The legacy of race: an introduction to structural racialization
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Transcript of The legacy of race: an introduction to structural racialization
john a. powellWilliams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, Moritz College of Law
Director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
University of Wisconsin, November 9th, 2009
the legacy of race: an introduction to
structural racialization
1. how we commonly view race and racism
2. the two sides of racial discrimination
3. what is structural racialization?
4. applying a structural analysis
5. thinking about systems
6. wrap-up, Q&A
discussion overview:
HATEFUL
INDIVIDUAL
PERSONAL
EXPLICIT
CONSCIOUS
perceptions of racism
POST-RACIAL.
BEYOND RACE.
RACISM=DEAD.
PRE OBAMA POST OBAMA
the location of individual racism
racial attitudes operate in our “unconscious” (also called “subconscious”) mind
usually invisible to us but significantly influences our positions on critical issues
negative unconscious attitudes about race are called “implicit bias” or “symbolic racism.”
talk about race can reinforce our conscious beliefs or challenge our implicit biases.
individual racism, implicit bias
• only 2% of emotional cognition is available to us consciously
• messages can be ‘framed’ to speak to our unconscious
• racial bias tends to reside in the unconscious network
implicit association tests
RACIALIZED OUTCOMES DO NOT REQUIRE RACIST ACTORS.
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Our Unconscious Networks What colors are the following lines of text?
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Our Unconscious Networks What colors are the following lines of text?
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Our Unconscious Networks
What colors are the following lines of text?
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Our Unconscious Networks
What colors are the following lines of text?
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Our Unconscious Networks
What colors are the following lines of text?
one side of racism
individuals structuresRACISM
the other side …
RACISMindividuals structures
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Ongoing Racial Inequalities
Outcomes: Racial Disparities
Racial inequalities in current levels of well-being
Capacity for individual and community improvement is undermined
Current Manifestations: Social and Institutional Dynamics
Processes that maintain racial hierarchiesRacialized public policies and institutional
practices
Context: The Dominant Consensus on Race
White privilege National values Contemporary culture
Structural Racialization
Adapted from the Aspen Roundtable on Community Change. “Structural Racism and Community Building.” June 2004
How does race work today?structural racialization
it is a very different way of looking at race
the practices, cultural norms and institutional arrangements that help create & maintain (disparate) racialized outcomes
structures unevenly distribute benefits, burdens, and racialized meaning.
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put these together, you can imagine a structure
Lower EducationalOutcomes
Increased Flight
of Affluent Families
Neighborhood Segregation
SchoolSegregation &Concentrated
Poverty
opportunity is racialized
• In 1960, African-American families in poverty were 3.8times more likely to be concentrated in high-poverty neighborhoods than poor whites.
• In 2000, they were 7.3 times more likely.
opportunity is spatialized
Structural racialization involves a series of exclusions, often anchored in (and perpetuating) spatial segregation.
Historically marginalized people of color and the very poor have been spatially isolated from opportunity via reservations, Jim Crow, Appalachian mountains, ghettos, barrios, and the culture of incarceration.
did you have a choice where you lived?
we are situated in different environments and contexts
opportunity
We can define opportunity through access
Opportunity includes access to:
Healthcare
Education
Employment
Services
Healthy food
how are we situated to opportunity?
Different communities are situated differently with regards to institutions
Institutions mediate opportunity
segregation from opportunity
not just segregation based on phenotype
Segregation embedded in our institutions and in our geography
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A Tale of High and Low Opportunity Structures
Low Opportunity High Opportunity
Less the 25% of students in Detroit finish high school
More the 60% of the men will spend time in jail
There may soon be no bus service in some areas
It is difficult to attract jobs or private capital
Not safe; very few parks
Difficult to get fresh food
The year my step daughter finished high school, 100% of the students graduated and 100% went to college
Most will not even drive by a jail
Free bus service
Relatively easy to attract capital
Very safe; great parks
Easy to get fresh food
structural inequality
example:a Bird in a cage. Examining one wire cannot explain why a bird cannot fly. But multiple wires, arranged in specific ways, reinforce each other and trap the bird.
structural barriers
Some people ride
the “Up” escalator to
reach opportunity
Others have to run up the “Down” escalator to get there
living in low-opportunity
• living in low-opportunity reduces IQ points of students by 4 points, equivalent to one year of school (Sampson 2007)
• generates unhealthy levels of stress hormones in children, which impairs their neural development
• correlates with children having levels of lead in their blood 9 times above average; high levels of lead linked to ADD and irreversible loss of cognitive functioning
• links to higher levels of violent offending among juveniles
• is highly correlated with childhood aggression and social maladjustment
the g.i. bill In the 7 years following WWII, approximately 8 million veterans received educational benefits.
Approximately 2.3 million attended colleges and universities, 3.5 million received school training, and 3.4 million received on-the-job training
benefits of g.i. bill
Bill provisions included assistance with:•Buying a home•Attending college•Starting new business ventures•Locating a job
From 1946 to 1947, VA mortgages comprised more than 40% of the total.
those left behind …
Despite the bill’s achievements, many barrierswere placed in the path of black soldiers.
Implementation was left to states and localities, including those that practiced Jim Crow racism.
Blacks’ access to primarily white colleges and institutions was limited
95% of black veterans used their education vouchers at historically black colleges (HBCUs) in the South.
These historically black institutions were limited in number and had limited space to admit the influx of black veterans
The education gap widened instead of closed.
The vocational training black veterans received was not held to any standards, thus often proving inadequate.
Job placements reinforced the existing division of labor by race.
Blacks often failed to qualify for loans.
“…despite the assistance that black soldiers received, there was no greater instrument for widening an already huge racial gap in postwar America than the GI Bill.” (Katznelson 2005, p. 121)
the need for systems thinking
AtomisticThe problem: bad apples
Colorblindness as the goal.
SystemicThe problem: poisonous tree
Fix the “soil”.
Housing
Childcare Employment
Education
Health
Transportation
Effective Participation
An analysis of any one area will yield an
incompleteunderstanding.
We must consider how institutions interact with one another to produce racialized
outcomes.
systems thinking
From a systems perspective, causation is cumulative and mutual.
Outcomes are caused by many actors’ and institutions’ actions and inactions over time and across domains
Outcomes are the result of causes that accumulate over time and across domains.
lessons
We must consider how we each stand differently with respect to our opportunities for work, education, parenting, retirement…
We must understand the work our institutions do, not what we wished they would do, in order to make them more equitable and fair
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