Racial Discrimination Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Racism is a set of beliefs or behavior regarding the inferiority a particular group of people based on their race, color, ethnicity, or ancestry. Prejudice refers to unfavorable feelings and attitudes toward a particular group based on race, color, or ethnicity. Racial discrimination may or may not stem from prejudiced attitudes because unprejudiced individuals may engage in discriminatory behavior for other motives, such as social pressure, conformity, or economic profit.

From a legal standpoint, there are two types of discrimination: de jure (as a matter of law) and de facto (as a matter of conduct or practice, not founded on law). De jure discrimination is directly intended and approved by law. Examples of de jure discrimination include the so-called Jim Crow laws that mandated the strict separation of the races in the South, and the Plessey v. Ferguson judicial decision that authorized “separate but equal” treatment for blacks and whites. In contrast, de facto discrimination lacks governmental sanction; instead, it originates from the habits, customs, or traditions of a society. De facto racism is caused by social, psychological, or economic conditions. Segregated residential patterns, segregated school districts, and education and wage gaps are illustrations of de facto discrimination. Although these forms of racial discrimination come from vastly different sources, the systematic economic, political, and social disadvantages they generate are similar in nature and severity.

Racial discrimination can be categorized into distinct subtypes: individual discrimination, institutional discrimination, side-effect discrimination, and environmental racism. Individual discrimination occurs when purposeful action on the part of one or a few individuals harms or restricts a member of a subordinate group in some way within a relatively isolated context. Institutional discrimination, on the other hand, occurs when an apparently neutral requirement or standard excludes a great portion of a particular racial group because they cannot comply with the rule or meet the standard. Institutional discrimination is so deeply ingrained in the customs, laws, and cultures of an institution or a sector of society that it generally goes unnoticed. Institutional discrimination is often unintentional. Organizations staffed by unprejudiced individuals can produce racially disparate outcomes if staff members comply with biased operating procedures. Therefore, once racist policies are institutionalized, simple conformity to the organizational standards places certain racial groups at a perpetual disadvantage, regardless of the prejudiced attitudes of individual actors. For example, university admission standards that favor students with high college placement scores disproportionately exclude black applicants who are more likely to attend poorer quality secondary schools.

Side effect discrimination, another form of institutional discrimination, occurs when intentional discrimination in one social system results in unintentional discrimination in another, related system. For example, the common practice of real estate agents steering black and Hispanic clients to racially segregated neighborhoods eventually leads to segregation in schools and the workplace. Finally, environmental racism refers to the fact that people of color disproportionately bear the effects of human-induced environmental degradation primarily due to governmental and corporate decisions to dump urban and environmental waste in areas where they reside. Environmental racism is exacerbated by the fact that people of color are least likely and least equipped to resist these efforts. In addition, housing discrimination and economic inequality leave people of color with fewer housing options, which forces them to settle in areas located near toxic waste sites.

Also, race-based differential enforcement of environmental protection rules and regulations are another important component of environmental racism.

Racist processes are very difficult to uncover and document. Therefore, observers are left to infer the presence of racial discrimination when racial disparities are evident. For example, blacks and Hispanics are far more likely to live in poverty than whites. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the 2007 U.S. poverty rates for blacks (24.9 percent) and Hispanics (21.8 percent) are nearly three times the poverty rate of whites (8.3 percent). Unemployment rates average 4.0 percent for whites, 5.2 percent for Hispanic Americans, and 9.0 percent for blacks (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Statistics, 2007). In addition, there are significant earnings differentials among the races. In 2003, whites earned an average of $46,911 annually, compared to $31,671 for blacks and $35,495 for Hispanics (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005). Although the large gap in life expectancy between blacks and whites has narrowed in recent years, there is still a five-and-a-half-year difference in expected life span between the two groups. In 2001, the overall mortality rate for blacks was 31 percent higher than for whites. Further, blacks are more likely to die of strokes, heart disease, cancer, and HIV than their white peers (National Center for Health Statistics, 2004). Because it is unlikely that these economic and health differences are caused by individual factors, they are generally attributed to direct or indirect racial discrimination.

Bibliography:

National Center for Health Statistics. “Mortality Trends in the U.S.A.” February 28, 2004, www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=6219.
S. Census Bureau. Alternative Income Estimates in the United States: 2003, Consumer Income. Washington D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, 2005.
“Poverty: 2005 Highlights.” 2007, www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty05/pov05hi.html.
S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Statistics. “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey, 4/18, 2007.” 2007, http://data.bls.gov/ cgi-bin/surveymost.

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