Racism is discrimination and prejudice against people based on their race or ethnicity. Racism can be present in social actions, practices, or political systems that support the expression of prejudice or aversion in discriminatory practices. The ideology underlying racist practices often assumes that humans can be subdivided into distinct groups that are different in their social behavior and innate capacities and that can be ranked as inferior or superior. Racist ideology can become manifest in many aspects of social life. Associated social actions may include nativism, xenophobia, otherness, segregation, hierarchical ranking, supremacism, and related social phenomena. Racism refers to violation of racial equality based on equal opportunities or based on equality of outcomes for different races or ethnicities, also called substantive equality.
In social justice theory, internalized oppression is a recognized understanding in which an oppressed group accepts the methods and incorporates the oppressive message of the oppressing group against their own best interest. Rosenwasser (2002) defines it as believing, adopting, accepting, and incorporating the negative beliefs provided by the oppressor as the truth.
Anti-Black racism, also called anti-Black sentiment, anti-Blackness, colourphobia or Negrophobia, is characterised by prejudice, collective hatred, and discrimination or extreme aversion towards people who are racialised as Black people, especially those people from sub-Saharan Africa and its diasporas, as well as a loathing of Black culture worldwide. Such sentiment includes, but is not limited to: the attribution of negative characteristics to Black people; the fear, strong dislike or dehumanization of Black men; and the objectification of Black women.
Internalized racism is a form of internalized oppression, defined by sociologist Karen D. Pyke as the "internalization of racial oppression by the racially subordinated." In her study The Psychology of Racism, Robin Nicole Johnson emphasizes that internalized racism involves both "conscious and unconscious acceptance of a racial hierarchy in which a presumed superior race are consistently ranked above other races. These definitions encompass a wide range of instances, including, but not limited to, belief in negative stereotypes, adaptations to cultural standards, and thinking that supports the status quo.
Laissez-faire racism is closely related to color blindness and covert racism, and is theorised to encompass an ideology that blames minorities for their poorer economic situations, viewing it as the result of cultural inferiority. The term is used largely by scholars of whiteness studies, who argue that laissez-faire racism has tangible consequences even though few would openly claim to be, or even believe they are, laissez-faire racists.
Historical trauma or collective trauma refers to the cumulative emotional harm of an individual or generation caused by a traumatic experience or event.
Negroid is an obsolete racial grouping of various people indigenous to Africa south of the area which stretched from the southern Sahara desert in the west to the African Great Lakes in the southeast, but also to isolated parts of South and Southeast Asia (Negritos). The term is derived from now-disproven conceptions of race as a biological category.
The sociology of race and ethnic relations is the study of social, political, and economic relations between races and ethnicities at all levels of society. This area encompasses the study of systemic racism, like residential segregation and other complex social processes between different racial and ethnic groups.
Minority stress describes high levels of stress faced by members of stigmatized minority groups. It may be caused by a number of factors, including poor social support and low socioeconomic status; well understood causes of minority stress are interpersonal prejudice and discrimination. Indeed, numerous scientific studies have shown that when minority individuals experience a high degree of prejudice, this can cause stress responses that accrue over time, eventually leading to poor mental and physical health. Minority stress theory summarizes these scientific studies to explain how difficult social situations lead to chronic stress and poor health among minority individuals.
Transgenerational trauma is the psychological and physiological effects that the trauma experienced by people has on subsequent generations in that group. The primary mode of transmission is the shared family environment of the infant causing psychological, behavioral and social changes in the individual.
Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate actions which are intended to create equal opportunities for all people on both an individual and a systemic level. As a philosophy, it can be engaged in by the acknowledgment of personal privileges, confronting acts as well as systems of racial discrimination and/or working to change personal racial biases. Major contemporary anti-racism efforts include the Black Lives Matter movement and workplace anti-racism.
Ibram Xolani Kendi is an American author, professor, anti-racist activist, and historian of race and discriminatory policy in the U.S. He is author of books including Stamped from the Beginning, How to Be an Antiracist and Antiracist Baby. Kendi was included in Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.
The slavery hypertension hypothesis proposes that disproportionately high rates of hypertension among black people in the New World are due to selective pressure preferring individuals who retain more sodium among black slaves during the Middle Passage.
Race-based traumatic stress is the traumatic response to stress following a racial encounter. Robert T. Carter's (2007) theory of race-based traumatic stress implies that there are individuals of color who experience racial discrimination as traumatic, and often generate responses similar to post-traumatic stress. Race-based traumatic stress combines theories of stress, trauma and race-based discrimination to describe a particular response to negative racial encounters.
Racial trauma, or race-based traumatic stress, is the cumulative effects of racism on an individual’s mental and physical health. It has been observed in numerous BIPOC communities and people of all ages, including young children. Racial trauma can be experienced vicariously or directly. It has been linked to feelings of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation, as well as other physical health issues.
Arline Geronimus wrote about the weathering hypothesis the early 1990s to account for health disparities of newborn babies and birth mothers due to decades and generations of racism and social, economic, and political oppression. It is well documented that people of color and other marginalized communities have worse health outcomes than white people. This is due to multiple stressors including prejudice, social alienation, institutional bias, political oppression, economic exclusion, and racial discrimination. The weathering hypothesis proposes that the cumulative burden of these stressors as individuals age is "weathering", and the increased weathering experienced by minority groups compared to others can account for differences in health outcomes. In recent years, social scientists investigated the biological plausibility of the weathering hypothesis in studies evaluating the physiological effects of social, environmental and political stressors among marginalized communities. The weathering hypothesis is more widely accepted as a framework for explaining health disparities on the basis of differential exposure to racially based stressors. Researchers have also identified patterns connecting weathering to biological phenomena associated with stress and aging, such as allostatic load, epigenetics, telomere shortening, and accelerated brain aging.
Racial battle fatigue is a term coined in 2003 to describe the psychosocial stress responses from being a racially oppressed group member in society and on a historically White campus. The term was introduced by William A. Smith, a professor in the Division of Ethnic Studies and Department of Education, Culture, and Society at the University of Utah. The framework intends to offer a lens to better understand racial undertones of a campus environment and educational experiences for people of color. Smith's research was originally conducted on Black faculty, both men and women, and then on Black college students, prior to a more focused examination on African American men. Since this earlier period of research, racial battle fatigue scholarship has been used to include other racially marginalized groups. The phenomenon builds on existing research connecting African Americans and other people of color with oppression and discrimination experienced at historically White institutions. Smith incorporates literature on combat trauma and combat stress syndrome to help understand the effects of managing hostile environments and the ensuing persistent stress.
How to Be an Antiracist is a 2019 nonfiction book by American author and historian Ibram X. Kendi, which combines social commentary and memoir. It was published by One World, an imprint of Random House. The book discusses concepts of racism and Kendi's proposals for anti-racist individual actions and systemic changes.
Joy Angela DeGruy is an American author, academic, and researcher, who previously served as assistant professor at the Portland State University School of Social Work. She is currently president and CEO of DeGruy Publications, Inc and Executive Director of the non-profit Be The Healing, Inc. She is mostly known for her book Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, originally published by UpTone Press in 2005 and revised and republished in 2017 by Joy DeGruy Publications, Inc. DeGruy and her research projects have featured in news and activist coverage of contemporary African-American social issues, in addition to public lectures and workshops on U.S. college campuses that include: Morehouse School of Medicine, Fisk University, Spelman College, Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, Smith College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. DeGruy has spoken at the United Nations, UNESCO, C-SPAN, Oxford University, Association of Black Psychologists, National Association of Social Workers, the World Bank, The Essence Festival, and featured in Essence Magazine, and films that include "Cracking the Codes," a film by Shakti Butler, "InVisible Portraits" by Oge Egbuonu on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), among others. Dr. Degruy has also received a 2021 grant from the MacArthur Foundation to further her healing work.
In the context of racism in the United States, racism against African Americans dates back to the colonial era, and it continues to be a persistent issue in American society in the 21st century.
