzes responses to algorithms in journalism, criminal justice

In a recent study, assistant professor of communication Angèle Christin finds a gap between intended and actual uses of algorithmic tools in journalism and criminal justice fields.

Move responsibly and think about things

In the course CS 181: Computers, Ethics and Public Policy , Stanford students become computer programmers, policymakers and philosophers to examine the ethical and social impacts of technological innovation.

Homicide victims from Black and Hispanic neighborhoods devalued

Social scientists found that homicide victims killed in Chicago’s predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods received less news coverage than those killed in mostly white neighborhoods.

Algorithms reveal changes in stereotypes

New Stanford research shows that, over the past century, linguistic changes in gender and ethnic stereotypes correlated with major social movements and demographic changes in the U.S. Census data.

AI Index Diversity Report: An Unmoving Needle

Stanford HAI’s 2021 AI Index reveals stalled progress in diversifying AI and a scarcity of the data needed to fix it.

Identifying discrimination in the workplace and economy

From who moves forward in the hiring process to who receives funding from venture capitalists, research has revealed how Blacks and other minority groups are discriminated against in the workplace and economy-at-large. 

“There is not one silver bullet here that you can walk away with. Hiring and retention with respect to employee diversity are complex problems,” said Adina Sterling , associate professor of organizational behavior at the Graduate School of Business (GSB). 

Sterling has offered a few places where employers can expand employee diversity at their companies. For example, she suggests hiring managers track data about their recruitment methods and the pools that result from those efforts, as well as examining who they ultimately hire.

Here is some of that insight.

How To: Use a Scorecard to Evaluate People More Fairly

A written framework is an easy way to hold everyone to the same standard.

Archiving Black histories of Silicon Valley

A new collection at Stanford Libraries will highlight Black Americans who helped transform California’s Silicon Valley region into a hub for innovation, ideas.

Race influences professional investors’ judgments

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• Black Americans Have a Clear Vision for Reducing Racism but Little Hope It Will Happen

Many say key U.S. institutions should be rebuilt to ensure fair treatment

Table of contents.

• Black Americans see little improvement in their lives despite increased national attention to racial issues
• Few Black adults expect equality for Black people in the U.S.
• Black adults say racism and police brutality are extremely big problems for Black people in the U.S.
• Personal experiences with discrimination are widespread among Black Americans
• 2. Black Americans’ views on political strategies, leadership and allyship for achieving equality
• The legacy of slavery affects Black Americans today
• Most Black adults agree the descendants of enslaved people should be repaid
• The types of repayment Black adults think would be most helpful
• Responsibility for reparations and the likelihood repayment will occur
• Black adults say the criminal justice system needs to be completely rebuilt
• Black adults say political, economic and health care systems need major changes to ensure fair treatment
• Most Black adults say funding for police departments should stay the same or increase
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix: Supplemental tables
• The American Trends Panel survey methodology

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand the nuances among Black people on issues of racial inequality and social change in the United States. This in-depth survey explores differences among Black Americans in their views on the social status of the Black population in the U.S.; their assessments of racial inequality; their visions for institutional and social change; and their outlook on the chances that these improvements will be made. The analysis is the latest in the Center’s series of in-depth surveys of public opinion among Black Americans (read the first, “ Faith Among Black Americans ” and “ Race Is Central to Identity for Black Americans and Affects How They Connect With Each Other ”).

The online survey of 3,912 Black U.S. adults was conducted Oct. 4-17, 2021. Black U.S. adults include those who are single-race, non-Hispanic Black Americans; multiracial non-Hispanic Black Americans; and adults who indicate they are Black and Hispanic. The survey includes 1,025 Black adults on Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP) and 2,887 Black adults on Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel. Respondents on both panels are recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses.

Recruiting panelists by phone or mail ensures that nearly all U.S. Black adults have a chance of selection. This gives us confidence that any sample can represent the whole population (see our Methods 101 explainer on random sampling). Here are the questions used for the survey of Black adults, along with its responses and methodology .

The terms “Black Americans,” “Black people” and “Black adults” are used interchangeably throughout this report to refer to U.S. adults who self-identify as Black, either alone or in combination with other races or Hispanic identity.

Throughout this report, “Black, non-Hispanic” respondents are those who identify as single-race Black and say they have no Hispanic background. “Black Hispanic” respondents are those who identify as Black and say they have Hispanic background. We use the terms “Black Hispanic” and “Hispanic Black” interchangeably. “Multiracial” respondents are those who indicate two or more racial backgrounds (one of which is Black) and say they are not Hispanic.

Respondents were asked a question about how important being Black was to how they think about themselves. In this report, we use the term “being Black” when referencing responses to this question.

In this report, “immigrant” refers to people who were not U.S. citizens at birth – in other words, those born outside the U.S., Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories to parents who were not U.S. citizens. We use the terms “immigrant,” “born abroad” and “foreign-born” interchangeably.

Throughout this report, “Democrats and Democratic leaners” and just “Democrats” both refer to respondents who identify politically with the Democratic Party or who are independent or some other party but lean toward the Democratic Party. “Republicans and Republican leaners” and just “Republicans” both refer to respondents who identify politically with the Republican Party or are independent or some other party but lean toward the Republican Party.

Respondents were asked a question about their voter registration status. In this report, respondents are considered registered to vote if they self-report being absolutely certain they are registered at their current address. Respondents are considered not registered to vote if they report not being registered or express uncertainty about their registration.

To create the upper-, middle- and lower-income tiers, respondents’ 2020 family incomes were adjusted for differences in purchasing power by geographic region and household size. Respondents were then placed into income tiers: “Middle income” is defined as two-thirds to double the median annual income for the entire survey sample. “Lower income” falls below that range, and “upper income” lies above it. For more information about how the income tiers were created, read the methodology .

More than a year after the murder of George Floyd and the national protests, debate and political promises that ensued, 65% of Black Americans say the increased national attention on racial inequality has not led to changes that improved their lives. 1 And 44% say equality for Black people in the United States is not likely to be achieved, according to newly released findings from an October 2021 survey of Black Americans by Pew Research Center.

This is somewhat of a reversal in views from September 2020, when half of Black adults said the increased national focus on issues of race would lead to major policy changes to address racial inequality in the country and 56% expected changes that would make their lives better.

At the same time, many Black Americans are concerned about racial discrimination and its impact. Roughly eight-in-ten say they have personally experienced discrimination because of their race or ethnicity (79%), and most also say discrimination is the main reason many Black people cannot get ahead (68%).  

Even so, Black Americans have a clear vision for how to achieve change when it comes to racial inequality. This includes support for significant reforms to or complete overhauls of several U.S. institutions to ensure fair treatment, particularly the criminal justice system; political engagement, primarily in the form of voting; support for Black businesses to advance Black communities; and reparations in the forms of educational, business and homeownership assistance. Yet alongside their assessments of inequality and ideas about progress exists pessimism about whether U.S. society and its institutions will change in ways that would reduce racism.

These findings emerge from an extensive Pew Research Center survey of 3,912 Black Americans conducted online Oct. 4-17, 2021. The survey explores how Black Americans assess their position in U.S. society and their ideas about social change. Overall, Black Americans are clear on what they think the problems are facing the country and how to remedy them. However, they are skeptical that meaningful changes will take place in their lifetime.

Black Americans see racism in our laws as a big problem and discrimination as a roadblock to progress

Black adults were asked in the survey to assess the current nature of racism in the United States and whether structural or individual sources of this racism are a bigger problem for Black people. About half of Black adults (52%) say racism in our laws is a bigger problem than racism by individual people, while four-in-ten (43%) say acts of racism committed by individual people is the bigger problem. Only 3% of Black adults say that Black people do not experience discrimination in the U.S. today.

In assessing the magnitude of problems that they face, the majority of Black Americans say racism (63%), police brutality (60%) and economic inequality (54%) are extremely or very big problems for Black people living in the U.S. Slightly smaller shares say the same about the affordability of health care (47%), limitations on voting (46%), and the quality of K-12 schools (40%).

Aside from their critiques of U.S. institutions, Black adults also feel the impact of racial inequality personally. Most Black adults say they occasionally or frequently experience unfair treatment because of their race or ethnicity (79%), and two-thirds (68%) cite racial discrimination as the main reason many Black people cannot get ahead today.

Black Americans’ views on reducing racial inequality

Black Americans are clear on the challenges they face because of racism. They are also clear on the solutions. These range from overhauls of policing practices and the criminal justice system to civic engagement and reparations to descendants of people enslaved in the United States.

Changing U.S. institutions such as policing, courts and prison systems

About nine-in-ten Black adults say multiple aspects of the criminal justice system need some kind of change (minor, major or a complete overhaul) to ensure fair treatment, with nearly all saying so about policing (95%), the courts and judicial process (95%), and the prison system (94%).

Roughly half of Black adults say policing (49%), the courts and judicial process (48%), and the prison system (54%) need to be completely rebuilt for Black people to be treated fairly. Smaller shares say the same about the political system (42%), the economic system (37%) and the health care system (34%), according to the October survey.

While Black Americans are in favor of significant changes to policing, most want spending on police departments in their communities to stay the same (39%) or increase (35%). A little more than one-in-five (23%) think spending on police departments in their area should be decreased.

Black adults who favor decreases in police spending are most likely to name medical, mental health and social services (40%) as the top priority for those reappropriated funds. Smaller shares say K-12 schools (25%), roads, water systems and other infrastructure (12%), and reducing taxes (13%) should be the top priority.

Voting and ‘buying Black’ viewed as important strategies for Black community advancement

Black Americans also have clear views on the types of political and civic engagement they believe will move Black communities forward. About six-in-ten Black adults say voting (63%) and supporting Black businesses or “buying Black” (58%) are extremely or very effective strategies for moving Black people toward equality in the U.S. Smaller though still significant shares say the same about volunteering with organizations dedicated to Black equality (48%), protesting (42%) and contacting elected officials (40%).

Black adults were also asked about the effectiveness of Black economic and political independence in moving them toward equality. About four-in-ten (39%) say Black ownership of all businesses in Black neighborhoods would be an extremely or very effective strategy for moving toward racial equality, while roughly three-in-ten (31%) say the same about establishing a national Black political party. And about a quarter of Black adults (27%) say having Black neighborhoods governed entirely by Black elected officials would be extremely or very effective in moving Black people toward equality.

Most Black Americans support repayment for slavery

Discussions about atonement for slavery predate the founding of the United States. As early as 1672 , Quaker abolitionists advocated for enslaved people to be paid for their labor once they were free. And in recent years, some U.S. cities and institutions have implemented reparations policies to do just that.

Most Black Americans say the legacy of slavery affects the position of Black people in the U.S. either a great deal (55%) or a fair amount (30%), according to the survey. And roughly three-quarters (77%) say descendants of people enslaved in the U.S. should be repaid in some way.

Black adults who say descendants of the enslaved should be repaid support doing so in different ways. About eight-in-ten say repayment in the forms of educational scholarships (80%), financial assistance for starting or improving a business (77%), and financial assistance for buying or remodeling a home (76%) would be extremely or very helpful. A slightly smaller share (69%) say cash payments would be extremely or very helpful forms of repayment for the descendants of enslaved people.

Where the responsibility for repayment lies is also clear for Black Americans. Among those who say the descendants of enslaved people should be repaid, 81% say the U.S. federal government should have all or most of the responsibility for repayment. About three-quarters (76%) say businesses and banks that profited from slavery should bear all or most of the responsibility for repayment. And roughly six-in-ten say the same about colleges and universities that benefited from slavery (63%) and descendants of families who engaged in the slave trade (60%).

Black Americans are skeptical change will happen

Even though Black Americans’ visions for social change are clear, very few expect them to be implemented. Overall, 44% of Black adults say equality for Black people in the U.S. is a little or not at all likely. A little over a third (38%) say it is somewhat likely and only 13% say it is extremely or very likely.

They also do not think specific institutions will change. Two-thirds of Black adults say changes to the prison system (67%) and the courts and judicial process (65%) that would ensure fair treatment for Black people are a little or not at all likely in their lifetime. About six-in-ten (58%) say the same about policing. Only about one-in-ten say changes to policing (13%), the courts and judicial process (12%), and the prison system (11%) are extremely or very likely.

This pessimism is not only about the criminal justice system. The majority of Black adults say the political (63%), economic (62%) and health care (51%) systems are also unlikely to change in their lifetime.

Black Americans’ vision for social change includes reparations. However, much like their pessimism about institutional change, very few think they will see reparations in their lifetime. Among Black adults who say the descendants of people enslaved in the U.S. should be repaid, 82% say reparations for slavery are unlikely to occur in their lifetime. About one-in-ten (11%) say repayment is somewhat likely, while only 7% say repayment is extremely or very likely to happen in their lifetime.

Black Democrats, Republicans differ on assessments of inequality and visions for social change

Party affiliation is one key point of difference among Black Americans in their assessments of racial inequality and their visions for social change. Black Republicans and Republican leaners are more likely than Black Democrats and Democratic leaners to focus on the acts of individuals. For example, when summarizing the nature of racism against Black people in the U.S., the majority of Black Republicans (59%) say racist acts committed by individual people is a bigger problem for Black people than racism in our laws. Black Democrats (41%) are less likely to hold this view.

Black Republicans (45%) are also more likely than Black Democrats (21%) to say that Black people who cannot get ahead in the U.S. are mostly responsible for their own condition. And while similar shares of Black Republicans (79%) and Democrats (80%) say they experience racial discrimination on a regular basis, Republicans (64%) are more likely than Democrats (36%) to say that most Black people who want to get ahead can make it if they are willing to work hard.

On the other hand, Black Democrats are more likely than Black Republicans to focus on the impact that racial inequality has on Black Americans. Seven-in-ten Black Democrats (73%) say racial discrimination is the main reason many Black people cannot get ahead in the U.S, while about four-in-ten Black Republicans (44%) say the same. And Black Democrats are more likely than Black Republicans to say racism (67% vs. 46%) and police brutality (65% vs. 44%) are extremely big problems for Black people today.

Black Democrats are also more critical of U.S. institutions than Black Republicans are. For example, Black Democrats are more likely than Black Republicans to say the prison system (57% vs. 35%), policing (52% vs. 29%) and the courts and judicial process (50% vs. 35%) should be completely rebuilt for Black people to be treated fairly.

While the share of Black Democrats who want to see large-scale changes to the criminal justice system exceeds that of Black Republicans, they share similar views on police funding. Four-in-ten each of Black Democrats and Black Republicans say funding for police departments in their communities should remain the same, while around a third of each partisan coalition (36% and 37%, respectively) says funding should increase. Only about one-in-four Black Democrats (24%) and one-in-five Black Republicans (21%) say funding for police departments in their communities should decrease.

Among the survey’s other findings:

Black adults differ by age in their views on political strategies. Black adults ages 65 and older (77%) are most likely to say voting is an extremely or very effective strategy for moving Black people toward equality. They are significantly more likely than Black adults ages 18 to 29 (48%) and 30 to 49 (60%) to say this. Black adults 65 and older (48%) are also more likely than those ages 30 to 49 (38%) and 50 to 64 (42%) to say protesting is an extremely or very effective strategy. Roughly four-in-ten Black adults ages 18 to 29 say this (44%).

Gender plays a role in how Black adults view policing. Though majorities of Black women (65%) and men (56%) say police brutality is an extremely big problem for Black people living in the U.S. today, Black women are more likely than Black men to hold this view. When it comes to criminal justice, Black women (56%) and men (51%) are about equally likely to share the view that the prison system should be completely rebuilt to ensure fair treatment of Black people. However, Black women (52%) are slightly more likely than Black men (45%) to say this about policing. On the matter of police funding, Black women (39%) are slightly more likely than Black men (31%) to say police funding in their communities should be increased. On the other hand, Black men are more likely than Black women to prefer that funding stay the same (44% vs. 36%). Smaller shares of both Black men (23%) and women (22%) would like to see police funding decreased.

Income impacts Black adults’ views on reparations. Roughly eight-in-ten Black adults with lower (78%), middle (77%) and upper incomes (79%) say the descendants of people enslaved in the U.S. should receive reparations. Among those who support reparations, Black adults with upper and middle incomes (both 84%) are more likely than those with lower incomes (75%) to say educational scholarships would be an extremely or very helpful form of repayment. However, of those who support reparations, Black adults with lower (72%) and middle incomes (68%) are more likely than those with higher incomes (57%) to say cash payments would be an extremely or very helpful form of repayment for slavery.

• Black adults in the September 2020 survey only include those who say their race is Black alone and are non-Hispanic. The same is true only for the questions of improvements to Black people’s lives and equality in the United States in the October 2021 survey. Throughout the rest of this report, Black adults include those who say their race is Black alone and non-Hispanic; those who say their race is Black and at least one other race and non-Hispanic; or Black and Hispanic, unless otherwise noted. ↩

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Mahzarin Banaji opened the symposium on Tuesday by recounting the “implicit association” experiments she had done at Yale and at Harvard. The final talk is today at 9 a.m.

Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

Turning a light on our implicit biases

Brett Milano

Harvard Correspondent

Social psychologist details research at University-wide faculty seminar

Few people would readily admit that they’re biased when it comes to race, gender, age, class, or nationality. But virtually all of us have such biases, even if we aren’t consciously aware of them, according to Mahzarin Banaji, Cabot Professor of Social Ethics in the Department of Psychology, who studies implicit biases. The trick is figuring out what they are so that we can interfere with their influence on our behavior.

Banaji was the featured speaker at an online seminar Tuesday, “Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People,” which was also the title of Banaji’s 2013 book, written with Anthony Greenwald. The presentation was part of Harvard’s first-ever University-wide faculty seminar.

“Precipitated in part by the national reckoning over race, in the wake of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others, the phrase ‘implicit bias’ has almost become a household word,” said moderator Judith Singer, Harvard’s senior vice provost for faculty development and diversity. Owing to the high interest on campus, Banaji was slated to present her talk on three different occasions, with the final one at 9 a.m. Thursday.

Banaji opened on Tuesday by recounting the “implicit association” experiments she had done at Yale and at Harvard. The assumptions underlying the research on implicit bias derive from well-established theories of learning and memory and the empirical results are derived from tasks that have their roots in experimental psychology and neuroscience. Banaji’s first experiments found, not surprisingly, that New Englanders associated good things with the Red Sox and bad things with the Yankees.

She then went further by replacing the sports teams with gay and straight, thin and fat, and Black and white. The responses were sometimes surprising: Shown a group of white and Asian faces, a test group at Yale associated the former more with American symbols though all the images were of U.S. citizens. In a further study, the faces of American-born celebrities of Asian descent were associated as less American than those of white celebrities who were in fact European. “This shows how discrepant our implicit bias is from even factual information,” she said.

How can an institution that is almost 400 years old not reveal a history of biases, Banaji said, citing President Charles Eliot’s words on Dexter Gate: “Depart to serve better thy country and thy kind” and asking the audience to think about what he may have meant by the last two words.

She cited Harvard’s current admission strategy of seeking geographic and economic diversity as examples of clear progress — if, as she said, “we are truly interested in bringing the best to Harvard.” She added, “We take these actions consciously, not because they are easy but  because they are in our interest and in the interest of society.”

Moving beyond racial issues, Banaji suggested that we sometimes see only what we believe we should see. To illustrate she showed a video clip of a basketball game and asked the audience to count the number of passes between players. Then the psychologist pointed out that something else had occurred in the video — a woman with an umbrella had walked through — but most watchers failed to register it. “You watch the video with a set of expectations, one of which is that a woman with an umbrella will not walk through a basketball game. When the data contradicts an expectation, the data doesn’t always win.”

Expectations, based on experience, may create associations such as “Valley Girl Uptalk” is the equivalent of “not too bright.” But when a quirky way of speaking spreads to a large number of young people from certain generations,  it stops being a useful guide. And yet, Banaji said, she has been caught in her dismissal of a great idea presented in uptalk.  Banaji stressed that the appropriate course of action is not to ask the person to change the way she speaks but rather for her and other decision makers to know that using language and accents to judge ideas is something people at their own peril.

Banaji closed the talk with a personal story that showed how subtler biases work: She’d once turned down an interview because she had issues with the magazine for which the journalist worked.

The writer accepted this and mentioned she’d been at Yale when Banaji taught there. The professor then surprised herself by agreeing to the interview based on this fragment of shared history that ought not to have influenced her. She urged her colleagues to think about positive actions, such as helping that perpetuate the status quo.

“You and I don’t discriminate the way our ancestors did,” she said. “We don’t go around hurting people who are not members of our own group. We do it in a very civilized way: We discriminate by who we help. The question we should be asking is, ‘Where is my help landing? Is it landing on the most deserved, or just on the one I shared a ZIP code with for four years?’”

To subscribe to short educational modules that help to combat implicit biases, visit outsmartinghumanminds.org .

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• Review Article
• Published: 18 May 2023

A systemic approach to the psychology of racial bias within individuals and society

• Allison L. Skinner-Dorkenoo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1220-4791 1 ,
• Meghan George   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6917-6061 2 ,
• James E. Wages III   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4205-9807 3 ,
• Sirenia Sánchez   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1597-679X 2 &
• Sylvia P. Perry   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3435-3125 2 , 4 , 5  

Nature Reviews Psychology volume  2 ,  pages 392–406 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Historically, the field of psychology has focused on racial biases at an individual level, considering the effects of various stimuli on individual racial attitudes and biases. This approach has provided valuable information, but not enough focus has been placed on the systemic nature of racial biases. In this Review, we examine the bidirectional relation between individual-level racial biases and broader societal systems through a systemic lens. We argue that systemic factors operating across levels — from the interpersonal to the cultural — contribute to the production and reinforcement of racial biases in children and adults. We consider the effects of five systemic factors on racial biases in the USA: power and privilege disparities, cultural narratives and values, segregated communities, shared stereotypes and nonverbal messages. We discuss evidence that these factors shape individual-level racial biases, and that individual-level biases shape systems and institutions to reproduce systemic racial biases and inequalities. We conclude with suggestions for interventions that could limit the effects of these influences and discuss future directions for the field.

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Introduction.

The field of psychology so far has primarily focused on racial bias at an individual level, centring the effects of various stimuli on the racial biases of individuals 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 . Racial bias refers to favouring or providing preferential treatment to members of one racial group over another. There is no doubt that the approach of focusing on personally held racial prejudices and discrimination has provided valuable information about the psychology of racial biases. However, this approach largely ignores the systemic nature of racial biases and the ways in which racial biases are shaped by the broader cultural systems in which people live 12 , 13 , 14 . For instance, the focus on individual-level biases has contributed to the burgeoning industry of diversity and implicit bias trainings 15 that aim to address problems such as police brutality against Black people 16 . Although potentially useful for changing individual attitudes and/or biases, these interventions seem unlikely to adequately address the underlying causes of bias, which stem from the systems and structures that create and reinforce racial inequality.

The overemphasis on the individual level in research on racial biases seems to have come at the expense of psychological research and theorizing about the impact of broader contextual factors, and how individual-level racial biases reinforce broader systemic patterns of oppression. Models of nested levels of influence in the study of race relations 17 , human development 18 and culture 19 , 20 can be used to consider the relation between racial bias and broader systemic factors (Fig.  1 ). Each level of influence influences the innermost level of individual attitudes, and conversely, individual-level attitudes also influence systems 21 .

a , The nested-levels framework focuses on how each systemic level of influence influences individual-level attitudes, and how individual-level attitudes influence systems. The most proximal influences on racial bias are personal and interpersonal experiences, which are nested within communities and institutions that set the local context for interpersonal experiences. Communities are situated within broader cultural contexts that shape the norms, values and beliefs that structure society. At the outermost level are temporal influences, which capture how past manifestations of these systems continue to influence members of society. b , There is a bidirectional influence from each of the systemic levels to the individual level and from the individual level back out to each of the systemic levels, within the five factors discussed in the Review.

Five key systemic factors — power and privilege disparities, cultural narratives and values, segregated communities, shared stereotypes, and nonverbal messages — influence racial bias across the nested levels of this framework. Although they are certainly not the only systemic factors that influence racial biases, we focus on these five because we believe them to be particularly relevant to the development of racial biases in the contemporary USA. At the innermost level are the most proximal influences on individual-level racial bias — personal and interpersonal experiences, such as socialization from caregivers and interracial friendships. These experiences are nested within communities and institutions that set the local context for interpersonal experiences, such as the racial diversity in a school or neighbourhood community. Communities are situated within a broader cultural context that shapes the norms, values, and beliefs that structure society. At the outermost level are temporal influences, which capture how past interpersonal, institutional or community, and societal influences continue to influence members of society throughout their lives. Although the primary focus is on how each level of influence affects individual-level attitudes, the levels also influence one another. For instance, culture can shape organizations and interpersonal experiences within that culture, as well as individual-level biases. Likewise, individual-level racial biases can mould interpersonal experiences, which can shape factors at the organizational and community level.

In this Review, we recognize the bidirectional relation between individual-level racial biases and broader societal systems across levels of influence. In some cases, there is clear evidence of the causal chain from system to individual and from individual to system, whereas in others, there might be evidence of an association, but the direction of influence is unclear. In many cases, individual-level biases and broader societal systems might be mutually reinforcing, but for clarity we take the approach of assessing each direction of influence separately. We examine the role of power and privilege, cultural narratives and values, racial segregation, shared cultural stereotypes and nonverbal signals in racial bias. In each section, we first discuss what is known about the contextual factors that produce and reinforce individual-level biases before highlighting how individual-level biases shape institutions and systems. Although our primary focus is on how these systemic factors influence racial biases, we also use the nested levels of influence framework to examine how individual-level racial biases held by the public can contribute to the reinforcement and perpetuation of systemic oppression at the interpersonal, institutional and/or community, societal and temporal levels. We conclude with implications for interventions aimed at reducing racial bias and discuss future directions for research.

To appropriately analyse the factors that perpetuate racial bias at a systemic level, it is critical to contextualize within culture. We focus on the USA because it is the context that we have the cultural knowledge to discuss and where most research on racial bias development has been conducted. The racial context of the USA is distinct in several ways. Notably, white European colonizers violently stole the land that comprises the USA from indigenous inhabitants across multiple centuries 22 . Furthermore, the enslavement of Black people was legal and common practice for over 200 years in North America 23 , 24 . Citizenship was largely restricted to white people for most of the history of the USA, with full citizenship not open to people of all ethnicities until 1952 (ref. 25 ). Throughout this history, white people have accrued power, wealth, status and numerical majority status through systems that intentionally oppress and marginalize people of colour, including Native Americans, African Americans and members of other ethnic groups. Although modern laws bar racial discrimination, substantial racial inequalities between white people and people of colour persist in the USA, in areas including wealth, education and health 26 , 27 , 28 . Given this history of racism in the USA, the systemic factors that perpetuate racial biases into the present might be somewhat distinct from other contexts. Despite this focus on the USA, this Review could be valuable for understanding similar patterns of bias and oppression outside the USA. Some of these similarities are highlighted in the book Caste: The Origins Of Our Discontents 29 — which draws parallels between the systems of oppression of Black people in the USA, Jewish people in Nazi Germany and Dalit people in India. Although thoroughly analysing such parallels is beyond the scope of this Review, we briefly discuss systemic factors that perpetuate biases based on socially constructed categories — such as race — in other cultural contexts in the concluding section.

Power and privilege disparities

Power and privilege disparities set the initial conditions within which other factors operate. Systemic inequalities in the distribution of power and privilege serve as the societal backdrop in the USA, directly contributing to individual-level racial biases. Many residents of the USA grow up in an environment in which their doctors, lawyers, teachers, government officials, entrepreneurs, and people occupying other respected roles are white 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 . Thus, to these residents, the USA might look like it ‘belongs to’ white people.

Children who are socialized in an unequal society, without systemic explanations for why power and privilege have been concentrated among certain people, often internalize that system 34 . Both children and adults tend to conclude that the way things are structured in society is the way they should be 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 . For example, experimental evidence suggests that children in the USA tend to prefer people who are relatively more fortunate, even if that good fortune is simply due to luck 43 , and when given the opportunity to rectify existing resource inequalities, they often exacerbate inequalities by giving more to the person who already has more resources 44 . These laboratory findings suggest that when children are socialized in an environment in which people in a particular social group have more resources, they will tend to favour people in that social group and distribute resources in ways that perpetuate resource disparities. Thus, in the USA — where racial wealth disparities are large and growing 28 — systemic inequalities predispose children to infer that white people are better than and deserve to have more than people of colour 45 . Among adults, markers of structural racial inequalities can also predict racial bias. Attending a university with few faculty members of colour, living in an area that has high poverty rates among Black residents and living in a community with low economic mobility all predict heightened implicit bias against Black people among non-Black American residents 7 , 46 . In other words, children and adults are motivated to justify the systems in which they are socialized 41 , 42 .

When progressive changes in society challenge ingrained expectations of inequality, racial biases can be heightened. White residents of the USA who were exposed to information about the increasing racial diversity of the USA subsequently exhibited increased bias favouring white people relative to those who were not exposed to this information 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 . Emphasizing the racially historic milestone of Barack Obama being elected as president of the USA also increased implicit pro-white bias among white American residents, relative to those who were not exposed to this information 50 . This research suggests that racial inequalities at various levels of influence — from local communities to the broader cultural context — can lead people to believe that inequality is natural and justified, and that racial progress that challenges those inequalities might further intensify individual-level racial bias.

Next, we turn to the role of individual-level racial biases in perpetuating systemic racial inequalities. Individual-level racial biases have been argued to impact systemic disparities in power and privilege in a variety of domains, including government representation, population health, education, employment, and immigration 51 . Perhaps the most direct impact of individual-level racial biases on systemic outcomes can be seen in voting behaviour. Greater individual-level anti-Black bias was associated with a lower likelihood of voting for Barack Obama in the 2008 American presidential election and reduced support for his healthcare reform proposal 52 , 53 . With regard to health, white residents of the USA (especially those with higher racial bias) were less supportive of COVID-19 pandemic precautions when they were more aware — based on prior knowledge or experimental exposure to information — that COVID-19 was disproportionately affecting people of colour in the USA 54 , 55 , 56 . Other work has tied racial disparities in health and healthcare access to the average individual-level bias against Black people held by white residents in their county of residence 53 , 57 . In locations where white residents had higher racial biases, Medicaid disability expenditures (which particularly benefit people of colour) were lower, and Black residents had reduced access to healthcare and increased rates of circulatory-disease-related death 53 , 57 . Educational disparities have also been linked to individual-level racial biases. In American counties where the individual-level bias against Black people is stronger, there are larger racial disparities in school disciplinary actions, with Black students being subjected to more suspensions, expulsions, and referrals to law enforcement than white students 58 . These findings suggest that individual-level biases of residents of the USA can influence presidential elections, community health inequalities and school disciplinary actions, reflecting long-term temporal impacts on the privilege and power afforded to people of colour at cultural, community, and interpersonal levels.

In sum, racial disparities in power and privilege have been built into the societal system of the USA, resulting in wide-ranging effects on the life outcomes of residents of the USA. This system also affects the attitudes of those living within the system, leading to expectations of inequality and beliefs that inequality is justified. These beliefs and expectations then motivate the individuals that make up the system to behave in ways that maintain the system of inequality, such that individuals’ attitudes reinforce the system of inequality that produced them.

Cultural narratives and values

The concentration of power and privilege among white people in the USA means that white people largely write the histories, set the norms and define the values of American society. This centring of white people can be seen in historical narratives, cultural products and cultural beliefs, which can all contribute to the development of individual-level racial biases 59 . Below, we discuss the role of each of these aspects of culture in shaping racial biases.

Historical narratives

Historical narratives can play an important part in how people view themselves and others in society 10 . In educational curricula in the USA, national history tends to be taught through a white-affirming lens, such that the attitudes, values and perspectives of white people are implicitly or explicitly justified by the historical narrative 60 , 61 . The perspectives and experiences of people of colour are often omitted from curricula entirely. For instance, despite their many historical contributions to the USA 62 , Asian Americans are vastly underrepresented in American textbooks 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 .

For much of the history of the USA, when people of colour were discussed in textbooks, they were described with derogatory and dehumanizing stereotypes that justified their marginalization 60 , 67 . Moreover, egregious acts perpetrated by white people have often been presented in a sanitized way that minimizes, glosses over, and justifies them 68 , 69 , 70 . As an example, ‘manifest destiny’ (the worldview that white people were destined to expand their territory to the west coast of North America) is often presented uncritically as a justification for atrocities that white people committed against the original Native American and Mexican inhabitants of the continent 60 , 71 . Similarly, Confederate symbols — which celebrate the southern American states that went to war with northern American states to maintain the institution of slavery — are argued to be a race-neutral representation of Southern pride in some textbooks and by some modern pundits and continue to be displayed at some courthouses 72 , 73 , 74 . The way history is usually portrayed in American society therefore obscures the relation between contemporary systems and racial injustices of the past 61 . Some states have even created laws explicitly barring the teaching of critical history related to race 75 .

The way history is presented in society shapes individual-level attitudes about race and racism. School curricula can be vital contributors to ethnocentric biases in childhood 76 . Furthermore, adults who have less knowledge of the racial injustices of the past tend to be less aware of present-day racism 77 . Exposure to historical narratives that centre white people and glorify the nation reduce awareness of racial injustices among school children, college students, and adult museum visitors 70 , 78 . Furthermore, experimental evidence suggests that exposure to the Confederate flag (versus no exposure to the flag) can increase racial biases and promote racial injustice 79 . Thus, how history is portrayed at a cultural level, in textbooks, and in community schools and institutions (such as museums and memorials) has the potential to influence individual-level racial biases.

Individuals receive and simultaneously reproduce and uphold these historical narratives. For instance, it was argued in 1963 that the individual-level racial biases of historians were to blame for the history of Native Americans being oversimplified, mischaracterized and/or overlooked entirely 80 . Although there have been changes to the framing of the history of the USA over the intervening 60 years, many of the issues identified persist to this day 81 . For example, Christopher Columbus is still often credited with and praised for ‘discovering’ North America, even though it was already inhabited by thriving interconnected societies of millions of people 22 .

The effects of individual-level biases can also be seen at the community and interpersonal levels. The same history and culture can be represented differently depending on who is curating and constructing the representation 78 , 82 . As an example, students who reported that being white was central to their identity reported more negative attitudes towards Black History Month representations that were curated and displayed in schools in which the majority of students were Black (versus those that were curated and displayed in schools in which the majority of students were white) 70 . This finding is particularly meaningful because Black History Month representations in schools with a majority of Black students were generally more supportive of anti-racism than those in schools with a majority of white students. Another study provided evidence that patrons of the Ellis Island Immigration Museum tended to identify exhibits that painted the USA in a positive light as more important than exhibits highlighting historical injustices 78 . Patrons who reported more assimilationist attitudes — such as believing that to ‘be truly American’ means speaking English — particularly disliked the exhibits highlighting historical injustices. All of these findings converge to suggest that individual-level biases shape the way people in the USA think about and portray history at personal, community, cultural and temporal levels.

Cultural products

At a societal level, the cultural products — such as art forms, varieties of dress and appearance, and styles of speech — of white people tend to be the most highly regarded. The art, music, and dance that are most culturally valued in the USA are rooted in white European traditions 83 , 84 . For instance, professional dance schools largely focus on ballet and modern dance 85 and music departments primarily emphasize classical music education — marginalizing the study of dance and music traditions developed by artists of colour 86 , 87 . Expectations for appropriate dress and communication are also centred around norms established by white Americans. In some cases, schools 88 and workplaces 89 have created policies and municipalities have passed laws 90 prohibiting styles of dress that are culturally linked to people of colour, such as durags, hijabs, and sagging pants. Even when these marginalized styles are not explicitly banned, there might be added scrutiny of individuals who wear them 91 . As an example, Black women are often expected to conform to white femininity norms by straightening their hair to be perceived as professional 90 , 92 , 93 . Furthermore, grammatical rules and standard linguistic styles in the USA are based on the language practices of white Americans 94 and deviations from these norms — such as use of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) — are often cited as evidence of inferiority 95 , 96 , 97 , 98 . Although there can be conditional acceptance and appropriation of elements of the cultures of people of colour such as styles of dress 99 , the typical situation is the prioritization of cultural products of white people.

In summary, the cultural products of people of colour are devalued and stigmatized at a societal level, which results in individual-level biases against those who use and produce these cultural products. This contribution to individual-level racial bias is particularly insidious because it creates conditions under which people can obliviously perpetuate racial biases, believing their bias to be against the cultural products they perceive as inferior rather than the people associated with the products. In one hypothetical scenario at an interpersonal level, parents might pass along individual-level racial biases to their children when parents conclude that the classmate with dreadlocked hair (a hairstyle with African roots that is common among Black Americans) looks like a troublemaker. In this way, Americans can look down on Black people who engage with Black cultural products — like listening to hip hop music, having dreadlocks or using AAVE — while still believing themselves to be ‘not racist’. Devaluing Black cultural products perpetuates racism, because doing so suggests that Black culture is inferior to white culture.

Individual-level biases can also feed back to contribute to the reproduction of biased cultural products. White people are more likely than people of other races to rise to positions of economic power and influence 100 , and therefore to enact their individual biases and serve as gatekeepers for the promotion of certain cultural products over others. At the most extreme, individual-level biases of white people in power have resulted in cultural genocide, such as through Native American boarding schools, which systematically destroyed Native American families and communities 101 . The white people who created and promoted Native American boarding schools argued that Native American communities were dangerous and that Native children needed to be rescued by ‘good Christians’ 102 . These arguments were consistent with widespread beliefs about the cultural inferiority of Native Americans, which allowed racist policies, such as those forcing all Native American children to live in boarding schools that barred them from practising their culture, seem acceptable.

Evidence of the effects of widely held individual-level white-centric biases can also be observed on a cultural level in academic fields, influencing their methods, standards, and knowledge bases (for example, in mathematics 103 , 104 , psychology 105 , and written composition 87 , 94 ). As an example, individual-level biases towards white cultural products arguably led to the development of writing standards that privilege white styles of discourse 106 . From a historical perspective, although Native Americans had a diverse array of numeric systems that were still in use at the turn of the twentieth century 107 , individual-level biases towards white people and culture led ‘Western mathematics’ to be established as the standard for mathematics education in the USA, marginalizing indigenous knowledge 103 . The effect of individual-level biases among key decision-makers can also be seen in policy decisions, such as whose cultural holidays are officially recognized as public holidays 108 and whose cultural knowledge frames the questions used in standardized testing 109 , 110 , 111 .

Cultural beliefs

Widely held cultural beliefs and philosophies can shape the way in which individuals make sense of society, contributing to individual-level racial biases. In the USA, the ‘American dream’ — which asserts that anyone can achieve success if they are willing to put in the work — is a dominant philosophy in government, education and the media. The belief that people who merit success will ultimately achieve it can serve as a beacon of hope for those who are striving to raise their social status, while also justifying to people with the highest status that they have rightfully earned their positions. Thus, promoting the American dream reinforces tendencies for people to justify and reinforce the systems of inequality in which they were socialized 41 , 42 , 112 , 113 . Indeed, priming American residents with messages promoting meritocracy (versus other types of messages) can reduce recognition of unearned privilege 114 and increase blame placed on people disadvantaged by societal systems 115 . Given the many racial inequalities in American society, teaching children that people who deserve success achieve it conveys the implicit message that most people of colour do not merit the status and success that white people enjoy in the USA 45 — imparting individual-level racial bias.

Racially colourblind ideology (the idea of disregarding the issue of race) is another cultural philosophy that can contribute to the perpetuation of individual-level racial biases. Polling data from 2020 indicated that approximately 40% of American residents believed that paying less attention to race would improve racial inequalities in society 116 . Yet, evidence suggests that racially colourblind messages provide a way for racially biased messages to discreetly influence public attitudes. For example, white Americans are much more likely to be persuaded to adopt policy positions through subtle racial appeals referring to Black people — such as references to the ‘inner city’ or ‘culture of poverty’ — than they are to be persuaded by explicit racial appeals that refer to Black people as lazy and uneducated welfare recipients 117 , 118 . Politicians have deliberately used these ‘dog whistles’ to capitalize on racial stereotypes and gain public support for racist political agendas 119 , 120 . Even ostensibly well intentioned colourblind attitudes and policies can perpetuate racial biases 121 . For instance, exposing children to the racially colourblind mindset, compared to a diversity mindset, reduced their ability to identify racially biased incidents and appropriately report them to teachers 122 . Promoting racial colourblindness at a societal, institutional or even an interpersonal level can reduce individual-level awareness of systemic racism and increase susceptibility to racially biased messages.

In the reverse direction, individual-level racial biases can also influence cultural beliefs. Americans with higher levels of racial bias tend to report a stronger belief in meritocracy 123 , 124 . Moreover, young, white adults with relatively high socio-economic status are more likely than people of other races and lower economic status to believe that the USA is a meritocracy 125 . Individual-level racial biases are also associated with more support for racially colourblind sentiments, such as ‘society would be better off if we all stopped talking about race’ 126 , 127 . Some psychologists have theorized that racial biases can motivate racially colourblind perspectives that help to maintain ignorance of racial injustices 128 . Racially colourblind ideology has also served to perpetuate systemic racism through government policies (Box  1 ). Taken together, individual-level racial biases have been associated with cultural philosophies that obscure and reinforce racial inequalities across societal levels.

Altogether, historical narratives that exclude people of colour and downplay the history of racism in the USA, cultural norms that devalue the cultural products of people of colour, and cultural beliefs that obscure systems of inequality contribute to the development and maintenance of individual-level racial biases. Once individual-level racial biases have been established, these attitudes cumulatively shape how history is told, what cultural knowledge and products make up the mainstream, and what cultural beliefs are promoted.

Box 1 Colourblind ideology

In the USA, there are numerous examples of societal-level colourblind racial ideology being used to uphold systemic racial oppression. For instance, following the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling (1954), separate schools for Black and white students were ruled unconstitutional. Consequently, school boards in multiple American states continued to segregate students by race but claimed that school assignments were now based on ‘fit’ and ‘ability’, rather than race 264 . In this example, the colourblind ideology of assignment by ability was a means of perpetuating systemic oppression while also obscuring systemic racism and reinforcing racist stereotypes about intellectual abilities. A similar series of events took place following the Batson v. Kentucky (1986) Supreme Court decision, which ruled that potential jurors could not be removed on the basis of their race. Following the decision, attorneys continued to remove Black potential jurors, but now provided a colourblind rationale 265 , 266 . Jurors can be struck for such arbitrary reasons as wearing a hat, being unemployed, or the prosecutor simply having a bad feeling about them 266 .

Perhaps the greatest effect of the use of colourblind ideology emerged as part of the so-called War on Drugs, a federal campaign in the USA that began in 1971 to crack down on the possession and sale of illegal drugs. One of its most notorious policies set a penalty 100 times higher for possession of substances that were disproportionately used by Black American residents than for substances disproportionately used by white American residents 210 . The War on Drugs has been credited with the massive increase in the prison population and dramatic growth of racial disparities in incarceration rates in the USA during the late twentieth century 267 . As of 2021, Black Americans were incarcerated at roughly five times the rate of white Americans 268 , 269 . Overall, racially colourblind ideology has allowed systemic policies that are ostensibly race-neutral to remain racially biased in effect.

Segregated communities

Segregation in neighbourhoods, workplaces, and classrooms is another systemic influence on individual-level racial bias. Segregation in the USA is often a result of the power and privilege disparities and cultural narratives discussed above. For instance, ‘redlining’ was a mid-twentieth-century policy in which neighbourhoods were graded (from ‘desirable’ to ‘hazardous’) according to their supposed risk of decreasing in value. Neighbourhoods populated by people of colour were assigned the lowest scores (demarcated by a red border on a map), which both reduced the value of these homes and prevented homebuyers from accessing federally backed and insured loans 129 , 130 . The enduring impact of this policy is that families of colour have not been able to build the generational wealth through homeownership that white people have 28 , 131 . To this day, homeowners in neighbourhoods that were deemed hazardous have dramatically less home equity than homeowners in areas that were deemed desirable 132 . Thus, residents of the USA see that nice homes and other symbols of wealth are associated with white people, promoting and reinforcing individual-level pro-white biases 130 .

The echoes of this policy also reinforce residential segregation because homebuyers with adequate means (who are more likely to be white) are motivated to avoid redlined neighbourhoods, where homes tend to be devalued and appreciate far less over time 132 . Thus, racial segregation remains commonplace in the USA. For instance, the average white American lives in a neighbourhood whose residents are 75% white 133 . Similarly, workplace racial segregation was higher in the 2010s than it was in the 1980s and 1990s 134 . Although public school segregation was ruled unconstitutional in 1954 (ref. 135 ), the last school district only fully integrated in 2017 (ref. 136 ). Even within racially integrated schools, a biased system of sorting students into different and unequal course tracks results in overrepresentation of white students in the more advanced and better resourced tracks 137 .

Ongoing segregation also limits intergroup contact 138 — contact between people belonging to different racial or ethnic groups — one of the most reliable and best studied predictors of reduced individual-level bias 139 . Close contact between groups has been argued to reduce prejudice when those groups share common goals, hold equal status, cooperate with each other and are supported by the broader societal system 138 . Systemic racism in the USA reduces the likelihood of these conditions being met, but the bulk of the evidence indicates that even when optimal conditions are not met, positive intergroup contact reduces prejudice 140 , 141 , 142 . Thus, the fact that so many social environments — including communities, institutions and interpersonal experiences — in the USA remain racially segregated probably contributes to the persistence of individual-level racial biases.

Limited opportunities for close contact might be particularly detrimental when groups share the same geographic space but lack close contact with one another. A 2015 study found that racial biases among white residents of the USA were highest in states where the Black population was largest 143 . A follow-up study examined how this pattern relates to intergroup contact, finding that living in a state with more Black residents was only associated with increased racial bias among white residents who had limited close contact with Black people 144 . Thus, when white people live alongside people of colour in their communities without forming close relationships, racial bias might increase. As such, racial segregation in racially diverse regions and states seems particularly likely to engender individual-level racial biases because intergroup exposure can elicit group threat 145 , without the psychological benefits provided by meaningful emotional connections developed through close intergroup contact.

Individual-level racial biases can also reinforce segregated communities and systems. Black communities in the USA are stereotyped as being impoverished, crime-ridden, rundown, dangerous, dirty, and ‘ghetto’ 146 , 147 . If key decision-makers or a critical mass of members of the public hold these biases, devaluation of physical spaces associated with people of colour (such as schools and neighbourhoods) can result 148 , 149 , 150 , 151 . There is experimental evidence that homes in predominantly Black neighbourhoods and homes owned by Black (versus white) people tend to be devalued. When white residents of the USA were asked to assign value to a home, they thought the home was worth less if an image of a Black (relative to white) family appeared in front of the home, even though all other factors were the same 146 . The same patterns emerge in actual housing data 152 . Schools in predominantly Black neighbourhoods are undervalued, receiving less funding per student than schools in predominantly white neighbourhoods 153 .

This disregard for neighbourhoods populated by people of colour can also be seen in decisions about infrastructure, such as where to place hazardous waste dumps and what communities to displace when new amenities such as freeways and railroads are introduced into communities. Eminent domain — a legal power that forces private citizens to sell land to the government for public projects —is more likely to be used in communities of colour 154 , 155 and has myriad negative consequences, including loss of wealth and disruption of community ties and stability 156 , 157 . Experimental evidence has indicated that white Americans are less likely to oppose placing a hypothetical chemical plant next to a Black neighbourhood than next to a white neighbourhood 146 . Real-world data are consistent with this hypothetical scenario: the highest polluting industries and sites for toxic waste disposal in the USA tend to be in areas with large populations of Black people 158 , 159 . By contrast, experimental evidence indicates that landmarks that are of interest to white people (such as their workplaces, schools, pools, golf clubs and tennis clubs) tend to be placed relatively far from communities of colour 160 . Furthermore, analyses of existing institutional policies show that recreation facilities that are closer to communities of colour have more exclusionary barriers — such as fees or dress codes 160 , 161 . The history of practices of this kind explain the relatively low swimming rates among Black Americans and dramatically higher drowning rates among Black (relative to white) American residents 162 , 163 , 164 .

Overall, individual-level racial biases can contribute to the devaluation and negative stereotyping of physical spaces occupied by people of colour, which make those spaces less desirable to white people—reinforcing racial segregation. These racial biases might ultimately contribute to a host of systemic and structural racial inequalities within domains ranging from health and wealth to education, which adversely impact people of colour for generations.

Shared stereotypes

Shared stereotypes can spread cultural narratives and justify oppressive systems. Propaganda campaigns have been used to spread stereotypes about people of colour throughout the history of the USA. For instance, nineteenth-century media stereotypes of men of Chinese descent as weak and effeminate 165 , 166 were used to marginalize these men, painting them as poorly suited for traditionally masculine jobs and undesirable as husbands 167 . Propaganda about intellect, criminality, and sexuality has been used by the media, politicians, industries, and scientists to exercise social control over Black Americans and justify their enslavement and subordination for centuries 23 , 168 , 169 (and see a preprint 170 ).

Stereotypical representations of people of colour continue in the contemporary media 34 . On television, people of colour tend to be depicted in negative and stereotypical ways 171 , 172 , 173 , as outside mainstream contemporary society 174 or not represented at all 175 . News coverage also tends to depict people of colour in a negative light 176 , 177 , 178 and Black criminal suspects are often overrepresented in news media — perpetuating stereotypes that Black people are ‘criminal’ and ‘reckless’ 179 , 180 . These stereotypes represent only a few of the many ways people of colour are negatively stereotyped in the USA. Meanwhile, white people are overrepresented in media coverage of crime victims 174 , 181 , 182 .

Societal stereotypes are also shared in more subtle ways. Shared cultural stereotypes can develop through the selection and transmission of specific pieces of information about social groups 183 , 184 and consequently stereotypes that have no connection to actual traits can form and spread widely. A variety of linguistic biases have been identified as ways in which stereotypes are subtly spread through social groups 185 , 186 , 187 . For instance, more specific and trivial wording — such as ‘stole a pack of gum’ — might be used to describe the theft behaviours of white people, whereas more abstract and dramatic terms — such as ‘shoplifted’ — might be used for Black people 188 . There is also a noted tendency for media to use the passive voice when reporting on structural and systemic harms perpetrated against people of colour — reporting, for instance, that ‘Black Lives Matter protesters were teargassed’ as opposed to the more active phrasing ‘police teargassed Black Lives Matter protesters’ 189 . Knowledge of these shared stereotypes can lead to individual-level biases 190 , 191 . White residents of the USA with more exposure to stereotypical portrayals of people of colour tend to report more racial-stereotype-consistent perceptions 177 , 192 , 193 and greater bias against people of colour 175 . More time spent watching local news — often containing stereotypical representations of people of colour — has been associated with increased bias against members of marginalized groups 194 , 195 , 196 . Thus, shared stereotypes at several of the nested levels of influence, from interpersonal interactions to the societal level through media, can shape individual-level racial biases.

Individual-level racial biases also have the potential to shape shared stereotypes at various levels. For example, a white individual’s racial biases might lead them to perceive a Black man walking in their neighbourhood as suspicious. The white individual might share their concerns with their neighbours (in person or through online message boards), spreading associations between Black people and criminality. After being primed by this message, another neighbour might call the police on a Black man in the neighbourhood. Neighbours who see the police treating the man as a suspect might infer that he is a criminal, further reinforcing inaccurate stereotypes of Black people as criminals. Given widespread anti-Black biases in the USA 197 and known tendencies to associate Black people with crime 198 , 199 , scenarios like this are not unlikely. Indeed, Black men in the USA are more likely than white men to be stopped, searched, handcuffed, and arrested by police 200 , 201 , 202 , 203 . Racial biases can also result in much graver outcomes. White American residents with stronger anti-Black biases also tend to be stronger supporters of gun rights 204 , 205 (though less so if they are primed to think about Black gun owners 206 , 207 ), and in another study white residents of the USA were less concerned about gun deaths when the victims are Black than when they are white 208 . Moreover, where residents had greater implicit biases against Black people, there was more disproportionate police lethal force directed towards Black residents 209 .

The fact that most people in the USA have individual-level racial biases 144 also limits support for policy change and allows systemic racial inequalities in the criminal justice system to be overlooked 8 , 210 , 211 . Perceiving Black men as threatening is associated with increased fear of crime and reduced support for system-level reform, such as police body cameras and matching the demographics of a police force to their community 212 . Individual-level racial bias might also lead the public to reify racial inequalities when faced with evidence of racial disparities in the American criminal justice system 213 , 214 . For instance, Americans who were told about more extreme racial disparities in the prison population of the USA were less willing to support system-level reforms 215 . Overall, individual-level racial biases can lead to behaviours that transmit racial stereotypes at interpersonal and community levels, which ultimately have the potential to reinforce systemic racial inequalities in communities and in broader society with long-term ramifications.

Nonverbal messages

People are constantly exposed to nonverbal messages, such as facial expressions and body language, in contexts from workplaces and schools 216 to depictions in the media 217 . These nonverbal signals can often convey societal messages, such as racial biases and cultural messages about race. For example, for most of the history of the USA, especially in the southern states, Black people were expected to demean themselves to white people through nonverbal behaviours, for instance by stepping off the sidewalk and removing their hats when a white person passed by 218 . These nonverbal signals were choreographed to communicate white superiority, and failure to adhere to this racial choreography could have violent — even deadly — consequences for Black people 24 , 218 . These racialized expectations for respect persist. For instance, analyses of recorded police interactions with the public from within the past five years indicated that officers spoke less respectfully and had less friendliness and respect in their tone of voice when interacting with Black men than with white men 219 , 220 .

Nonverbal racial biases have also been documented in American media. For example, white characters on primetime television often receive more warm, positive nonverbal signals, such as smiles, than do Black characters 217 . Exposure to nonverbal biases of this kind can influence the attitudes of children and adults 216 , 221 , 222 , 223 , increasing negative attitudes towards Black people 217 , 224 , 225 , 226 . Even exposure to nonverbal bias towards a single member of a group has the potential to produce group biases. For instance, adults and children who observed a series of brief interactions in which one person systematically received more warm, friendly nonverbal signals than another person subsequently favoured the person who received the more positive nonverbal signals, and also favoured others of their fictitious nationality 222 , 227 . Thus, if a sufficient number of people in a community or society — especially people with social influence, such as teachers or community leaders — display nonverbal biases favouring white people, other individuals in that context will also develop the same biases. For instance, if children observe a systematic pattern of white role models seeming more anxious when passing Black people on the street, that will shape their attitudes and emotions about who they feel safe around.

Individual-level biases can also shape people, communities, and culture. Individuals with more racially biased attitudes tend to show more racially biased nonverbal behaviour in interracial interactions 228 , 229 , 230 , 231 . Thus, individual-level attitudes seem to shape nonverbal behaviour in interpersonal interactions. Exposure to this nonverbal manifestation of individual-level bias can also influence the behaviours of others. Children who are exposed to biased nonverbal signals in social interactions often adopt the biased behaviours they observe 221 , 222 . For instance, preschool children who observed a member of one group receive more nonverbal warmth than a member of another group were subsequently more likely to choose their playmates from the former group 222 . Furthermore, 40% of preschool children who were exposed to biased nonverbal signals in a study mimicked the biased nonverbal signals they observed 232 .

If biased nonverbal signals and the attitudes they convey are easily transmitted and adopted by an individual, it follows that they will propagate beyond the individual to their social network. Thus, nonverbal biases can be thought of as an expanding system of transmission wherein exposure to nonverbal biases contributes to the development of racially biased attitudes; those attitudes then manifest as biased nonverbal signals, which others within the social network will then see, leading them to develop biases, and so on 233 .

The tendency to transmit racial biases nonverbally might be exacerbated by the fact that people tend to justify the nonverbal biases they observe. Even when the targets of (positively or negatively) biased nonverbal signals displayed identical behaviours, observers were more likely to report that the targets’ behaviour (57%), rather than how the target was treated (30%), influenced their attitudes towards the target 223 , 227 . In other words, when the only thing that varied was how targets were treated by others, observers still justified their own attitudes by attributing them to the targets’ actions.

Taken together, if the majority of individuals making up a social system hold the same individual racial biases, repeated exposure and reinforcement of those racial biases through nonverbal behaviours can potentially shape attitudes and reinforce systemic oppression at interpersonal, institutional (classrooms) and societal (media) levels. Moreover, when nonverbal messages propagate racial biases to children, they spread racial biases temporally, to future generations.

Implications for psychological interventions

Given our thesis that systemic factors strongly contribute to the development and perpetuation of racist attitudes and beliefs, the importance of changing these systemic factors (including systems, policies, and practices) cannot be overstated. However, we focus our discussion here on psychological interventions (Table  1 ). We frame our discussion of interventions in terms of what can be done at a psychological level to interrupt or limit the effects of the systemic influences and feedback cycles identified above.

One potential lever with which to reduce the spread of individual racial biases is for white parents to teach their children directly about the importance of race and racism (as parents of colour do), a process called racial socialization. With the proliferation of colourblind racial ideology, many white American residents believe that disregarding race would help to minimize racism 234 , and white parents have feared that acknowledging race could facilitate the development of racial biases in their children 234 , 235 . Although some scholars have cautioned that there might be pitfalls to white parents talking to their children about race and racism, such as ill-equipped parents being ineffectual or producing counterproductive effects 236 , many scholars agree that racial socialization in white American families is a step in the right direction 139 , 237 , 238 , 239 .

Parental racial socialization has the potential to provide children with a new lens through which they can interpret the societal system in which they are immersed and help them to recognize systemic racism 240 , 241 . Consequently, it can provide a counternarrative to the systemic factors reviewed here that perpetuate systemic racism. Racial socialization of children can prevent them from accepting, internalizing, and justifying the existing system of power and privilege, and instead enable them to see it as unjust and in need of reform. Initial evidence suggests that racial socialization in white American families can reduce racial biases among children 239 , 242 , 243 . In a preprint that has not yet undergone peer review, 8–12-year-old white American children who engaged in a semi-structured conversation about race and interpersonal racism with a parent showed a statistically significant decrease in implicit anti-Black racial bias from after the conversation compared to before 239 . As noted in the section on segregation, direct interracial contact — which is known to reduce racial biases 138 , 139 , 140 , 141 , 142 — is often limited by social and residential segregation. Thus, when direct contact with children of colour is not an option, parents can use books, films and other media to help children to understand the varied lived experiences of children in other racial and ethnic groups and ultimately to reduce their prejudices 244 , 245 , 246 , 247 , 248 , 249 , 250 .

Alongside the socialization of children, another valuable intervention effort is to develop bias awareness among adults. Greater awareness of one’s own biases is associated with less racially biased attitudes and intentions to engage in less racially biased behaviour 251 , 252 , 253 . White Americans who are more aware of their own racial biases are more willing to accept feedback on their racial biases and are more likely to detect evidence of subtle racial biases in themselves and others 253 . Thus, people who are more bias-aware might also be more likely to recognize systemic racial biases. When white Americans are presented with blatantly racist messages and are aware of the bias in the message, they tend to resist the influence of the message 117 , 254 , 255 . As such, helping people to recognize the subtle biases communicated through cultural narratives, nonverbal signals, and shared stereotypes across various levels of influence — such as racial ‘dog whistles’ — could reduce the effects of these biases. Consistent with the notion that racial bias awareness increases awareness of systemic racism, white American parents with greater bias awareness indicated that they were more likely to discuss racial current events reflective of systemic racism with their 8–12-year-old children 256 .

Our final intervention recommendation is education about the history and systems that led to current racial injustices and inequalities. People who are more knowledgeable about the racial injustices of the past tend to be more aware of the systemic racism that persists in the present 77 , 257 . There is also growing evidence that educating children and adults about historical racial injustices can improve racial attitudes, increase empathy, and raise awareness of systemic racism 258 , 259 , 260 . For instance, white American children who learned about the accomplishments of Black historical figures — and the systemic and interpersonal racism they faced — showed less racial stereotyping and more positive attitudes towards Black people, and placed greater value on racial fairness than children who learned only about the historical figures’ accomplishments 259 . A preprint that has not yet undergone peer review also suggests that simply informing people of a group’s history of being treated unjustly can help to buffer the spread of nonverbal biases about that group 227 . Historical education can challenge people’s tendencies to infer that power and privilege disparities are justified and further call into question the cultural narratives that elevate white people and white culture.

These recommendations for intervention are overlapping and complementary. It is important to identify multiple ways to intervene in the nested levels of influence that shape attitudes and the ways that attitudes contribute to the perpetuation of systemic issues. By encouraging racial socialization, bias awareness, and accurate historical education, Americans can make new meaning of societal systems, understand better how the country got here, and begin to chip away at the racism so deeply ingrained in their society. These interventions would be particularly effective if implemented at a systemic level, for example, by revising the teaching of history and incorporating critical racial education into public school curricula.

Summary and future directions

In this Review, we approached the question of how racial biases develop, observing through a systemic lens how influences at the interpersonal, community, societal and temporal levels interact with racial biases. We considered the effects of five cross-cutting systemic factors on racial biases: unequal distributions of power and privilege, historical narratives and cultural products, racial segregation, shared cultural stereotypes, and nonverbal signals. We provided evidence that each of these five systemic factors shapes individual-level racial biases, and that individual-level racial biases shape systems and inequalities at each of the nested levels. Similar arguments about individuals and systems mutually reinforcing one another have been made in the context of organizations and the workplace 11 . We also reviewed interventions that could buffer the effects of the systemic influences we identified. Specifically, we reviewed the literature on racial socialization in white families, racial bias awareness and historical education — highlighting the promise of each.

The psychological study of racial attitudes has largely focused on individual-level biases, dedicating relatively little research to the systemic forces that shape racial biases. However, psychological scholars should seek opportunities to understand better how systems influence racial biases. Given the public availability of large-scale surveys and polling data indexing racial attitudes, there is great potential for scholars to use changes in state-level policies or practices as opportunities to examine the influence of systemic factors on racial attitudes.

Although many of the processes we describe here might generalize to other cultural and national contexts, the most relevant factors and how they manifest might vary considerably across contexts. In Box  2 , we briefly discuss literature from non-USA contexts and the ways in which it converges and diverges from patterns observed in the USA. However, we by no means provide a comprehensive review. Ultimately, much more research on prejudice and racism needs to be conducted outside the USA and other nations with a majority of white residents 261 , 262 , 263 . Research across a variety of cultural contexts is essential to the development of a comprehensive understanding of the societal systems that produce and reinforce racial (and other) biases, and the psychological processes that contribute to the reproduction of societal inequalities.

Although there is a growing body of literature tying systemic influences to individual-level biases, the literature in this area is still relatively sparse. For instance, it has yet to be experimentally tested how exposure to cultural products influences racial attitudes. There is also much work to be done regarding the development of interventions. For instance, it is important to identify optimal strategies for approaching racial socialization in white families and determining its impact on children’s racial attitudes. As an example, it is unknown whether the effects of parental racial socialization vary as a function of whether it involves teaching about interpersonal versus systemic racism. There is also still much to be learned about how often these conversations should take place and how long their effects persist. Racial bias awareness seems to be helpful for recognizing interpersonal biases, but it remains to be seen whether racial bias awareness facilitates recognition of systemic racism. Perhaps most importantly, it is unclear whether interventions aimed at developing racial bias awareness can be effective. We posit that interventions that integrate efforts to increase bias awareness, conversations about systemic and interpersonal racism, and education about historical injustices would pack the most powerful punch — but work that empirically tests the efficacy of such interventions is still needed. Moreover, applied interventions that examine how these factors operate in systemic contexts — such as schools — will be an important future step.

To fully interrupt the processes we have described, interventions will need to target organizations, policies, institutions and systems, as well as how individuals interact with each of these areas of influence. For interventions to truly be successful, they will need to cut across the nested levels of influence, lest any progress at one level be washed out by the continuing biases present at other levels. Large systemic changes of this kind require buy-in from key stakeholders and the public, and because change can take time, developing strategies to target how the public understands and makes sense of systems — and whether they are seen as just — might be a key step on the path towards an equitable society.

Box 2 Systemic bias outside the USA

Many of the factors reviewed here also apply in other cultural contexts. For instance, power and privilege disparities, cultural narratives, segregation and shared stereotypes have been identified as contributors to individual-level racial biases in South Africa 270 , 271 . Power and privilege disparities in South Africa are stark; in 2017 white people held 67% of the top management positions but accounted for less than 8% of the country’s population 272 . Such dramatic status disparities have been identified as a key contributor to racial biases among South African children, across races 273 . Furthermore, media sources in South Africa have been criticized for promoting societal narratives that justify racial oppression and reinforce negative stereotypes about Black South Africans 271 .

Turning to a different cultural context, the extreme power and privilege disparities inherent in the statuses assigned to groups within the Hindu caste system have been identified as important contributors to the perpetuation of caste-based biases among Indian children 274 . Likewise, power and privilege disparities, cultural narratives, segregation, shared stereotypes and nonverbal biases have been identified as contributors to Israeli Jewish children’s biases against Arab people 275 , 276 , 277 , 278 , 279 .

Some aspects of social bias development are not shared across cultures. For instance, in the contemporary USA, norms of egalitarianism and laws prohibiting discrimination limit the extent to which members of society are explicitly socialized to favour white people and disparage people of colour. Thus, racial biases tend to be transmitted in implicit, coded and plausibly deniable ways. In cultural contexts in which openly expressing biased and discriminatory views is socially acceptable, as was the case in earlier periods of American history, more explicit socialization of bias often takes place. For instance, within the Jewish population in Israel, people tend to be relatively accepting of anti-Arab biases, so children might be deliberately socialized to avoid and distrust Arab people 276 , 277 , 279 .

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Measuring Racial Discrimination (2004)

Chapter: 1 introduction, 1 introduction.

M ost people would agree that equal opportunity to participate as a full and functioning member of society is important. Nonetheless, existing social and economic disparities among racial and ethnic groups suggest that our society has yet to achieve this goal. For instance, Hispanics have higher school dropout rates than other racial and ethnic groups (Hauser et al., 2002). The black–white wealth gap remains large (Conley, 1999; Oliver and Shapiro, 1995). Young Native Americans are incarcerated in federal prisons at higher rates than any other minority racial group (Smelser and Baltes, 2001; Weich and Angulo, 2002). And some Asian Americans, among other minority groups, have poorer access to health care services and treatments than whites (Institute of Medicine, 2003). Such racial disparities are pervasive and may be the result of racial prejudice and discrimination, as well as differences in socioeconomic status, differential access to opportunities, and institutional policies and practices.

Such racial disparities persist despite the many legal and social changes that have improved opportunities for minority racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Several factors may contribute to racial differences in outcomes, including differences in socioeconomic status, differential access to opportunities, and others. One factor that should be considered is the role of racial discrimination. Overt discrimination against African Americans and other minority groups characterized much of U.S. history; a question is whether and what types of discrimination continue to exist and their effects on differential outcomes.

Although researchers in specific disciplines have investigated discrimination in particular domains, there has been little effort to coordinate and

expand such research in ways that could help to better understand and measure various kinds of racial and ethnic discrimination across domains and groups and over time. To address this problem, the Committee on National Statistics convened a panel of scholars in 2001 to consider the definition of racial discrimination, assess current methodologies for measuring it, identify new approaches, and make recommendations about the best broad methodological approaches. In particular, this panel was asked to conduct the following tasks:

Give the policy and scholarly communities new tools for assessing the extent to which discrimination continues to undermine the achievement of equal opportunity by suggesting additional means for measuring discrimination that can be applied not only to the racial question but in other important social arenas as well.

Conduct a thorough evaluation of current methodologies for measuring discrimination in a wide range of circumstances where it may occur.

Consider how analyses of data from other sources could contribute to findings from research experimentation, such as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development paired tests.

Recommend further research as well as the development of data to complement research studies.

Although there is substantial direct empirical evidence for the prevalence of large disparities among racial and ethnic groups in various domains, it is often difficult to obtain direct evidence of whether and to what extent discrimination may be a contributing factor. Differential outcomes by race and ethnicity may or may not indicate discrimination. Examples of studies using methods that persuasively measure the presence or absence of discrimination are rare, and appropriate data for measurement are often unobtainable. As a result, there is little scholarly consensus about the extent and frequency of discrimination and how it relates to continuing disadvantages along racial and ethnic lines (Fix and Turner, 1998).

One reason it is difficult to assess discrimination is that changes have occurred in the nature of prejudiced attitudes and discriminatory behaviors. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other laws that prohibit discrimination because of race in a variety of domains, overt discrimination is less often apparent. However, discrimination may persist in more subtle forms. Indeed, social psychological research suggests that relatively automatic and unexamined cognitive processes, of which the holder (and sometimes the target) may not be fully aware, can lead to discrimination (Devine, 1989; Fiske, 1998). These subtleties make defining and measuring discrimination more difficult.

STUDY APPROACH AND SCOPE

The panel’s goal in this report is to review and comment on the methods used in various social scientific disciplines to identify types of racial discrimination and measure their effects. The report is designed to help social science researchers, policy analysts, federal agencies, and concerned observers better understand how to assess racial discrimination in different domains, drawing on different social science methods and data sources as appropriate. To approach this important but difficult task, the panel focused on defining relevant concepts, examining various methodological approaches and data sources, and considering directions for future research.

The purpose of this report is not to promote a single “right” way to measure discrimination. In some situations, one approach may be more easily implemented and more credible; in other situations, another approach may be more appropriate. Often, multiple approaches will be needed to provide credible evidence about the prevalence of discrimination in a domain. Thus, the panel attempts to identify the broad range of approaches for measuring discrimination and to provide a critical review of their relative credibility when applied in different situations. The panel develops a cross-disciplinary research and data collection agenda for action by public and private funding agencies and the research community.

The report makes no attempt to actually measure current or past levels of discrimination in any domain. Our purpose is not to report numbers or impacts but to provide guidance and encouragement to researchers and policy analysts as they work across domains to identify where discrimination may be present and what its effects may be.

In the first part of this report, the panel defines the concepts of race and racial discrimination from a social science perspective, which we believe is the appropriate perspective for research and policy analysis on discrimination. When referring to race in the report, the panel uses the categories established by the federal classification standards (U.S. Office of Management and Budget, 1997) to identify whites, blacks or African Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives or Native Americans, Asians, and Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders. According to these standards, Hispanics or Latinos are referred to as an ethnic group. Yet, although the panel was asked to consider racial discrimination, Hispanics (a rapidly growing ethnic population) also face discrimination. In addition, concepts of race and ethnicity are not clearly defined for many Hispanics, so for these two reasons our discussion often refers to Hispanics as well as to specific racial groups. Throughout the report, the term disadvantaged racial group is used to refer to groups in the United States (e.g., blacks) whose disadvantage can be linked historically to discriminatory practices and policies and who are, consequently, part of a legally protected class.

The panel is concerned with broad types of discriminatory behaviors and processes that have negative consequences for disadvantaged racial groups in various social and economic arenas. We draw on sociological, social psychological, and other literature to develop our definition of racial discrimination. We also discuss the conceptual possibility that discrimination may operate not just at one point in time and within one particular domain but at various points within and across multiple domains throughout the course of an individual’s life. The panel acknowledges that the effect of such cumulative discrimination may not be easily identified or measured.

In interpreting that part of its charge to review measurement methods, the panel chose to address broad approaches that could be applied across domains, rather than making recommendations about specific approaches for particular domains. Therefore, although examples are used throughout the report to illustrate efforts to measure discrimination in particular circumstances, our main focus is on methods (e.g., experiments, observational studies, survey research) that can be used to study discrimination under many different circumstances.

The examples of disparities and discrimination measurement that we provide come from research in five domains: labor markets and employment, education, housing and mortgage lending, health care, and criminal justice. Although not the only domains of concern, these are key areas of social interaction for which discrimination can seriously limit life opportunities; these are also among the areas for which the federal government regularly collects administrative and survey data long used by researchers to study discrimination and discriminatory effects. We do not provide an exhaustive set of examples for each of these areas. Rather, a selected bibliography of important literature reviews, major reports, and other work on data collection and analytical methods used in each of these domains is provided at the end of this report.

Much of the discussion in this report on such topics as statistical inference, experimental design, and data quality is relatively technical in nature. Although sometimes dry, the import of this discussion should not be misunderstood by readers who are deeply concerned about the possible extent and continued effects of racial discrimination in American life. It was our shared concern about racial discrimination that drew each member of the panel into the in-depth discussions of measurement reflected in this report. Because we view racial discrimination as a crucial social issue, we believe it is essential to use the most credible and accurate measurement approaches.

In carrying out this study, the panel met and deliberated over a period of almost 2 years. We held meetings, invited speakers, and commissioned several papers (see Box 1-1 ); we requested input from prominent scholars on key issues; reviewed a large body of literature on salient aspects of the law and criminal justice, labor markets, housing markets, education, and

health care; investigated the ways in which race is defined in various federally funded surveys; reviewed the literature on race, prejudice, and discrimination; and examined other literature on survey design, experimental evidence, and statistical analysis.

REPORT ORGANIZATION

This report is divided into three parts. The chapters in Part I provide a conceptual framework for thinking about racial discrimination. Chapter 2 explores the meaning of race as a social construct and provides historical background on the complex issues surrounding race in the United States and how it is measured in the decennial census and other federal data collections. Chapter 3 defines discrimination from a social science perspective and explains why we focus on racial discrimination. Our definition of racial discrimination is informed by legal concepts of discrimination, but it also encompasses behaviors and processes that may not be unlawful or easily measured. Chapter 4 provides a framework for understanding how racial

discrimination may operate. As the discussion indicates, there are different ways in which discrimination can occur and various mechanisms that can result in discriminatory behavior. Identifying various sources of discrimination is a crucial first step in developing theories or models of discrimination and using them to guide data collection and research for measuring the presence and extent of different types of discrimination.

The chapters in Part II examine methodological approaches to measuring discrimination and the advantages, limitations, and best techniques associated with each. Chapter 5 provides a general framework for inferring causation and a brief introduction to some of the topics covered in detail in the chapters that follow. Chapter 6 focuses on experimental methods, including field and laboratory experiments. Chapter 7 describes the use of statistical analysis of observational data to measure discrimination, reviewing the necessary assumptions and potential credibility of various approaches. Chapter 8 focuses on approaches employing attitudinal and behavioral indicators of discrimination, including methods based on survey data and administrative records. Each of these chapters describes specific approaches and the situations in which they can be implemented and may be appropriate. Where possible, we also attempt to identify more and less credible approaches, providing guidance for future scholars seeking to use the most effective methods. Chapter 9 at the end of Part II addresses issues of racial profiling, as an illustration of an area in which measuring discrimination is difficult.

The chapters in Part III present the panel’s priorities for data collection and research for improved measures of race and racial discrimination. Chapter 10 describes the data collected by federal statistical and administrative agencies that may support analysis of racial discrimination and its effects. The discussion focuses on concepts and measures of race and ethnicity in federal data sources, how different measures may affect distributions and consequent analyses for racial and ethnic groups, and research that is needed to improve federal measures. Chapter 11 considers the nature of cumulative effects of discrimination within and across multiple domains, seeking to identify techniques that can be used to provide a fuller measure of the impact of discrimination when it occurs over time and in more than one social arena. Little empirical work has been done on cumulative discrimination, so research and data collection in this area are important to pursue.

Finally, Chapter 12 suggests next steps for program and research agencies to build a research agenda that is directed to priority needs for measuring racial discrimination. The aim of the chapter is not to develop a detailed agenda per se, which is beyond the panel’s scope and resources, but to suggest a series of steps whereby agencies may identify priority research topics; evaluate them for feasibility and cost-effectiveness; and bring to bear the necessary conceptual frameworks, research methods, and data. Whether

conducting research from a policy perspective or more basic research, it will be important to support multidisciplinary studies that draw on a range of methodologies and data sources.

The report ends with two appendixes: Appendix A presents the agenda for the Workshop on Measuring Racial Disparities and Discrimination in Elementary and Secondary Education held by the panel in July 2002; Appendix B provides biographical sketches of the panel members and staff.

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Many racial and ethnic groups in the United States, including blacks, Hispanics, Asians, American Indians, and others, have historically faced severe discrimination—pervasive and open denial of civil, social, political, educational, and economic opportunities. Today, large differences among racial and ethnic groups continue to exist in employment, income and wealth, housing, education, criminal justice, health, and other areas. While many factors may contribute to such differences, their size and extent suggest that various forms of discriminatory treatment persist in U.S. society and serve to undercut the achievement of equal opportunity.

Measuring Racial Discrimination considers the definition of race and racial discrimination, reviews the existing techniques used to measure racial discrimination, and identifies new tools and areas for future research. The book conducts a thorough evaluation of current methodologies for a wide range of circumstances in which racial discrimination may occur, and makes recommendations on how to better assess the presence and effects of discrimination.

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Racial Discrimination and Justice in Education Essay

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The Impact of Racism in Schools and on the Mental Health of Students

Funding is one of the main factors that ensure racial segregation and exacerbation of the plight of the black population. Being initially in a more disastrous economic situation, racial minority populations fall into a vicious circle. Low-funded schools in poor areas have low academic ratings, which further contributes to the reduction of the material base. Due to their poor academic performance and the need to earn a living, many minorities are deprived of the opportunity to receive prestigious higher education. They are left with low-skilled jobs, which makes it impossible for their children to go to private school or move to a prestigious area with well-funded public schools. In institutions with little funding, unfortunately, manifestations of racism still prevail.

A significant factor in systemic racism in modern schools is the theory of colorblindness as the prevailing ideology in schools and pedagogical universities. The total avoidance of racial topics in schools has led to a complete absence of material related to the culture of racial minorities in the curricula. An example is the complaint of the parents of one of the black students that, during the passage of civilizations, the Greeks, Romans, and Incas were discussed in the lessons, but nothing was said about Africa. However, there were a few African American students in the class (Yi et al., 2022). The white director justified herself by saying that this was the curriculum and that it was not customary at school to divide people by skin color. In response, the student’s mother stated that children have eyes, and they see everything. And she would like them to see that we had a strong and fruitful culture. This state of affairs is justified by the proponents of assimilationism and American patriotism, built mainly around the honoring of the merits of white settlers and the founding fathers.

Meanwhile, the works of many researchers provide evidence that a high level of colorblindness among students correlates with greater racial intolerance. One study on race relations was conducted among young “millennials”. As a result, thousands of reports were recorded of openly racist statements and actions of white people from the field of view of these students (Plaut, et al., 2018). Another study on colorblindness found that white students who avoid mentioning racial issues were less friendly on assignments with black partners. This could be because they have less eye contact.

The shortcomings of the described situation affect not only black students but also white teachers who have not received proper training in their time on how best to take into account the characteristics of students from racial minorities. One researcher writes that in his entire experience in multicultural education, he faced the almost universal embarrassment that racial issues caused to white teachers. A common complaint is: I feel helpless. What am I, as a white teacher, to do? One educator remarked that he had never seen African-American teachers say that they did not distinguish between races (Mekawi et al., 2017). This is further proof that racism and the factors leading to it contribute only to the split of social ties at school. Students from racial minorities feel this burden the most, which leads to their feeling of constant alienation. During the school years, conflicts with children “not like the rest” are especially aggravated – the state of affairs described above provides the basis for constant skirmishes, fights, and tension in institutions.

Suggestions for Creating an Inclusive School Environment

Among the educational factors supporting the status quo of widespread structural racism are the following. This is the system of financing public schools and the dominance of the ideology of colorblindness in schools and pedagogical universities. In the opposite direction, there is such a factor as the peculiarity of keeping educational statistics (Welton, et al., 2018). By providing up-to-date information on the state of affairs of students of various racial and ethnic groups, statistics give rise to the search for optimal solutions in the field of school policy.

The inclusion of racial and ethnic dimensions in educational statistics is intended to provide an objective assessment of the current situation regarding racial differences in American society in order to develop and improve racially relevant policies. In recent years, the ideas of culturally relevant pedagogy have been actively promoted in the US educational sphere. American citizens are becoming more interested and enlightened in the field of racial issues, which can be seen in activist speeches and anti-racist public actions.

It is crucial to teach racism in schools so that all pupils may understand what it is, how it affects, and how to stop tolerating it. There are many publications and learning experience plans that address racism. It is essential to ask teachers and principals to integrate lessons on racism into the syllabus. One can also request that your teachers incorporate novels with a variety of subjects (Welton, et al., 2018). Then, it is important to request that the school draft an inclusion and zero-tolerance statement. Counselors can encourage the instructors and administration to implement these policies at the school if they do not already exist in the code of conduct or other policies (Pizarro & Kohli, 2020). It is critical that schools have clear policies about race and how individuals are treated on campus.

Resources for the School Counselor to Deal With Prejudice and Its Impact at the School

Mekawi, Y., Bresin, K. & Hunter, C.D. (2017). Who is more likely to “not see race”? individual differences in racial colorblindness. Race and Social Problems, 9 (1), 207–217. Web.

The authors claim that many Americans support a colorblind racial philosophy, which emphasizes sameness and the equitable allocation of resources without regard to race. The current study looked at the relationships between aggressiveness, and empathy in white undergraduates and three distinct types of racial colorblindness, including ignorance of racial privilege, ignorance of institutional discrimination, and ignorance of overt racism. The findings showed two distinct trends. In contrast to ignorance of overt racism and institutional discrimination, which were linked to poorer cooperativeness, cognitive flexibility, and empathic concern, ignorance of racial privilege was associated with lower openness and viewpoint-taking. These findings are addressed in light of a larger body of research on bias and personality.

Pizarro, M., & Kohli, R. (2020). “I stopped sleeping”: Teachers of color and the impact of racial Battle Fatigue. Urban Education, 55 (7), 967–991. Web.

According to the authors, an operational definition of racial battle fatigue (RBF) is the mental, emotional, and physical costs of fighting racism. RBF is employed in this article to examine the effects of racism on educators of color who work in a predominately “White profession.” The scholars share counterstories of urban academics of color who confront racism on a regular basis in their workplaces. This has a negative effect on their well-being and ability to stay in the profession. The authors also discuss their resiliency and resistance tactics since they depend on a supportive community to persevere and change their schools.

Plaut, V. C., Thomas, K. M., Hurd, K., & Romano, C. A. (2018). Do Color blindness and multiculturalism remedy or foster discrimination and racism? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27 (3), 200–206. Web.

This article gives psychology science’s perspective on the question of whether multiculturalism and colorblindness are more likely to prevent prejudice and racism than they are to promote it. The authors first concentrate on the results of a color-blind model. The study in this area reveals that while colorblindness may be appealing to certain people, it can also make people less sensitive to racism and prejudice. Additionally, according to the literature, color blindness generally has detrimental effects on intergroup relationships, minorities’ perceptions and results, and the promotion of diversity and inclusion in organizational settings. In the second section, the scholars look at the situations in which a multicultural perspective has beneficial or bad effects on intergroup relations, organizational diversity initiatives, and discrimination.

Welton, A. D., Owens, D. R., & Zamani-Gallaher, E. M. (2018). Anti-racist change: A conceptual framework for educational institutions to take systemic action. Teachers College Record, 120 (14), 1–22. Web.

In order to attain racial justice in education, people’s mindsets must also be changed to embrace a more anti-racist worldview. In order to investigate whether behaviors and leadership qualities could really encourage institutional change for racial justice, the authors review two sets of literature: studies on anti-racism and institutional transformation. However, they admit the constraints of each set of studies. The organizational transformation research often ignores equity concerns, notably racial conversations, while anti-racism research is more ideological and theoretical. The scholars combine essential ideas from the literature on organizational change and anti-racism to propose a conceptual framework that may be utilized to create a systematic anti-racist change at a wide level.

Yi, J., Neville, H. A., Todd, N. R., & Mekawi, Y. (2022). Ignoring race and denying racism: A meta-analysis of the associations between colorblind racial ideology, anti-Blackness, and other variables antithetical to racial justice . Journal of Counseling Psychology . Web.

The authors sought to comprehend how colorblind racial ideology (CBRI), or the rejection and minimizing of race and racism, can act as an obstacle to engaging in antiracist practice by relying on antiracism research. To find out if color evasion (ignorance of race) and power evasion (defiance of structural racism) CBRI were differently connected with anti-Blackness and mechanisms related to antiracism, the scholars specifically performed a meta-analysis. Results from 83 research with more than 25,000 participants and 375 effects reveal that varied effects depend on the kind of CBRI. The area of counseling psychology may be pushed by this meta-analysis to construct a bridge between different ideologies and the development of systemic reform.

• Empathy and Racism in Stockett's The Help and Li's To Kill a Mockingbird
• Causes, Facilitators, and Solutions to Racism
• Anti-Racism in Shakespeare’s Othello
• The Bill H.R.666 Anti-Racism in Public Health Act of 2021
• Baldwin’s and Coates’ Anti-Racism Communication
• Vertical Lines of Power or Authority
• Racism in the Healthcare Sector
• Unraveling the Science of Human Races
• Racism in Healthcare and Education
• Portrayal of Races: Content Analysis and Literature Review
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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What is racism?

What are some of the societal aspects of racism, what are some of the measures taken to combat racism.

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

• Social Sciences LibreTexts - Racism
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• GlobalSecurity.org - Racism
• PBS LearningMedia - American Experience - A Class Apart: The Birth and Growth of Racism Against Mexican-Americans
• Frontiers - Racism and censorship in the editorial and peer review process
• United Nations - The Ideology of Racism: Misusing science to justify racial discrimination
• National Endowment for the Humanities - Humanities - El Movimiento
• PBS - Frontline - A Class Divided - Documentary Introduction
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• racism - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
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Racism is the belief that humans can be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races”; that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioral features; and that some races are innately superior to others. Racism was at the heart of North American slavery and the colonization and empire-building activities of western Europeans, especially in the 18th century. Since the late 20th century the notion of biological race has been recognized as a cultural invention, entirely without scientific basis. Most human societies have concluded that racism is wrong, and social trends have moved away from racism.

Historically, the practice of racism held that members of low-status “races” should be limited to low-status jobs or enslavement and be excluded from access to political power, economic resources, and unrestricted civil rights. The lived experience of racism for members of low-status races includes acts of physical violence, daily insults, and frequent acts and verbal expressions of contempt and disrespect.

Racism elicits hatred and distrust and precludes any attempt to understand its victims. Many societies attempt to combat racism by raising awareness of racist beliefs and practices and by promoting human understanding in public policies. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights , adopted by the United Nations in 1948, is an example of one measure taken to combat racism. In the United States, the civil rights movement ’s fight against racism gained national prominence during the 1950s and has had lasting positive effects.

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racism , the belief that humans may be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races”; that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality , and other cultural and behavioral features; and that some races are innately superior to others. The term is also applied to political, economic, or legal institutions and systems that engage in or perpetuate discrimination on the basis of race or otherwise reinforce racial inequalities in wealth and income, education , health care, civil rights, and other areas. Such institutional, structural, or systemic racism became a particular focus of scholarly investigation in the 1980s with the emergence of critical race theory , an offshoot of the critical legal studies movement. Since the late 20th century the notion of biological race has been recognized as a cultural invention, entirely without scientific basis.

Following Germany’s defeat in World War I , that country’s deeply ingrained anti-Semitism was successfully exploited by the Nazi Party , which seized power in 1933 and implemented policies of systematic discrimination, persecution, and eventual mass murder of Jews in Germany and in the territories occupied by the country during World War II ( see Holocaust ).

In North America and apartheid -era South Africa , racism dictated that different races (chiefly blacks and whites) should be segregated from one another; that they should have their own distinct communities and develop their own institutions such as churches, schools, and hospitals; and that it was unnatural for members of different races to marry .

Historically, those who openly professed or practiced racism held that members of low-status races should be limited to low-status jobs and that members of the dominant race should have exclusive access to political power, economic resources, high-status jobs, and unrestricted civil rights . The lived experience of racism for members of low-status races includes acts of physical violence , daily insults, and frequent acts and verbal expressions of contempt and disrespect, all of which have profound effects on self-esteem and social relationships.

Racism was at the heart of North American slavery and the colonization and empire-building activities of western Europeans, especially in the 18th century. The idea of race was invented to magnify the differences between people of European origin and those of African descent whose ancestors had been involuntarily enslaved and transported to the Americas. By characterizing Africans and their African American descendants as lesser human beings, the proponents of slavery attempted to justify and maintain the system of exploitation while portraying the United States as a bastion and champion of human freedom, with human rights , democratic institutions, unlimited opportunities, and equality. The contradiction between slavery and the ideology of human equality, accompanying a philosophy of human freedom and dignity, seemed to demand the dehumanization of those enslaved.

By the 19th century, racism had matured and spread around the world. In many countries, leaders began to think of the ethnic components of their own societies, usually religious or language groups, in racial terms and to designate “higher” and “lower” races. Those seen as the low-status races, especially in colonized areas, were exploited for their labour, and discrimination against them became a common pattern in many areas of the world. The expressions and feelings of racial superiority that accompanied colonialism generated resentment and hostility from those who were colonized and exploited, feelings that continued even after independence.

Since the mid-20th century many conflicts around the world have been interpreted in racial terms even though their origins were in the ethnic hostilities that have long characterized many human societies (e.g., Arabs and Jews, English and Irish). Racism reflects an acceptance of the deepest forms and degrees of divisiveness and carries the implication that differences between groups are so great that they cannot be transcended .

Racism elicits hatred and distrust and precludes any attempt to understand its victims. For that reason, most human societies have concluded that racism is wrong, at least in principle, and social trends have moved away from racism. Many societies have begun to combat racism by raising awareness of racist beliefs and practices and by promoting human understanding in public policies, as does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , set forth by the United Nations in 1948.

In the United States, racism came under increasing attack during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, and laws and social policies that enforced racial segregation and permitted racial discrimination against African Americans were gradually eliminated. Laws aimed at limiting the voting power of racial minorities were invalidated by the Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964) to the U.S. Constitution , which prohibited poll taxes , and by the federal Voting Rights Act (1965), which required jurisdictions with a history of voter suppression to obtain federal approval (“preclearance”) of any proposed changes to their voting laws (the preclearance requirement was effectively removed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 [ see Shelby County v. Holder ]). By 2020 nearly three-quarters of the states had adopted varying forms of voter ID law , by which would-be voters were required or requested to present certain forms of identification before casting a ballot. Critics of the laws, some of which were successfully challenged in the courts, contended that they effectively suppressed voting among African Americans and other demographic groups. Other measures that tended to limit voting by African Americans were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders , partisan gerrymanders aimed at limiting the number of Democratic representatives in state legislatures and Congress, the closing of polling stations in African American or Democratic-leaning neighbourhoods, restrictions on the use of mail-in and absentee ballots, limits on early voting, and purges of voter rolls.

Despite constitutional and legal measures aimed at protecting the rights of racial minorities in the United States, the private beliefs and practices of many Americans remained racist, and some group of assumed lower status was often made a scapegoat. That tendency has persisted well into the 21st century.

Because, in the popular mind, “race” is linked to physical differences among peoples, and such features as dark skin colour have been seen as markers of low status, some experts believe that racism may be difficult to eradicate . Indeed, minds cannot be changed by laws, but beliefs about human differences can and do change, as do all cultural elements.

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Hear Something, Say Something: Navigating The World Of Racial Awkwardness

Listen to this week's episode.

We've all been there — having fun relaxing with friends and family, when someone says something a little racially off. Sometimes it's subtle, like the friend who calls Thai food "exotic." Other times it's more overt, like that in-law who's always going on about "the illegals."

In any case, it can be hard to know how to respond. Even the most level-headed among us have faltered trying to navigate the fraught world of racial awkwardness.

So what exactly do you do? We delve into the issue on this week's episode of the Code Switch podcast, featuring writer Nicole Chung and Code Switch's Shereen Marisol Meraji, Gene Demby and Karen Grigsby Bates.

We also asked some folks to write about what runs through their minds during these tense moments, and how they've responded (or not). Their reactions ran the gamut from righteous indignation to total passivity, but in the wake of these uncomfortable comments, everyone seemed to walk away wishing they'd done something else.

Aaron E. Sanchez

It was the first time my dad visited me at college, and he had just dropped me off at my dorm. My suitemate walked in and sneered.

"Was that your dad?" he asked. "He looks sooo Mexican."

Aaron E. Sanchez is a Texas-based writer who focuses on issues of race, politics and popular culture from a Latino perspective. Courtesy of Aaron Sanchez hide caption

He kept laughing about it as he left my room.

I was caught off-guard. Instantly, I grew self-conscious, not because I was ashamed of my father, but because my respectability politics ran deep. My appearance was supposed to be impeccable and my manners unimpeachable to protect against stereotypes and slights. I felt exposed.

To be sure, when my dad walked into restaurants and stores, people almost always spoke to him in Spanish. He didn't mind. The fluidity of his bilingualism rarely failed him. He was unassuming. He wore his working-class past on his frame and in his actions. He enjoyed hard work and appreciated it in others. Yet others mistook him for something altogether different.

People regularly confused his humility for servility. He was mistaken for a landscape worker, a janitor, and once he sat next to a gentleman on a plane who kept referring to him as a "wetback." He was a poor Mexican-American kid who grew up in the Segundo Barrio of El Paso, Texas, for certain. But he was also an Air Force veteran who had served for 20 years. He was an electrical engineer, a proud father, an admirable storyteller, and a pretty decent fisherman.

I didn't respond to my suitemate. To him, my father was a funny caricature, a curio he could pick up, purchase and discard. And as much as it was hidden beneath my elite, liberal arts education, I was a novelty to him too, an even rarer one at that. Instead of a serape, I came wrapped in the trappings of middle-classness, a costume I was trying desperately to wear convincingly.

That night, I realized that no clothing or ill-fitting costume could cover us. Our bodies were incongruous to our surroundings. No matter how comfortable we were in our skins, our presence would make others uncomfortable.

Karen Good Marable

When the Q train pulled into the Cortelyou Road station, it was dark and I was tired. Another nine hours in New York City, working in the madness that is Midtown as a fact-checker at a fashion magazine. All day long, I researched and confirmed information relating to beauty, fashion and celebrity, and, at least once a day, suffered an editor who was openly annoyed that I'd discovered an error. Then, the crush of the rush-hour subway, and a dinner obligation I had to fulfill before heading home to my cat.

Karen Good Marable is a writer living in New York City. Her work has been featured in publications like The Undefeated and The New Yorker. Courtesy of Karen Good Marable hide caption

The train doors opened and I turned the corner to walk up the stairs. Coming down were two girls — free, white and in their 20s . They were dancing as they descended, complete with necks rolling, mouths pursed — a poor affectation of black girls — and rapping as they passed me:

Now I ain't sayin she a golddigger/But she ain't messin' with no broke niggas!

That last part — broke niggas — was actually less rap, more squeals that dissolved into giggles. These white girls were thrilled to say the word publicly — joyously, even — with the permission of Kanye West.

I stopped, turned around and stared at them. I envisioned kicking them both squarely in their backs. God didn't give me telekinetic powers for just this reason. I willed them to turn around and face me, but they did not dare. They bopped on down the stairs and onto the platform, not evening knowing the rest of the rhyme.

Listen: I'm a black woman from the South. I was born in the '70s and raised by parents — both educators — who marched for their civil rights. I never could get used to nigga being bandied about — not by the black kids and certainly not by white folks. I blamed the girls' parents for not taking over where common sense had clearly failed. Hell, even radio didn't play the nigga part.

I especially blamed Kanye West for not only making the damn song, but for having the nerve to make nigga a part of the damn hook.

Life in NYC is full of moments like this, where something happens and you wonder if you should speak up or stay silent (which can also feel like complicity). I am the type who will speak up . Boys (or men) cussing incessantly in my presence? Girls on the train cussing around my 70-year-old mama? C'mon, y'all. Do you see me? Do you hear yourselves? Please. Stop.

But on this day, I just didn't feel like running down the stairs to tap those girls on the shoulder and school them on what they damn well already knew. On this day, I just sighed a great sigh, walked up the stairs, past the turnstiles and into the night.

Robyn Henderson-Espinoza

When I was 5 or 6, my mother asked me a question: "Does anyone ever make fun of you for the color of your skin?"

This surprised me. I was born to a Mexican woman who had married an Anglo man, and I was fairly light-skinned compared to the earth-brown hue of my mother. When she asked me that question, I began to understand that I was different.

Robyn Henderson-Espinoza is a visiting assistant professor of ethics at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif. Courtesy of Robyn Henderson-Espinoza hide caption

Following my parents' divorce in the early 1980s, I spent a considerable amount of time with my father and my paternal grandparents. One day in May of 1989, I was sitting at my grandparents' dinner table in West Texas. I was 12. The adults were talking about the need for more laborers on my grandfather's farm, and my dad said this:

"Mexicans are lazy."

He called the undocumented workers he employed on his 40 acres "wetbacks." Again and again, I heard from him that Mexicans always had to be told what to do. He and friends would say this when I was within earshot. I felt uncomfortable. Why would my father say these things about people like me?

But I remained silent.

It haunts me that I didn't speak up. Not then. Not ever. I still hear his words, 10 years since he passed away, and wonder whether he thought I was a lazy Mexican, too. I wish I could have found the courage to tell him that Mexicans are some of the hardest-working people I know; that those brown bodies who worked on his property made his lifestyle possible.

As I grew in experience and understanding, I was able to find language that described what he was doing: stereotyping, undermining, demonizing. I found my voice in the academy and in the movement for black and brown lives.

Still, the silence haunts me.

Channing Kennedy

My 20s were defined in no small part by a friendship with a guy I never met. For years, over email and chat, we shared everything with each other, and we made great jokes. Those jokes — made for each other only — were a foundational part of our relationship and our identities. No matter what happened, we could make each other laugh.

Channing Kennedy is an Oakland-based writer, performer, media producer and racial equity trainer. Courtesy of Channing Kennedy hide caption

It helped, also, that we were slackers with spare time, but eventually we both found callings. I started working in the social justice sector, and he gained recognition in the field of indie comics. I was proud of my new job and approached it seriously, if not gracefully. Before I took the job, I was the type of white dude who'd make casually racist comments in front of people I considered friends. Now, I had laid a new foundation for myself and was ready to undo the harm I'd done pre-wokeness.

And I was proud of him, too, if cautious. The indie comics scene is full of bravely offensive work: the power fantasies of straight white men with grievances against their nonexistent censors, put on defiant display. But he was my friend, and he wouldn't fall for that.

One day he emailed me a rough script to get my feedback. At my desk, on a break from deleting racist, threatening Facebook comments directed at my co-workers, I opened it up for a change of pace.

I got none. His script was a top-tier, irredeemable power fantasy — sex trafficking, disability jokes, gendered violence, every scene's background packed with commentary-devoid, racist caricatures. It also had a pop culture gag on top, to guarantee clicks.

I asked him why he'd written it. He said it felt "important." I suggested he shelve it. He suggested that that would be a form of censorship. And I realized this: My dear friend had created a racist power fantasy about dismembering women, and he considered it bravely offensive.

I could have said that there was nothing brave about catering to the established tastes of other straight white comics dudes. I could have dropped any number of half-understood factoids about structural racism, the finishing move of the recently woke. I could have just said the jokes were weak.

Instead, I became cruel to him, with a dedication I'd previously reserved for myself.

Over months, I redirected every bit of our old creativity. I goaded him into arguments I knew would leave him shaken and unable to work. I positioned myself as a surrogate parent (so I could tell myself I was still a concerned ally) then laughed at him. I got him to escalate. And, privately, I told myself it was me who was under attack, the one with the grievance, and I cried about how my friend was betraying me.

I wanted to erase him (I realized years later) not because his script offended me, but because it made me laugh. It was full of the sense of humor we'd spent years on — not the jokes verbatim, but the pacing, structure, reveals, go-to gags. It had my DNA and it was funny. I thought I had become a monster-slayer, but this comic was a monster with my hands and mouth.

After years as the best of friends and as the bitterest of exes, we finally had a chance to meet in person. We were little more than acquaintances with sunk costs at that point, but we met anyway. Maybe we both wanted forgiveness, or an apology, or to see if we still had some jokes. Instead, I lectured him about electoral politics and race in a bar and never smiled.

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Home — Blog — Topic Ideas — Essay Topics on Racism: 150 Ideas for Analysis and Discussion

Essay Topics on Racism: 150 Ideas for Analysis and Discussion

Here’s a list of 150 essay ideas on racism to help you ace a perfect paper. The subjects are divided based on what you require!

Before we continue with the list of essay topics on racism, let's remember the definition of racism. In brief, it's a complex prejudice and a form of discrimination based on race. It can be done by an individual, a group, or an institution. If you belong to a racial or ethnic group, you are facing being in the minority. As it's usually caused by the group in power, there are many types of racism, including socio-cultural racism, internal racism, legal racism, systematic racism, interpersonal racism, institutional racism, and historical racism. You can also find educational or economic racism as there are many sub-sections that one can encounter.

150 Essay Topics on Racism to Help You Ace a Perfect Essay

General Recommendations

The subject of racism is one of the most popular among college students today because you can discuss it regardless of your academic discipline. Even though we are dealing with technical progress and the Internet, the problem of racism is still there. The world may go further and talk about philosophical matters, yet we still have to face them and explore the challenges. It makes it even more difficult to find a good topic that would be unique and inspiring. As a way to help you out, we have collected 150 racism essay topics that have been chosen by our experts. We recommend you choose something that motivates you and narrow things down a little bit to make your writing easier.

Why Choose a Topic on Racial Issues? 

When we explore racial issues, we are not only seeking the most efficient solutions but also reminding ourselves about the past and the mistakes that we should never make again. It is an inspirational type of work as we all can change the world. If you cannot choose a topic that inspires you, think about recent events, talk about your friend, or discuss something that has happened in your local area. Just take your time and think about how you can make the world a safer and better place.

The Secrets of a Good Essay About Racism 

The secret to writing a good essay on racism is not only stating that racism is bad but by exploring the origins and finding a solution. You can choose a discipline and start from there. For example, if you are a nursing student, talk about the medical principles and responsibilities where every person is the same. Talk about how it has not always been this way and discuss the methods and the famous theorists who have done their best to bring equality to our society. Keep your tone inspiring, explore, and tell a story with a moral lesson in the end. Now let’s explore the topic ideas on racism!

General Essay Topics On Racism 

As we know, no person is born a racist since we are not born this way and it cannot be considered a biological phenomenon. Since it is a practice that is learned and a social issue, the general topics related to racism may include socio-cultural, philosophical, and political aspects as you can see below. Here are the ideas that you should consider as you plan to write an essay on racial issues:

• Are we born with racial prejudice? 
• Can racism be unlearned? 
• The political constituent of the racial prejudice and the colonial past? 
• The humiliation of the African continent and the control of power. 
• The heritage of the Black Lives Matter movement and its historical origins. 
• The skin color issue and the cultural perceptions of the African Americans vs Mexican Americans. 
• The role of social media in the prevention of racial conflicts in 2022 . 
• Martin Luther King Jr. and his role in modern education. 
• Konrad Lorenz and the biological perception of the human race. 
• The relation of racial issues to nazism and chauvinism.

The Best Racism Essay Topics 

School and college learners often ask about what can be considered the best essay subject when asked to write on racial issues. Essentially, you have to talk about the origins of racism and provide a moral lesson with a solution as every person can be a solid contribution to the prevention of hatred and racial discrimination.

• The schoolchildren's example and the attitude to the racial conflicts. 
• Perception of racism in the United States versus Germany. 
• The role of the scouting movement as a way to promote equality in our society. 
•  Social justice and the range of opportunities that African American individuals could receive during the 1960s.
•  The workplace equality and the negative perception of the race when the documents are being filed. 
•  The institutional racism and the sources of the legislation that has paved the way for injustice. 
•  Why should we talk to the children about racial prejudice and set good examples ? 
•  The role of anthropology in racial research during the 1990s in the USA. 
•  The Black Poverty phenomenon and the origins of the Black Culture across the globe. 
•  The controversy of Malcolm X’s personality and his transition from anger to peacemaking.

Shocking Racism Essay Ideas 

Unfortunately, there are many subjects that are not easy to deal with when you are talking about the most horrible sides of racism. Since these subjects are sensitive, dealing with the shocking aspects of this problem should be approached with a warning in your introduction part so your readers know what to expect. As a rule, many medical and forensic students will dive into the issue, so these topic ideas are still relevant:

• The prejudice against wearing a hoodie. 
•  The racial violence in Western Africa and the crimes by the Belgian government. 
•  The comparison of homophobic beliefs and the link to racial prejudice. 
•  Domestic violence and the bias towards the cases based on race. 
•  Racial discrimination in the field of the sex industry. 
•  Slavery in the Middle East and the modern cultural perceptions. 
•  Internal racism in the United States: why the black communities keep silent. 
•  Racism in the American schools: the bias among the teachers. 
•  Cyberbullying and the distorted image of the typical racists . 
•  The prisons of Apartheid in South Africa.

Light and Simple Ideas Regarding Racism

If you are a high-school learner or a first-year college student, your essay on racism may not have to represent complex research with a dozen of sources. Here are some good ideas that are light and simple enough to provide you with inspiration and the basic points to follow:

• My first encounter with racial prejudice. 
•  Why do college students are always in the vanguard of social campaigns? 
•  How are the racial issues addressed by my school? 
•  The promotion of the African-American culture is a method to challenge prejudice and stereotypes. 
• The history of blues music and the Black culture of the blues in the United States.
• The role of slavery in the Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. 
•  School segregation in the United States during the 1960s. 
•  The negative effect of racism on the mental health of a person. 
•  The advocacy of racism in modern society . 
•  The heritage of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the modern perception of the historical issues.

Interesting Topics on Racism For an Essay 

Contrary to the popular belief, when you have to talk about the cases of racial prejudice, you will also encounter many interesting essay topic ideas. As long as these are related to your main academic course, you can explore them. Here are some great ideas to consider:

• Has the perception of Michael Jackson changed because of his skin transition? 
•  The perception of racial problems by the British Broadcasting Corporation. 
•  The role of the African American influencers on Instagram. 
•  The comparison between the Asian students and the Mexican learners in the USA. 
•  Latin culture and the similarities when compared to the Black culture with its peculiarities. 
•  The racial impact in the “Boy In The Stripped Pajamas”. 
•  Can we eliminate racism completely and how exactly, considering the answer is “Yes”? 
•  Scientific research of modern racism and social media campaigns. 
•  Why do some people believe that the Black Lives Matter movement is controversial? 
• Male vs female challenges in relation to racial attitudes.

Argumentative Essay Topics About Race 

An argumentative type of writing requires making a clear statement or posing an assumption that will deal with a particular question. As we are dealing with racial prejudice or theories, it is essential to support your writing with at least one piece of evidence to make sure that you can support your opinion and stand for it as you write. Here are some good African American argumentative essay examples of topics and other ideas to consider:

•  Racism is a mental disorder and cannot be treated with words alone. 
•  Analysis of the traumatic experiences based on racial prejudice. 
•  African-American communities and the sense of being inferior are caused by poverty. 
•  Reading the memoirs of famous people that describe racial issues often provides a distorted image through the lens of a single person. 
•  There is no academic explanation of racism since every case is different and is often based on personal perceptions. 
•  The negatives of the post-racial perception as the latent system that advocates racism. 
•  The link of racial origins to the concept of feminism and gender inequality. 
•  The military bias and the merits that are earned by the African-American soldiers. 
•  The media causes a negative image of the Latin and Mexican youth in the United States. 
•  Does racism exist in kindergarten and why the youngsters do not think about racial prejudice?

Racism Research Paper Topics 

Dealing with The Black Lives Matter essay , you should focus on those aspects of racism that are not often discussed or researched by the media. You can take a particular case study or talk about the reasons why the BLM social campaign has started and whether the timing has been right. Here are some interesting racism topics for research paper that you should consider:

• The link of criminal offenses to race is an example of the primary injustice .  
• The socio-emotional burdens of slavery that one can trace among the representatives of the African-American population. 
• Study of the cardio-vascular diseases among the American youth: a comparison of the Caucasian and Latin representatives. 
• The race and the politics: dealing with the racial issues and the Trump administration analysis. 
• The best methods to achieve medical equality for all people: where race has no place to be. 
• The perception of racism by the young children: the negative side of trying to educate the youngsters. 
• Racial prejudice in the UK vs the United States: analysis of the core differences. 
• The prisons in the United States: why do the Blacks constitute the majority? 
• The culture of Voodoo and the slavery: the link between the occult practices.
• The native American people and the African Americans: the common woes they share.

Racism in Culture Topics 

Racism topics for essay in culture are always upon the surface because we can encounter them in books, popular political shows, movies, social media, and more. The majority of college students often ignore this aspect because things easily become confusing since one has to take a stand and explain the point. As a way to help you a little bit, we have collected several cultural racism topic ideas to help you start:

• The perception of wealth by the Black community: why it differs when researched through the lens of past poverty?  
• The rap music and the cultural constituent of the African-American community. 
• The moral constituent of the political shows where racial jargon is being used. 
• Why the racial jokes on television are against the freedom of speech?  
• The ways how the modern media promotes racism by stirring up the conflict and actually doing harm. 
• The isolated cases of racism and police violence in the United States as portrayed by the movies. 
• Playing with the Black musicians: the history of jazz in the United States. 
• The social distancing and the perception of isolation by the different races. 
• The cultural multitude in the cartoons by the Disney Corporations: the pros and cons.
• From assimilation to genocide: can the African American child make it big without living through the cultural bias?

Racism Essay Ideas in Literature 

One of the best ways to study racism is by reading the books by those who have been through it on their own or by studying the explorations by those who can write emotionally and fight for racial equality where racism has no place to be. Keeping all of these challenges in mind, our experts suggest turning to the books as you can explore racism in the literature by focusing on those who are against it and discussing the cases in the classic literature that are quite controversial.

• The racial controversy of Ernest Hemingway's writing.  
• The personal attitude of Mark Twain towards slavery and the cultural peculiarities of the times. 
• The reasons why "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee book has been banned in libraries. 
• The "Hate You Give" by Angie Thomas and the analysis of the justified and "legit" racism. 
• Is the poetry by the gangsta rap an example of hidden racism? 
• Maya Angelou and her timeless poetry. 
• The portrayal of xenophobia in modern English language literature. 
• What can we learn from the "Schilder's List" screenplay as we discuss the subject of genocide? 
• Are there racial elements in "Othello" or Shakespeare's creation is beyond the subject?
• Kate Chopin's perception of inequality in "Desiree's Baby".

Racism in Science Essay Ideas 

Racism is often studied by scientists because it's not only a cultural point or a social agenda that is driven by personal inferiority and similar factors of mental distortion. Since we can talk about police violence and social campaigns, it is also possible to discuss things through different disciplines. Think over these racism thesis statement ideas by taking a scientific approach and getting a common idea explained:

• Can physical trauma become a cause for a different perception of race? 
• Do we inherit racial intolerance from our family members and friends? 
• Can a white person assimilate and become a part of the primarily Black community? 
• The people behind the concept of Apartheid: analysis of the critical factors. 
• Can one prove the fact of the physical damage of the racial injustice that lasted through the years? 
• The bond between mental diseases and the slavery heritage among the Black people. 
• Should people carry the blame for the years of social injustice? 
• How can we explain the metaphysics of race? 
• What do the different religions tell us about race and the best ways to deal with it? 
• Ethnic prejudices based on age, gender, and social status vs general racism.

Cinema and Race Topics to Write About 

As a rule, the movies are also a great source for writing an essay on racial issues. Remember to provide the basic information about the movie or include examples with the quotations to help your readers understand all the major points that you make. Here are some ideas that are worth your attention:

• The negative aspect of the portrayal of racial issues by Hollywood.  
• Should the disturbing facts and the graphic violence be included in the movies about slavery? 
• Analysis of the "Green Mile" movie and the perception of equality in our society.  
• The role of music and culture in the "Django Unchained" movie. 
• The "Ghosts of Mississippi" and the social aspect of the American South compared to how we perceive it today. 
• What can we learn from the "Malcolm X" movie created by Spike Lee? 
• "I am Not Your Negro" movie and the role of education through the movies. 
• "And the Children Shall Lead" the movie as an example that we are not born racist. 
• Do we really have the "Black Hollywood" concept in reality? 
• Do the movies about racial issues only cause even more racial prejudice?

Race and Ethnic Relations 

Another challenging problem is the internal racism and race and ethnicity essay topics that we can observe not only in the United States but all over the world as well. For example, the Black people in the United States and the representatives of the rap music culture will divide themselves between the East Coast and the West Coast where far more than cultural differences exist. The same can be encountered in Afghanistan or in Belgium. Here are some essay topics on race and ethnicity idea samples to consider:

• The racial or the ethnic conflict? What can we learn from Afghan society? 
• Religious beliefs divide us based on ethnicity . 
• What are the major differences between ethnic and racial conflicts? 
• Why we are able to identify the European Black person and the Black coming from the United States? 
• Racism and ethnicity's role in sports. 
• How can an ethnic conflict be resolved with the help of anti-racial methods? 
• The medical aspect of being an Asian in the United States. 
• The challenges of learning as an African American person during the 1950s. 
• The role of the African American people in the Vietnam war and their perception by the locals. 
• Ethnicity's role in South Africa as the concept of Apartheid has been formed.

Biology and Racial Issues 

If you are majoring in Biology or would like to research this side of the general issue of race, it is essential to think about how we can fight racism in practice by turning to healthcare or the concepts that are historical in their nature. Although we cannot explain slavery per se other than by turning to economics and the rule of power that has no justification, biologists believe that racial challenges can be approached by their core beliefs as well.

• Can we create an isolated non-racist society in 2022? 
• If we assume that a social group has never heard of racism, can it occur? 
• The physical versus cultural differences in the racial inequality cases? 
• The biological peculiarities of the different races? 
• Do we carry the cultural heritage of our race? 
• Interracial marriage through the lens of Biology. 
• The origins of the racial concept and its evolution. 
• The core ways how slavery has changed the African-American population. 
• The linguistic peculiarities of the Latin people. 
• The resistance of the different races towards vaccination.

Modern Racism Topics to Consider 

In case you would like to deal with a modern subject that deals with racism, you can go beyond the famous Black Lives Matter movement by focusing on the cases of racism in sports or talking about the peacemakers or the famous celebrities who have made a solid difference in the elimination of racism.

• The Global Citizen campaign is a way to eliminate racial differences. 
• The heritage of Aretha Franklin and her take on the racial challenges. 
• The role of the Black Stars in modern society: the pros and cons. 
• Martin Luther King Day in the modern schools. 
• How can Instagram help to eliminate racism? 
• The personality of Michelle Obama as a fighter for peace. 
• Is a society without racism a utopian idea? 
• How can comic books help youngsters understand equality? 
• The controversy in the death of George Floyd. 
• How can we break down the stereotypes about Mexicans in the United States?

Racial Discrimination Essay Ideas 

If your essay should focus on racial discrimination, you should think about the environment and the type of prejudice that you are facing. For example, it can be in school or at the workplace, at the hospital, or in a movie that you have attended. Here are some discrimination topics research paper ideas that will help you to get started:

• How can a schoolchild report the case of racism while being a minor?  
• The discrimination against women's rights during the 1960s. 
• The employment problem and the chances of the Latin, Asian, and African American applicants. 
• Do colleges implement a certain selection process against different races? 
• How can discrimination be eliminated via education? 
• African-American challenges in sports. 
• The perception of discrimination, based on racial principles and the laws in the United States. 
• How can one report racial comments on social media? 
• Is there discrimination against white people in our society? 
• Covid-19 and racial discrimination: the lessons we have learned.

Find Even More Essay Topics On Racism by Visiting Our Site 

If you are unsure about what to write about, you can always find an essay on racism by visiting our website. Offering over 150 topic ideas, you can always get in touch with our experts and find another one!

5 Tips to Make Your Essay Perfect

• Start your essay on racial issues by narrowing things down after you choose the general topic. 
• Get your facts straight by checking the dates, the names, opinions from both sides of an issue, etc. 
• Provide examples if you are talking about the general aspects of racism. 
• Do not use profanity and show due respect even if you are talking about shocking things. The same relates to race and ethnic relations essay topics that are based on religious conflicts. Stay respectful! 
• Provide references and citations to avoid plagiarism and to keep your ideas supported by at least one piece of evidence.

Recommendations to Help You Get Inspired

Speaking of recommended books and articles to help you start with this subject, you should check " The Ideology of Racism: Misusing Science to Justify Racial Discrimination " by William H. Tucker who is a professor of social sciences at Rutgers University. Once you read this great article, think about the poetry by Maya Angelou as one of the best examples to see the practical side of things.

The other recommendations worth checking include:

- How to be Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi . - White Fragility by Robin Diangelo . - So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo .

The Final Word 

We sincerely believe that our article has helped you to choose the perfect essay subject to stir your writing skills. If you are still feeling stuck and need additional help, our team of writers can assist you in the creation of any essay based on what you would like to explore. You can get in touch with our skilled experts anytime by contacting our essay service for any race and ethnicity topics. Always confidential and plagiarism-free, we can assist you and help you get over the stress!

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Essay About Racial Discrimination

Racial discrimination has been ranked as one the most pervasive issue in the world around today. Anyone judged by the skin colour, nationality, religion rather than by the content of character can be very dehumanizing experience that can have lasting effects on an individual’s life (Fischer 2008). Racism disturbs both individual and the learning environment in schools. It generates tension that alter cultural understanding and narrow the educational experiences of all students. According to (Berlak 2009) discrimination occurs in any stage of education from preschool through college and can be practiced by teachers or students. Racism occur in various forms such as teasing, name calling, teasing, verbal abuse and bullying. Therefore this literature review, discusses the types, effects and solution to this unstoppable issue in education system.

Types of Racial Discrimination

Racism is frequently thought of as individual demonstrations of inclination. While discrimination is still particularly a reality, concentrating on individual demonstrations of prejudice can darken the substances that make and keep up racial disparity all the more comprehensively. According to De la luz, there are three types of racial discrimination which are individual racism, instituinal racism and systematic racism. To completely address the effects of racism it is essential to address all parts of racial disparity. Individual racism, likewise called personal racism, is the sort of prejudice that a great many people consider when they consider “racism.” Individual prejudice happens when a man’s convictions, states of mind, and activities depend on inclinations, generalizations, or preferences against another race. Institutional racism refers to an establishment settling on decisions that deliberately single out or hurt ethnic minorities. Systematic racism, is maybe the most upsetting and slightest examined type of racism. It systematizes individual, social, and different sorts of prejudice in ceaseless frameworks. Like institutional prejudice, basic racism centre around associations instead of individuals. However, while institutional racism may intentionally attempt to single out a specific gathering, auxiliary bigotry is unbiased all over. This impartiality makes basic prejudice hard to gauge and significantly more hard to end.

Effects of Racial Discrimination

It is believed that racism is one term that describes the whole issue, however it is a complex system that describes many types of biased behaviours and systems (Jonnes 2018).According to the Human Rights Commission (2017), racism as an act that humiliates human behaviour and affects the life of an individual physically, mentally and socially. It takes various forms such as name calling, comments, jokes, verbal abuse, harassment, bullying or commentary in the media that inflames hostility towards certain groups. In serious case, it results in physical abuse and violence. Racial discrimination is a deadly virus that affects all, individual, families, communities and the learning and working environment. Racism can unpleasantly affect the educational outcomes, individual happiness and self-confidence, cultural identity, school and community relations and most commonly is the student’s behaviour and academic achievements (Kohli, 2017). Hence if it is unaddressed than racism can generate tensions within the school communities and these will affect the educational experiences of all students. It can demoralise students self -confidence and can result in students displaying a range of negative behaviours Students who are disaffected with school are less likely to attend school regularly and more likely to drop out of school earlier than other groups of students. The increase rate of the incidence of absenteeism and stress is due to racism been link to diminished morale and lower productivity (Fields 2014),The presence of racism in schools affects the educational outcomes due to lower participation rates, behavioural problems and feelings of alienation. Hence the educational success depends on the regular sustained attendance of each students and the ability to participate in the classroom. With racism in the learning environment, the balance is disrupted and educational outcomes maybe limited as a result (Triaki 2017).

Moreover, racism could be minimised even though it will decade to erase it from our beautiful world. Advancing positive ethnic and racial character decreases sentiments of detachment or prohibition and enhance students capacity to focus in the classroom. Teachers can enable students to create positive opinions about their ethnic and racial personality by presenting them to assorted good examples, and making a sheltered space for them to commend their disparities. A definitive answer for this issue is diminishing understudy introduction to racial separation and enhancing race relations in the U.S. In the interim, there are ways minding and concerned grown-ups can enable understudies to manage the pressure be minimised even though it will take time to prevent it from being practiced in schools. (Collins 2015).Racism has been around everlastingly however it can be diminished, just with a lot of exertion. Education is the key for some muddled issues we look in this world. Education can change the manner in which people think and lead us to a superior world. We can battle racism with education (Hwang 2008). On the off chance that we instruct and show sympathy, at that point there will be less need to discuss how we can stop racism. It will be difficult to stop racism if racist considerations are still with us. It is dependent upon us to get ready for the future by teaching our family and others on the difficulties of racial discrimination. At exactly that point will we overcome racial discrimination in our societies and schools.

Racial discrimination could be described as a weapon that destroys the society and the education system as whole. It affects the students in various ways that hinder their academic achievement and also affects them mentally, physically and socially. It was also stated that racial discrimination can occur at any stage either preschool, high schools or even tertiary institution. Hence there are possible ways where racism could be minimized even though it will take time to be erased. Therefore education is an important tool in everyone’s life since it can change the world and every individual.