The Seven Factors that Contribute to American Racism
My heart continues to break for the United States of America. We have become so polarized—politically, culturally, and even in terms of what we believe is the Truth about what is happening around us. I’m honestly having a really hard time seeing a pathway forward. I believe in trying to figure out how to put a partnership society in place of our domination society. But right now it’s just feels like a Battle to the Death between the two sides.
And one of the things we are most polarized about right now is how we think about racism in America. For example, the Governor of Texas just signed into law limits around what we can do in schools around racism.
And yet our children are our best path forward. If they learn about how slavery came to be and how we still experience its effects today, they can start to dismantle it. In a new journal article led by Stephen O. Roberts coming out in Psychology Today soon, Roberts explains: “Racism is a system of advantage based on race. It is a hierarchy. It is a pandemic. Racism is so deeply embedded within U.S. minds and U.S. society that it is virtually impossible to escape.”
The articles authors go on to explain: “Just as citizens of capitalistic societies reinforce capitalism, whether they identify as capitalist or not, and whether they want to or not, citizens of racist societies reinforce racism, whether they identify as racist or not, and whether they want to or not.”
Seven Factors that contribute to American Racism
Here are the seven factors shared in the article:
- categories, which organize people into distinct groups
- factions, which trigger ingroup loyalty and intergroup competition
- segregation, which hardens racist perceptions, preferences and beliefs.
- hierarchy, which emboldens people to think, feel and behave in racist ways;
- power, which legislates racism on both micro and macro levels;
- media, which legitimizes overrepresented and idealized representations of White Americans while marginalizing and minimizing people of color; and
- passivism, such that overlooking or denying the existence of racism encourages others to do the same. In short, they argue that the U.S. positions and empowers some over others, reinforces those differences through biased media, and then leaves those disparities and media in place.
Passivism is on full display right now across the country as politicians seek to ban critical race theory from our institutions.
2 Comments
Sebrina Parker
#1 has always been the most insidious to me. As a mixed person, every single demographic form I’ve ever filled out is triggering for me.
For the first 25 years of my life, I had to always put “other” as if races mixing is some aberration and anomaly that shouldn’t be common.
In more recent years I have seen more forms with mixed but they still aren’t common place.
Every time I answer, I am literally having to choose a side unless I want to identify as an oddball in the land of otherness. Which team do I want to play for today – my dad or my mom?
Outside of the medical industry, there is literally no reason for racial or ethnic classification forms. All they lead to is categorical bias and stereotyping.
Sara Cotner
Thank you for sharing about your experience, Sebrina! It makes total sense that having to select “Other” would feel really activating. There’s not enough “all belong here” sentiment in the world. And in the United States, there’s such a narrow vision of “perfection” and “normal.” With regard to your point about “no reason” for classification: I personally feel like given how racist our country is right now, it is really important to track things by race and ethnicity. This tracking, for example, helps us see that Black people are incarcerated at much higher rates, are underserved in our public schools, etc. Biologically, race isn’t really a thing, but it carries so much weight right now. We are in the place of needing to track whether it’s improving (by race and ethnicity) AND getting beyond the classification of people by race and ethnicity that artificially divides us. It’s a complex situation for sure.