Laissez-Faire Racism
Encyclopedia
Laissez-Faire Racism is closely related to color-blind racism and covert racism
, and is theorized 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 are critical of this theorized ideology, while no one does or would self-identify as holding it.
Dr. Lawrence D. Bobo, Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University, and Ryan Smith use this term to represent how the racial outlooks of white Americans have shifted from the more overtly racist Jim Crow
attitudes—which endorsed school segregation
, advocated for governmentally imposed discrimination, and embraced the idea that minorities were biologically inferior to whites—to a more subtle form of racism
that continues to rationalize the ongoing problem of racial oppression
in the United States. Laissez-faire racists claim to support equality while maintaining negative, stereotypical beliefs about minorities.
Katherine Tarca writes that laissez-faire racism is the belief, stated or implied through actions, that one can end racial inequality and discrimination
by refusing to acknowledge that race and racial discrimination exists. Laissez-faire racism has two main ideas: first, the belief in the melting pot
and America’s assertion of ideas of equal opportunity
, regardless of race. Second, laissez-faire racism encompasses the ideology
of how individual deficiencies explain the problems of entire social groups. Tarca explains that Whites tend to view laissez-faire racism as being beneficial to people of color, while many minorities believe that these ideologies contrast and ignore the realities facing many minorities in America.
Eduardo Bonilla Silva, who is a professor of sociology at Duke University
, suggests that all groups of people in power construct these ideologies in order to justify social inequalities. For example, most racial ideologies today are more inclined to omit unfashionable racist language, which protects racial privilege by employing certain philosophies of liberalism
in a more conceptual and decontextualized approach. These ideologies help to reinforce the existing condition of affairs by concentrating on cultural distinctions as the cause of the inferior
accomplishments of minorities in education and employment. These ideas are primarily focused on the more darker-skinned minorities, such as Latinos and African-Americans. Ideologies like these refuse to acknowledge the systematic oppression, such as the continuing school segregation or persistent negative racial stereotypes that continue to occur in American society.
progressed from slavery
-era evolutionary racism, to the Jim-Crow era which legitimate racial oppression. Jim Crow racism declined during the twentieth century, in part due to the Civil Rights movement that challenged the notions of the biological inferiority of blacks. Tarca suggests that the end of Jim Crow laws did not end racism altogether, but led to another form of racism. Laissez-faire racism of the post civil rights
era was formed through the successes of that movement, including the rejection of outright racist discourse. These advances, however, were moderated by the political and economic factors of the time. Political sentiment toward the Civil Rights movement, predominantly the Civil Rights Act of 1964
, relied on a particular interpretation of liberal theory. Liberalism in America since the Civil Rights movement reaffirmed the belief in the impartial universal treatment of individuals, which led to the emphasis on individual merit and accomplishments. Opponents of laissez-faire racism claim that those who refuse to accept social explanations for inequality also oppose attempts to prevent it.
and equal rights
. In 1942, 68 percent of white Americans approved of school segregation, while only 7 percent approved this same position in 1985. Additionally, 55 percent of whites surveyed in 1944 thought whites should receive preference over blacks in access to jobs, compared with only 3 percent of whites in 1972. These same progressive attitudes in whites were extended to areas of interracial marriage
, equal housing rights, and access to political office—although racial ideals tended to vary greatly amongst whites depending on geographical location, educational levels, age, and other factors.
. Comparable examples can be seen in surveys with regard to equal access to employment and housing. In 1972, support for the equal access to jobs stood at 97 percent. However, support for federal programs to prevent employment discrimination
reached 39 percent. Similarly, in 1976, 88 percent of whites supported the ideas that blacks should have the right to live wherever they pleased; but, only 35 percent said they would vote for laws requiring homeowners to sell without regards to race. Extreme housing and school segregation continues to exist in America today.
is based on the idea that America is a merit
based society where a persons worth and opportunities are solely based on individual effort and abilities. Laissez-faire racism supports the idea of rugged individualism
and dismisses oppression on the basis of racial discrimination as attitudinally based and generally questionable.
Color-blind people often oppose affirmative action because it encourages racism against whites; claim that minorities are disadvantaged because of their own volition, accept racial segregation, and minimize racism and discrimination.
According to Tarca, a survey, taken on a college campus in 1992, asked students if they agreed with the statement, ""I am colorblind when it comes to race." Seventy-seven percent of the White respondents agreed with the statement. Other studies have found that many Whites who believe in the concept of colorblindness lack an understanding about how race shapes life experiences, mostly because whites often don’t assign themselves to any particular race, choosing to identify themselves instead as being simply "American." The notion of colorblindness ignores the legacy of racial privilege in the United States. Whites are able to partake in the notion of colorblindness because they are largely unaware of how much that principle benefits them and burdens others.
Another one of the principle harms committed through laissez-faire racism has to do with the assertions that discourses dealing with race issues are unnecessary and impolite. The idea that race doesn’t matter, refuses to acknowledge the realities of the lives of minorities in the United States, and ignores the fact that, statistically, race plays an important role in education, incarceration rates and terms, as well as other factors.
program is primarily associated with the black community, it has been white females who have benefited most from the program noting significant gains in all areas of education, employment, and contracting. Affirmative action has come under intense scrutiny for the past decade by those who don’t see a need for the program, often calling it reverse racism, that seeks to punish white people for the crimes of their ancestors. The color-blind ideals would make affirmative action unnecessary because it is based on the idea that we live in a society where race is neither acknowledged nor important. Color-blind enthusiasts often use the idea of meritocracy to oppose affirmative action programs. However, according to Dei, these ideas fail to accept the long history of racism that has left its imprint on the lives and opportunities of minorities in the United States. Many people who express the laissez-faire attitude towards racism oppose affirmative action; on the grounds it highlights racial differences in society when we should focus on making America more colorblind. These people assert that they believe in equal rights for minorities, but frown upon minorities who use these programs to get ahead.
ic Racism, which is a term connected with the work of David O. Sears, who is the Professor of Psychology and Political Science at UCLA, and his associate, Donald Kinder, is a mix of racist ideals combined with the traditional American moral standards connected with Protestant ethical values. These ideals are concerned with moral character and behavior in association with the belief in individualism.
According to Silva, many researchers have criticized the concept of symbolic racism because it asserts the theory that the "anti-Black" affect and individualism is new. These critics believe that laissez-faire racism should not be confused with "symbolic racism."
Dr. Lawrence D. Bobo defines symbolic racism as a form of learned social values that involve the Protestant ethic and anti-black sentiments and fears in a framework where overt segregation and biological racism are less severe. Bobo’s concept of laissez-faire racism differs from symbolic racism in three respects.
First, Bobo states that laissez-faire racism deals with the historical analysis of the political and economic modification of race in America. Bobo claims that symbolic racism researchers have not effectively dealt with or explained why what they call old-fashioned
racism declined or why symbolic racism adopts the specific form and perspective that it does today.
Second, Bobo states that symbolic racism is also explicitly based on the idea of the sociocultural theory of prejudice, which places its central meaning on the "psychological affective" nature of racist attitudes. Laissez-faire racism, on the other hand, is based on the sociological theory of prejudice.
Third, Bobo believes that symbolic racism deals with the idea that blacks don’t work hard enough and are trying to take what they have not earned and focuses on the individual and individual character traits; while laissez-faire racism is based on prevalent social or economic patterns.
Covert racism
Covert racism is a much less public and obvious form of racism or overt racism. It is hidden in the fabric of society, covertly suppressing the individuals being discriminated against. Covert racially biased decisions are often disguised or rationalized with an explanation that society is more...
, and is theorized to encompass an ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
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
Whiteness studies
Whiteness studies is an interdisciplinary arena of academic inquiry focused on the cultural, historical and sociological aspects of people identified as white, and the social construction of whiteness as an ideology tied to social status...
, who are critical of this theorized ideology, while no one does or would self-identify as holding it.
Dr. Lawrence D. Bobo, Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University, and Ryan Smith use this term to represent how the racial outlooks of white Americans have shifted from the more overtly racist Jim Crow
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
attitudes—which endorsed school segregation
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
, advocated for governmentally imposed discrimination, and embraced the idea that minorities were biologically inferior to whites—to a more subtle form of racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
that continues to rationalize the ongoing problem of racial oppression
Oppression
Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner. It can also be defined as an act or instance of oppressing, the state of being oppressed, and the feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or physically, by troubles, adverse conditions, and...
in the United States. Laissez-faire racists claim to support equality while maintaining negative, stereotypical beliefs about minorities.
Katherine Tarca writes that laissez-faire racism is the belief, stated or implied through actions, that one can end racial inequality and discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
by refusing to acknowledge that race and racial discrimination exists. Laissez-faire racism has two main ideas: first, the belief in the melting pot
Melting pot
The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...
and America’s assertion of ideas of equal opportunity
Equal opportunity
Equal opportunity, or equality of opportunity, is a controversial political concept; and an important informal decision-making standard without a precise definition involving fair choices within the public sphere...
, regardless of race. Second, laissez-faire racism encompasses the ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
of how individual deficiencies explain the problems of entire social groups. Tarca explains that Whites tend to view laissez-faire racism as being beneficial to people of color, while many minorities believe that these ideologies contrast and ignore the realities facing many minorities in America.
Eduardo Bonilla Silva, who is a professor of sociology at Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
, suggests that all groups of people in power construct these ideologies in order to justify social inequalities. For example, most racial ideologies today are more inclined to omit unfashionable racist language, which protects racial privilege by employing certain philosophies of liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
in a more conceptual and decontextualized approach. These ideologies help to reinforce the existing condition of affairs by concentrating on cultural distinctions as the cause of the inferior
Inferior
Inferior means of lower station, rank, degree, or grade . It may also refer to:* Inferiority complex* An anatomical term of location* Inferior angle of the scapula, in the human skeleton...
accomplishments of minorities in education and employment. These ideas are primarily focused on the more darker-skinned minorities, such as Latinos and African-Americans. Ideologies like these refuse to acknowledge the systematic oppression, such as the continuing school segregation or persistent negative racial stereotypes that continue to occur in American society.
Race
Many theorists continue to assert the idea that race is a social construct based on a person’s physical appearance and is not a matter of any actual biological differences between people and is not a definable, meaningful or useful concept when applied to human beings because there is only one human race. Others respond that although this viewpoint may be biologically accurate, it leads nowhere in our understanding of race issues.Jim Crow
According to Katherine Tarca, contemporary racism, with laissez-faire racism being one of its components, has largely evolved from interrelated economic and political dynamics. Racism in the United StatesRacism in the United States
Racism in the United States has been a major issue since the colonial era and the slave era. Legally sanctioned racism imposed a heavy burden on Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latin Americans...
progressed from slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
-era evolutionary racism, to the Jim-Crow era which legitimate racial oppression. Jim Crow racism declined during the twentieth century, in part due to the Civil Rights movement that challenged the notions of the biological inferiority of blacks. Tarca suggests that the end of Jim Crow laws did not end racism altogether, but led to another form of racism. Laissez-faire racism of the post civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
era was formed through the successes of that movement, including the rejection of outright racist discourse. These advances, however, were moderated by the political and economic factors of the time. Political sentiment toward the Civil Rights movement, predominantly the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
, relied on a particular interpretation of liberal theory. Liberalism in America since the Civil Rights movement reaffirmed the belief in the impartial universal treatment of individuals, which led to the emphasis on individual merit and accomplishments. Opponents of laissez-faire racism claim that those who refuse to accept social explanations for inequality also oppose attempts to prevent it.
Support of Integration and Equality
According to Bobo, the slow progression from Jim Crow to laissez-faire racism can be measured in the trends for questions on racial principles. These polls can help to provide the most descriptive evidence in the changes in racial sentiment in the United States. Surveys and polls conducted in 1942 show a continuing increase among whites who support racial integrationRacial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...
and equal rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
. In 1942, 68 percent of white Americans approved of school segregation, while only 7 percent approved this same position in 1985. Additionally, 55 percent of whites surveyed in 1944 thought whites should receive preference over blacks in access to jobs, compared with only 3 percent of whites in 1972. These same progressive attitudes in whites were extended to areas of interracial marriage
Interracial marriage
Interracial marriage occurs when two people of differing racial groups marry. This is a form of exogamy and can be seen in the broader context of miscegenation .-Legality of interracial marriage:In the Western world certain jurisdictions have had regulations...
, equal housing rights, and access to political office—although racial ideals tended to vary greatly amongst whites depending on geographical location, educational levels, age, and other factors.
Resistance to Social Policy
These surveys sustain the idea that most white Americans support integration and racial equality. However, there tends to be pointed differences in the ideas between support for equality and the actual implementation of governmental policies that maintain these ideas. Bobo explains that in 1964, 64 percent of whites nationwide endorsed and supported the idea of integrated schools; however, only 38 percent felt that it was the responsibility of the federal government to implement these changes. By 1986, 93 percent of whites endorsed the principle, but only 26 percent endorsed government efforts to enforce school integrationRacial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...
. Comparable examples can be seen in surveys with regard to equal access to employment and housing. In 1972, support for the equal access to jobs stood at 97 percent. However, support for federal programs to prevent employment discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
reached 39 percent. Similarly, in 1976, 88 percent of whites supported the ideas that blacks should have the right to live wherever they pleased; but, only 35 percent said they would vote for laws requiring homeowners to sell without regards to race. Extreme housing and school segregation continues to exist in America today.
Meritocracy
According to George J. Sefa Dei, meritocracyMeritocracy
Meritocracy, in the first, most administrative sense, is a system of government or other administration wherein appointments and responsibilities are objectively assigned to individuals based upon their "merits", namely intelligence, credentials, and education, determined through evaluations or...
is based on the idea that America is a merit
Merit
The term merit constitutes a desirable trait or ability belonging to a person or an object.It may refer to:* Merit * Merit * Meritocracymerit may also mean:...
based society where a persons worth and opportunities are solely based on individual effort and abilities. Laissez-faire racism supports the idea of rugged individualism
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
and dismisses oppression on the basis of racial discrimination as attitudinally based and generally questionable.
Color-blind
Color-blindness refers to the idea that racial differences are unimportant in modern society. Bobo suggests that people who are color-blind claim they don’t acknowledge, or care about, racial differences in people—although those who claim to be color-blind often express extreme color-consciousness when it comes to their choices of personal friends, mates, and areas in which they choose to live. These people refuse to acknowledge these contradictions and often claim that their choices are economical or based upon similarities, not racism.Color-blind people often oppose affirmative action because it encourages racism against whites; claim that minorities are disadvantaged because of their own volition, accept racial segregation, and minimize racism and discrimination.
According to Tarca, a survey, taken on a college campus in 1992, asked students if they agreed with the statement, ""I am colorblind when it comes to race." Seventy-seven percent of the White respondents agreed with the statement. Other studies have found that many Whites who believe in the concept of colorblindness lack an understanding about how race shapes life experiences, mostly because whites often don’t assign themselves to any particular race, choosing to identify themselves instead as being simply "American." The notion of colorblindness ignores the legacy of racial privilege in the United States. Whites are able to partake in the notion of colorblindness because they are largely unaware of how much that principle benefits them and burdens others.
Another one of the principle harms committed through laissez-faire racism has to do with the assertions that discourses dealing with race issues are unnecessary and impolite. The idea that race doesn’t matter, refuses to acknowledge the realities of the lives of minorities in the United States, and ignores the fact that, statistically, race plays an important role in education, incarceration rates and terms, as well as other factors.
White Privilege and Laissez-Faire Racism
White privilege refers to rights or advantages, given to white persons beyond the common rights and advantages of non-whites. According to Dei, it is through white privilege that the differences in race continue to be defined. Many whites refuse to see the ways in which they continue to benefit from racist practices in the past and today. By refusing to acknowledge the hierarchy of race, class and gender in the United States, those in the position of dominance and power are able to downplay and ignore the realities of oppression. Dei explains that some of the benefits of white privilege include: the positive effects linked to having one's own race extensively and positively represented in the media; the idea that for the most part, your skin color will not prevent you from obtaining housing and employment; and, the knowledge that you will never have to educate your children about what it means to be "different" or negatively represented in society. The Laissez-faire ideas that race is not an issue helps to reinforce white privilege.Affirmative Action and Laissez-Faire Racism
According to Walter Allen, affirmative action is an equal opportunity program that was widely implemented from 1965 to 1994. The program was designed to assist minorities and women in educational and career opportunities. Although the affirmative actionAffirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
program is primarily associated with the black community, it has been white females who have benefited most from the program noting significant gains in all areas of education, employment, and contracting. Affirmative action has come under intense scrutiny for the past decade by those who don’t see a need for the program, often calling it reverse racism, that seeks to punish white people for the crimes of their ancestors. The color-blind ideals would make affirmative action unnecessary because it is based on the idea that we live in a society where race is neither acknowledged nor important. Color-blind enthusiasts often use the idea of meritocracy to oppose affirmative action programs. However, according to Dei, these ideas fail to accept the long history of racism that has left its imprint on the lives and opportunities of minorities in the United States. Many people who express the laissez-faire attitude towards racism oppose affirmative action; on the grounds it highlights racial differences in society when we should focus on making America more colorblind. These people assert that they believe in equal rights for minorities, but frown upon minorities who use these programs to get ahead.
Symbolic Racism
SymbolSymbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
ic Racism, which is a term connected with the work of David O. Sears, who is the Professor of Psychology and Political Science at UCLA, and his associate, Donald Kinder, is a mix of racist ideals combined with the traditional American moral standards connected with Protestant ethical values. These ideals are concerned with moral character and behavior in association with the belief in individualism.
According to Silva, many researchers have criticized the concept of symbolic racism because it asserts the theory that the "anti-Black" affect and individualism is new. These critics believe that laissez-faire racism should not be confused with "symbolic racism."
Dr. Lawrence D. Bobo defines symbolic racism as a form of learned social values that involve the Protestant ethic and anti-black sentiments and fears in a framework where overt segregation and biological racism are less severe. Bobo’s concept of laissez-faire racism differs from symbolic racism in three respects.
First, Bobo states that laissez-faire racism deals with the historical analysis of the political and economic modification of race in America. Bobo claims that symbolic racism researchers have not effectively dealt with or explained why what they call old-fashioned
Old-fashioned
Old-fashioned may refer to:* Old Fashioned, a cocktail* Old fashioned glass, a type of drinking glass* Old-fashioned three, a basketball term* "Old-fashioned" a 1976 short story by Isaac Asimov* Old Fashioned, a racing horse...
racism declined or why symbolic racism adopts the specific form and perspective that it does today.
Second, Bobo states that symbolic racism is also explicitly based on the idea of the sociocultural theory of prejudice, which places its central meaning on the "psychological affective" nature of racist attitudes. Laissez-faire racism, on the other hand, is based on the sociological theory of prejudice.
Third, Bobo believes that symbolic racism deals with the idea that blacks don’t work hard enough and are trying to take what they have not earned and focuses on the individual and individual character traits; while laissez-faire racism is based on prevalent social or economic patterns.
See also
- Race cardRace cardPlaying the race card is an idiomatic phrase that refers to exploitation of either racist or anti-racist attitudes to gain a personal advantage, typically by falsely accusing others of racism against oneself.-Usage:...
- covert racismCovert racismCovert racism is a much less public and obvious form of racism or overt racism. It is hidden in the fabric of society, covertly suppressing the individuals being discriminated against. Covert racially biased decisions are often disguised or rationalized with an explanation that society is more...
- Racial segregation in the United StatesRacial segregation in the United StatesRacial segregation in the United States, as a general term, included the racial segregation or hypersegregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation along racial lines...
- African-American history
- American Civil Rights Movement (1896-1954)American Civil Rights Movement (1896-1954)The Civil Rights Movement in the United States was a long, primarily nonviolent struggle to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans...
- American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)
- Apartheid
- Baseball color lineBaseball color lineThe color line in American baseball excluded players of black African descent from Organized Baseball, or the major leagues and affiliated minor leagues, until Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization for the 1946 season...
- Black Belt (region of Chicago)Black Belt (region of Chicago)The history of African Americans in Chicago dates back to Jean Baptiste Point du Sable’s trading activities in the 1780s. Du Sable is the city's founder. Fugitive slaves and freedmen established the city’s first black community in the 1840s...
- Black flightBlack flightBlack flight is a term applied to the out-migration of African Americans from predominantly black or mixed inner-city areas in the United States to suburbs and outlying edge cities of newer home construction...
- Civil rightsCivil rightsCivil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
- Black history
- DesegregationDesegregationDesegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups usually referring to races. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement, both before and after the United States Supreme Court's decision in...
- DiscriminationDiscriminationDiscrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
- EthnopluralismEthnopluralismEthnopluralism or ethno-pluralism is a European New Right theory of multiculturalism which contrasts with liberal multiculturalism."Cultural differentialism" is the view that cultures are clearly bound entities with a specific geographical location...
- Housing SegregationHousing SegregationHousing Segregation is the practice of denying African American or other minority groups equal access to housing through the process of misinformation, denial of realty and financing services, and racial steering. Misinformation can take the form of realtors or landlords not giving African American...
- Jim Crow lawsJim Crow lawsThe Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
- List of anti-discrimination acts
- List of segregationists during the American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)
- Microaggression
- Mortgage DiscriminationMortgage discriminationMortgage discrimination or mortgage lending discrimination is the practice of banks, governments or other lending institutions denying loans to one or more groups of people primarily on the basis of race, ethnic origin, sex or religion...
- Race and longevity
- Race legislation in the United States
- Racial segregationRacial segregationRacial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
- RacismRacismRacism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
- RedliningRedliningRedlining is the practice of denying, or increasing the cost of services such as banking, insurance, access to jobs, access to health care, or even supermarkets to residents in certain, often racially determined, areas. The term "redlining" was coined in the late 1960s by John McKnight, a...
- Second-class citizenSecond-class citizenSecond-class citizen is an informal term used to describe a person who is systematically discriminated against within a state or other political jurisdiction, despite their nominal status as a citizen or legal resident there...
- Separate but equalSeparate but equalSeparate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law that justified systems of segregation. Under this doctrine, services, facilities and public accommodations were allowed to be separated by race, on the condition that the quality of each group's public facilities was to...
- Timeline of the American Civil Rights MovementTimeline of the American Civil Rights MovementThis is a timeline of African-American Civil Rights Movement.-Pre-17th century:1565*unknown – The colony of St...
- White flightWhite flightWhite flight has been a term that originated in the United States, starting in the mid-20th century, and applied to the large-scale migration of whites of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions. It was first seen as...
Further reading
- Jones, J. M. (1997). Prejudice and racism (2nd edition). New York: McGraw-Hill.