The definition of racism

Arecent Yougov/huffington Post poll caught my attention. One question asked which ethnic groups face a lot of discrimination. Almost half of Trump voters thought whites were discriminated against a lot.

Even more striking, Trump voters are twice as likely to believe that whites face discrimination than blacks, Latinos, or Jews. This isn’t just surprising. It’s factually absurd. Often, those of us who study something tend to take certain things for granted. My degrees are in sociology and though I didn’t specialize, as some of my classmates did, in the study of race and ethnicity, I certainly learned about it. It’s discussed also in courses on history, political science, and elsewhere.

And one thing is crystal clear and that it while we have studied this issue a lot, we have done a miserable job of informing the public about it.

You’ve certainly seen articles here and there, discussing the fact that certain types of discrimination are still widespread and that bias is prevalent. You might remember a fact or two from history. But when large numbers of the American public believe something so ridiculous, it can only mean we haven’t done our jobs. I’m going to address this in multiple columns. At the risk of sounding condescending, I’ll be talking about terms that you’ve probably heard before: racism, stereotypes, bias, discrimination, prejudice, etc. Like any other subject, those of us who have spent years studying it often use these terms with a shared understanding that differs substantially from that of the general public. Thus, the need for explanation.

Let’s start with just a couple of those terms. Discrimination simply means treating people differently based on their membership in a particular group. When based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or sexual identity, disability, or religion, it is illegal in many circumstances, such as employment, housing, and businesses serving the public.

Discrimination is often, though perhaps not always, a result of prejudice, which simply means pre-judging a person based on their membership in a group. Someone might harbor prejudice based on stereotypes they’ve heard all their lives, personal experience with other members of the group, or any other reason. And prejudice need not come with malice or hatred. It simply exists.

Is it possible for whites to face discrimination? Of course it is. I’m sure it happens from time to time. Any group can discriminate against any other. In some cases, a group may harbor prejudice or discriminate against members of their own group.

But, are whites systematically discriminated against? Hardly. There simply isn’t evidence of it.

This is where we get to the definition of racism. Racism of the institutional kind isn’t just about prejudice or bias. It is systemic. In the US, it is based on a long national history of an assumption of white supremacy, an assumption that was quite explicit in our national character and discourse for the majority of our history, and implicit in recent decades (a topic for a future column).

It’s certainly possible for minority groups to discriminate against whites or even for whites to discriminate against whites. But the idea that it happens often is nonsense. And the idea that it is as likely to happen as the opposite — whites discriminating against members of minority groups — sounds like something from an alternate universe.

I’m not speaking from an academic ivory tower, but the evidence is clear, systemic, and nearly universal.

In the labor market, African-americans face ongoing discrimination. Résumés with no difference other than an African-american name is less likely to get a callback than ones with a white name. The same is true in sales.

In the criminal justice system, blacks are more likely to be arrested given the same evidence, more likely to go to trial, more likely to be convicted, and they get longer sentences when convicted. A recent study showed that even in everyday interactions, police officers (regardless of their own racial background) are less polite to African-american citizens they interact with than with whites. In a death penalty case, a person convicted of murdering a white person is much more likely to be sentenced to death than one convicted of killing a black one.

The creation of civil rights laws and their (often partial and incomplete) enforcement are a good thing and have provided a tool for helping alleviate some of the problems our unequal society has created. But, we cannot pretend that they have magically solved things. We have a long way to go.