Institutional racism
Encyclopedia
Institutional racism describes any kind of system of inequality based on race. It can occur in institutions such as public government bodies, private business corporations (such as media outlets), and universities (public and private). The term was coined by Black Power
activist Stokely Carmichael
in the late 1960s. The definition given by William Macpherson within the report looking into the death of Stephen Lawrence
was “the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture
, or ethnic origin
”.1
Professor James M. Jones
postulates three major types of racism
: (i) Personally-mediated, (ii) internalized, and (iii) institutionalized. Personally-mediated racism includes the specific social attitudes inherent to racially-prejudiced action (bigoted
differential assumptions about abilities, motives, and the intentions of others according to), discrimination
(the differential actions and behaviours towards others according to their race), stereotyping, commission, and omission (disrespect, suspicion, devaluation, and dehumanization). Internalized racism is the acceptance, by members of the racially-stigmatized people, of negative perceptions about their own abilities and intrinsic worth, characterized by low self-esteem
, and low esteem of others like them. This racism can be manifested through embracing “whiteness
” (e.g. stratification
by skin colour in non-white communities), self-devaluation (e.g. racial slurs, nicknames, rejection of ancestral culture, etc.), and resignation, helplessness, and hopelessness (e.g. dropping out
of school, failing to vote
, engaging in health-risk practices, etc.).
Persistent negative stereotype
s fuel institutional racism, and influence interpersonal relations. Racial stereotyping contributes to patterns of racial residential segregation, and shape views about crime, crime policy, and welfare policy, especially if the contextual information is stereotype-consistent. A great percentage of white Americans rate Black Americans and Latino Americans as less intelligent, preferring to live from welfare benefits rather than work, and “more difficult to get along with socially”.
Institutional racism is distinguished from racial bigotry
by the existence of institutional systemic policies, practices and economic and political structures which place non-white racial and ethnic groups at a disadvantage in relation to an institution’s white members. One example is public school budgets (including local levies and bonds) and the quality of teachers, which in the U.S. are often correlated with property values: rich neighborhoods are more likely to be more 'white' and to have better teachers and more money for education, even in public schools. Restrictive housing contracts and bank lending policies
have also been listed as forms of institutional racism. Other examples are racial profiling
by security guards and police, use of stereotyped racial caricatures (e.g. "Indian" sport mascots), the under- and mis-representation of certain racial groups in the mass media
, and race-based barriers to gainful employment and professional advancement. Additionally, differential access to goods, services, and opportunities of society can be included within the term institutional racism, such as unpaved streets and roads, inherited socio-economic disadvantage, “standardized” tests (each ethnic group prepared for it differently; many are poorly prepared), et cetera.
Some sociological
investigators distinguish between institutional racism and "structural racism" (sometimes called structured racialization
). The former focuses upon the norms and practices within an institution, the latter upon the interactions among institutions, interactions that produce racialized outcomes against non-white people. An important feature of structural racism is that it cannot be reduced to individual prejudice
or to the single function of an institution.
” — such as the non-existence of a labor party, weak labor unions
, and a fragmented government system. Structural racialization borrows from system theory, which examines the interactions among institutions and entities and rejects reductionist
thought; thus, there is a mutual, cumulative causation instead of a single cause. Using the system's approach for structural racialization calls into question whether or not race or social class is more important in the US. Instead, it suggests an interaction, between race and social class
, and their consequences upon institutional design and institutional meaning.
The U.S. property appraisal system, created in the 1930s, tied property value and eligibility for government loans to race — thus, white-majority neighborhoods received the government's highest property value ratings, and white people were eligible for government loans, thus, between 1934 and 1962, less than 2 percent of government-subsidized housing went to non-white people.
Governmental, social, and educational policies also have been charged with institutional racism, i.e. it affects general health care
and AIDS
health intervention and services in non-white minority communities
. The over-representation of minorities in disease categories (including AIDS), is partly related to racism, according to J. Hutchinson. In a 1992 article, he describes how the federal government’s national response to the AIDS epidemic in minority communities has been slow, showing insensitivity to ethnic diversity in preventive medicine, community health maintenance, and AIDS treatment services.
Standardized testing also has been considered to be institutional racism, because it is an academic assessment believed to be significantly biased in favor of people with a given socio-cultural background, with the supposed result that some racial minorities tend to score poorly. Being considered more of a socioeconomical form of discrimination - schools are funded mostly with property tax
es of the surrounding areas, a school in a low-income community cannot readily buy new textbooks as can a school in a middle- or a high-income communities. Therefore, “poor” school districts are forced to use old textbooks (discarded by other institutions), further aggravating the extant socio-economic differential established with institutional racism. However, some minorities (such as blacks and Hispanics) have consistently tested worse than whites on virtually all standardized tests, even after controlling for socioeconomic status. Some groups believe that the prevalence of used texts in seemingly black schools supports the contention that standardized texts are inherently racist and that non-white student knows outdated information that is not tested in standardized examinations; creating a test score bias. However, the achievement gap
between white and black or hispanic students mirrors the gap between the two groups in a variety of IQ tests, many of which are designed to be culturally neutral. In any case, the cause of the achievement gap between black, hispanic, and white students has yet to be fully elucidated.
The Chinese Immigration Act, 1923, better known as the "Chinese Exclusion Act", replaced prohibitive fees with a ban
on Chinese immigration to Canada — excepting merchants, diplomats, students, and "special circumstance" cases. The Chinese who entered Canada before 1923 had to register with the local authorities, and could leave Canada only for two years or less. Since the Exclusion Act went into effect on 1 July 1923, Chinese-Canadians referred to Canada Day
(Dominion Day) as "Humiliation Day", refusing to celebrate it until the Act’s repeal in 1947.
) is the claim that the Muslim Malay people
are the tuan (masters) of Malaysia. The Malaysian Chinese
and Indian-Malaysians — who are significant ethnic minorities in Malaysia — are considered beholden to the Malays for granting them citizenship in return for their special privileges. In Article 153
of the Constitution of Malaysia
, the special "position" (not privileges) of the Malay was mentioned. This quid pro quo
arrangement is claimed to be the Malaysian social contract
by certain Malay Politacians. The ketuanan Melayu concept usually is used by politicians of the United Malays National Organisation
(UMNO), the most influential Malaysian political party.
Although the ketuanan Melayu idea pre-dates Malaysian independence, the phrase ketuanan Melayu did not come into vogue until the early 2000s. The most vocal opposition to that is from non-Malay-based parties, such as the Malaysian People's Movement Party (Gerakan) and Democratic Action Party
(DAP); although pre-independence, the Straits Chinese also agitated against ketuanan Melayu. The idea of Malay supremacy gained political weight in the 1940s, when the Malays organized to protest the Malayan Union
's establishment, from which they later fought for independence. During the 1960s, there was a substantial political effort challenging ketuanan Melayu led by the People's Action Party
(PAP) of Singapore
— which was a Malaysian state from 1963 to 1965 — and the DAP, after Singapore's secession
, however, the Constitutional articles related to ketuanan Melayu were “entrenched
" after the racial riots
of 13 May 1969, consequent to an election campaign focused on the rights of non-Malay people and the ketuanan Melayu matter. From that arose the "ultras
", advocating a one-party government led by UMNO, and increased racist emphasis that the Malays are the "definitive people" of Malaysia — i.e. only a Malay could be a true Malaysian. Non Muslim Malaysian are being discriminated in the form of government employments, government licence and contracts, universities entry etc.
: the Sinhalese
who made up 69% of the population in 1946, Indian Tamils (12%), Sri Lankan Tamils (11%) and Sri Lankan Moors
(6%). The discrimination against the Sri Lankan Tamil minority by the Sinhalese controlled Sri Lankan state
was one of the main causes of the 26 year Sri Lankan Civil War
which killed between 80,000 and 100,000 people.
Immediately after independence the Sinhalese dominated government of Ceylon introduced the Ceylon Citizenship Act
of 1948 which deliberately discriminated against the Indian Tamil ethnic minority by making it virtually impossible for them to obtain citizenship
of Ceylon. Approximately 700,000 Indian Tamils were made stateless
. Over the next three decades more than 300,000 Indian Tamils were deported back to India. It wasn't until 2003, 55 years after independence, that all Indian Tamils living in Sri Lanka were granted citizenship but by this time they only made up 5% of the island's population.
In 1956 the Ceylon government introduced the Sinhala Only Act
, replacing English
with Sinhala as the official language of Ceylon
. The Act was a deliberate attempt to correct the perceived disproportionately high number of Sri Lankan Tamils working in the Ceylon Civil Service
and other public services
. However, the Tamil language
speaking minorities of the Ceylon (Sri Lankan Tamils, Indian Tamils and Sri Lankan Moors) viewed the Act as linguistic, cultural and economic discrimination against them. Many Tamil speaking civil servants/public servants were forced to resign because they weren't fluent
in Sinhala. The detrimental impact of the Act on the civil/public services forced the government to relax the language laws: in 1977 Tamil was made a 'national language' and in 1987 it was made an official language.
The 1971 Universities Act introduced a the policy of standardization
to correct disproportionately high number of Sri Lankan Tamils students entering universities. Officially the policy was meant to discriminate in favour of students from rural
areas but in reality the policy discriminated against Sri Lankan Tamil students who were in effect required gain more marks than Sinhalese students to gain admission to universities. The number of Sri Lankan Tamil students entering universities fell dramatically. The policy was abandoned in 1977.
Other forms of official discrimination against the Sri Lankan Tamils included the state-sponsored colonisation
of traditional Tamil areas by Sinhalese peasants, the banning of the import of Tamil language media and the precedence given by the 1978 Constitution of Sri Lanka
to Buddhism, the main religion followed by the Sinhalese.
The Sri Lankan Tamils reacted to the discrimination by calling for political devolution
(federalism) and staging peaceful protests but were met with violence and ethnic riots. This in turn resulted in moderate Tamils calling for self determination but some young Tamils reacted by forming a number of militant groups
, the most prominent being the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE). By 1983 full scale civil war had erupted between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government. The civil war ended in May 2009 with the defeat of the LTTE but many independent/international observers recognised that the continued discrimination against the Tamils would leave the ethnic conflict unresolved. The United Nations Human Rights Council
has urged the Sri Lankan government to "to combat discrimination against persons belonging to ethnic minorities".
, the inquiry about the murder of the black Briton Stephen Lawrence concluded that the investigating police force
was institutionally racist. Sir William Macpherson of Cluny used the term as a description of "the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin", which "can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes, and behaviour, which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping, which disadvantages minority ethnic people". Sir William’s definition is almost identical to Stokely Carmichael
’s original definition some forty years earlier. Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton 1967 were black power activists and first used the term 'institutional racism' to describe the consequences of a societal structure that was stratified into a racial hierarchy that resulted in layers of discrimination and inequality for minority ethnic people in housing, income, employment, education and health (Garner 2004:22).
The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report, and the public’s response to it, were among the major factors that forced the Metropolitan Police
to address its treatment of ethnic minorities. More recently, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner
, Sir Ian Blair
said that the British news media are institutionally racist, a comment that offended journalists, provoking angry responses from the media, despite the National Black Police Association welcoming Sir Ian’s assessment.
In May, 2010, Met faced a racism case as senior black officer claims he was sidelined. A top black officer is suing the Met for race discrimination amid claims that senior police covered up a damaging report alleging racism in the ranks.
, scholars have drawn on a 1979 work by social psychologist Michael Billig
- "Psychology, Racism, and Fascism" - that identified links between the Institute of Psychiatry
and racist/eugenic theories, notably in regard to race and intelligence
, as for example promoted by IOP psychologist Hans Eysenck
and in a highly publicised talk in August 1970 at the IOP by American psychologist Arthur Jensen
. Billig concluded that "racialist presuppositions" intruded into research at the Institute both unintentionally and intentionally. More recently in 2007, the BBC
reported that a "race row" had broken out in the wake of an official inquiry that identified institutional racism in British psychiatry, with psychiatrists, including from the IOP/Maudsley, arguing against the claim, while the heads of the Mental Health Act Commission
accused them of misunderstanding the concept of institutional racism and dismissing the legitimate concerns of the Black community in Britain. Campaigns by voluntary groups seek to address the higher rates of sectioning, over-medication, misdiagnosis and forcible restraint on members of minority groups.
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
activist Stokely Carmichael
Stokely Carmichael
Kwame Ture , also known as Stokely Carmichael, was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to prominence first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party...
in the late 1960s. The definition given by William Macpherson within the report looking into the death of Stephen Lawrence
Stephen Lawrence
Stephen Lawrence was a black British teenager from Eltham, southeast London, who was stabbed to death while waiting for a bus on the evening of 22 April 1993....
was “the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
, or ethnic origin
Ethnic origin
The concept of ethnic origin is an attempt to classify people, not according to their current nationality, but according to where their ancestors came from...
”.1
Classification
Institutional racism is the differential access to the goods, services, and opportunities of society. When the differential access becomes integral to institutions, it becomes common practice, making it difficult to rectify. Eventually, this racism dominates public bodies, private corporations, and public and private universities, and is reinforced by the actions of conformists and newcomers. Another difficulty in reducing institutionalized racism is that there is no sole, true identifiable perpetrator. When racism is built into the institution, it appears as the collective action of the population.Professor James M. Jones
James M. Jones
James Monroe Jones was Mayor of Kansas City, Missouri in 1896-1900.Jones was born in Prospect, New York and moved to Kansas City in 1885. He was a lawyer with offices at 15 West 9th Street and residence at 721 Harrison Street. Prior to being mayor he was circuit court judge and had a residence...
postulates three major types 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...
: (i) Personally-mediated, (ii) internalized, and (iii) institutionalized. Personally-mediated racism includes the specific social attitudes inherent to racially-prejudiced action (bigoted
Bigotry
A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one exhibiting intolerance, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs...
differential assumptions about abilities, motives, and the intentions of others according to), 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...
(the differential actions and behaviours towards others according to their race), stereotyping, commission, and omission (disrespect, suspicion, devaluation, and dehumanization). Internalized racism is the acceptance, by members of the racially-stigmatized people, of negative perceptions about their own abilities and intrinsic worth, characterized by low self-esteem
Self-esteem
Self-esteem is a term in psychology to reflect a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs and emotions such as triumph, despair, pride and shame: some would distinguish how 'the self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, the...
, and low esteem of others like them. This racism can be manifested through embracing “whiteness
Whiteness
In colorimetry, whiteness is the degree to which a surface is white. An example of its use might be to quantitatively compare two pieces of paper which appear white viewed individually, but not when juxtaposed....
” (e.g. stratification
Stratification
Stratification is the building up of layers. Stratified is an adjective referring to the arranging of layers, and is also the past form of the verb stratify, to separate or become separated into layers...
by skin colour in non-white communities), self-devaluation (e.g. racial slurs, nicknames, rejection of ancestral culture, etc.), and resignation, helplessness, and hopelessness (e.g. dropping out
Dropping out
Dropping out means leaving a group for either practical reasons, necessities or disillusionment with the system from which the individual in question leaves....
of school, failing to vote
Abstention
Abstention is a term in election procedure for when a participant in a vote either does not go to vote or, in parliamentary procedure, is present during the vote, but does not cast a ballot. Abstention must be contrasted with "blank vote", in which a voter casts a ballot willfully made invalid by...
, engaging in health-risk practices, etc.).
Persistent negative stereotype
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
s fuel institutional racism, and influence interpersonal relations. Racial stereotyping contributes to patterns of racial residential segregation, and shape views about crime, crime policy, and welfare policy, especially if the contextual information is stereotype-consistent. A great percentage of white Americans rate Black Americans and Latino Americans as less intelligent, preferring to live from welfare benefits rather than work, and “more difficult to get along with socially”.
Institutional racism is distinguished from racial bigotry
Bigotry
A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one exhibiting intolerance, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs...
by the existence of institutional systemic policies, practices and economic and political structures which place non-white racial and ethnic groups at a disadvantage in relation to an institution’s white members. One example is public school budgets (including local levies and bonds) and the quality of teachers, which in the U.S. are often correlated with property values: rich neighborhoods are more likely to be more 'white' and to have better teachers and more money for education, even in public schools. Restrictive housing contracts and bank lending policies
Redlining
Redlining 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...
have also been listed as forms of institutional racism. Other examples are racial profiling
Racial profiling
Racial profiling refers to the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement personnel as a key factor in deciding whether to engage in enforcement...
by security guards and police, use of stereotyped racial caricatures (e.g. "Indian" sport mascots), the under- and mis-representation of certain racial groups in the mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
, and race-based barriers to gainful employment and professional advancement. Additionally, differential access to goods, services, and opportunities of society can be included within the term institutional racism, such as unpaved streets and roads, inherited socio-economic disadvantage, “standardized” tests (each ethnic group prepared for it differently; many are poorly prepared), et cetera.
Some sociological
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
investigators distinguish between institutional racism and "structural racism" (sometimes called structured racialization
Racialization
Racialization refers to processes of the discursive production of racial identities. It signifies the extension of dehumanizing and racial meanings to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice, or group...
). The former focuses upon the norms and practices within an institution, the latter upon the interactions among institutions, interactions that produce racialized outcomes against non-white people. An important feature of structural racism is that it cannot be reduced to individual prejudice
Prejudice
Prejudice is making a judgment or assumption about someone or something before having enough knowledge to be able to do so with guaranteed accuracy, or "judging a book by its cover"...
or to the single function of an institution.
Institutional racism in the United States
Structural racialization also underscores many of the institutional arrangements that are often identified as “American exceptionalismAmerican exceptionalism
American exceptionalism refers to the theory that the United States is qualitatively different from other countries. In this view, America's exceptionalism stems from its emergence from a revolution, becoming "the first new nation," and developing a uniquely American ideology, based on liberty,...
” — such as the non-existence of a labor party, weak labor unions
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
, and a fragmented government system. Structural racialization borrows from system theory, which examines the interactions among institutions and entities and rejects reductionist
Reductionism
Reductionism can mean either an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can...
thought; thus, there is a mutual, cumulative causation instead of a single cause. Using the system's approach for structural racialization calls into question whether or not race or social class is more important in the US. Instead, it suggests an interaction, between race and social class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
, and their consequences upon institutional design and institutional meaning.
The U.S. property appraisal system, created in the 1930s, tied property value and eligibility for government loans to race — thus, white-majority neighborhoods received the government's highest property value ratings, and white people were eligible for government loans, thus, between 1934 and 1962, less than 2 percent of government-subsidized housing went to non-white people.
Governmental, social, and educational policies also have been charged with institutional racism, i.e. it affects general health care
Health care
Health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...
and AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
health intervention and services in non-white minority communities
Minority group
A minority is a sociological group within a demographic. The demographic could be based on many factors from ethnicity, gender, wealth, power, etc. The term extends to numerous situations, and civilizations within history, despite the misnomer of minorities associated with a numerical statistic...
. The over-representation of minorities in disease categories (including AIDS), is partly related to racism, according to J. Hutchinson. In a 1992 article, he describes how the federal government’s national response to the AIDS epidemic in minority communities has been slow, showing insensitivity to ethnic diversity in preventive medicine, community health maintenance, and AIDS treatment services.
Standardized testing also has been considered to be institutional racism, because it is an academic assessment believed to be significantly biased in favor of people with a given socio-cultural background, with the supposed result that some racial minorities tend to score poorly. Being considered more of a socioeconomical form of discrimination - schools are funded mostly with property tax
Property tax
A property tax is an ad valorem levy on the value of property that the owner is required to pay. The tax is levied by the governing authority of the jurisdiction in which the property is located; it may be paid to a national government, a federated state or a municipality...
es of the surrounding areas, a school in a low-income community cannot readily buy new textbooks as can a school in a middle- or a high-income communities. Therefore, “poor” school districts are forced to use old textbooks (discarded by other institutions), further aggravating the extant socio-economic differential established with institutional racism. However, some minorities (such as blacks and Hispanics) have consistently tested worse than whites on virtually all standardized tests, even after controlling for socioeconomic status. Some groups believe that the prevalence of used texts in seemingly black schools supports the contention that standardized texts are inherently racist and that non-white student knows outdated information that is not tested in standardized examinations; creating a test score bias. However, the achievement gap
Achievement gap
Achievement gap refers to the observed disparity on a number of educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The achievement gap can be observed on a variety of measures, including standardized...
between white and black or hispanic students mirrors the gap between the two groups in a variety of IQ tests, many of which are designed to be culturally neutral. In any case, the cause of the achievement gap between black, hispanic, and white students has yet to be fully elucidated.
Exclusionary anti-Chinese immigration laws
The Canadian government passed The Chinese Immigration Act, 1885 levying a $50 Head Tax upon all Chinese immigrating to Canada. When the 1885 act failed to deter Chinese immigration, the Canadian government then passed The Chinese Immigration Act, 1900, increasing the head tax to $100, and, upon that act failing, passed The Chinese Immigration Act, 1904 increasing the head tax (landing fee) to $500, equivalent to $8000 in 2003 — when compared to the head tax — Right of Landing Fee and Right of Permanent Residence Fee — of $975 per person, paid by new immigrants in 1995–2005 decade, which then was reduced to $490 in 2006.The Chinese Immigration Act, 1923, better known as the "Chinese Exclusion Act", replaced prohibitive fees with a ban
Ban (law)
A ban is, generally, any decree that prohibits something.Bans are formed for the prohibition of activities within a certain political territory. Some see this as a negative act and others see it as maintaining the "status quo"...
on Chinese immigration to Canada — excepting merchants, diplomats, students, and "special circumstance" cases. The Chinese who entered Canada before 1923 had to register with the local authorities, and could leave Canada only for two years or less. Since the Exclusion Act went into effect on 1 July 1923, Chinese-Canadians referred to Canada Day
Canada Day
Canada Day , formerly Dominion Day , is the national day of Canada, a federal statutory holiday celebrating the anniversary of the July 1, 1867, enactment of the British North America Act , which united three British colonies into a single country, called Canada, within the British Empire...
(Dominion Day) as "Humiliation Day", refusing to celebrate it until the Act’s repeal in 1947.
Malaysian institutional racism
Ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy and Malay dominance in MalayMalay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
) is the claim that the Muslim Malay people
Malay people
Malays are an ethnic group of Austronesian people predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula, including the southernmost parts of Thailand, the east coast of Sumatra, the coast of Borneo, and the smaller islands which lie between these locations...
are the tuan (masters) of Malaysia. The Malaysian Chinese
Malaysian Chinese
Malaysian Chinese is a Malaysian of Chinese origin. Most are descendants of Chinese who arrived between the fifteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries. Within Malaysia, they are usually simply referred to as "Chinese" in all languages. The term Chinese Malaysian is also sometimes used to refer to...
and Indian-Malaysians — who are significant ethnic minorities in Malaysia — are considered beholden to the Malays for granting them citizenship in return for their special privileges. In Article 153
Article 153 of the Constitution of Malaysia
Article 153 of the Constitution of Malaysia grants the Yang di-Pertuan Agong responsibility for “safeguard[ing] the special position of the ‘Malays’ and natives of any of the States of Sabah and Sarawak and the legitimate interests of other communities” and goes on to specify ways to do this, such...
of the Constitution of Malaysia
Constitution of Malaysia
The Federal Constitution of Malaysia, which came into force in 1957, is the supreme law of Malaysia. The Federation was initially called the Federation of Malaya and it adopted its present name, Malaysia, when the States of Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore joined the Federation...
, the special "position" (not privileges) of the Malay was mentioned. This quid pro quo
Quid pro quo
Quid pro quo most often means a more-or-less equal exchange or substitution of goods or services. English speakers often use the term to mean "a favour for a favour" and the phrases with almost identical meaning include: "give and take", "tit for tat", "this for that", and "you scratch my back,...
arrangement is claimed to be the Malaysian social contract
Social contract (Malaysia)
The social contract in Malaysia refers to the agreement made by the country's founding fathers in the Constitution. The social contract usually refers to a quid pro quo trade-off through Articles 14–18 of the Constitution, pertaining to the granting of citizenship to the non-Bumiputera of...
by certain Malay Politacians. The ketuanan Melayu concept usually is used by politicians of the United Malays National Organisation
United Malays National Organisation
The United Malays National Organisation, is Malaysia's largest political party; a founding member of the National Front coalition, which has played a dominant role in Malaysian politics since independence....
(UMNO), the most influential Malaysian political party.
Although the ketuanan Melayu idea pre-dates Malaysian independence, the phrase ketuanan Melayu did not come into vogue until the early 2000s. The most vocal opposition to that is from non-Malay-based parties, such as the Malaysian People's Movement Party (Gerakan) and Democratic Action Party
Democratic Action Party
The Democratic Action Party, or DAP is a secular, multi-racial, social democratic Malaysian political party.The DAP is one of the three major opposition parties in Malaysia, along with the PKR and PAS, that are seen as electable alternatives to the Barisan Nasional coalition of parties...
(DAP); although pre-independence, the Straits Chinese also agitated against ketuanan Melayu. The idea of Malay supremacy gained political weight in the 1940s, when the Malays organized to protest the Malayan Union
Malayan Union
The Malayan Union was a federation of the Malay states and the Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca. It was the successor to British Malaya and was conceived to unify the Malay Peninsula under a single government so as to simplify administration. The Malayan Union later became the independent...
's establishment, from which they later fought for independence. During the 1960s, there was a substantial political effort challenging ketuanan Melayu led by the People's Action Party
People's Action Party
The People's Action Party is the leading political party in Singapore. It has been the city-state's ruling political party since 1959....
(PAP) of Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
— which was a Malaysian state from 1963 to 1965 — and the DAP, after Singapore's secession
Secession
Secession is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity. Threats of secession also can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.-Secession theory:...
, however, the Constitutional articles related to ketuanan Melayu were “entrenched
Entrenchment clause
An entrenched clause or entrenchment clause of a constitution is a provision which makes certain amendments either more difficult than others or impossible...
" after the racial riots
May 13 Incident
The 13 May Incident is a term for the Sino-Malay sectarian violences in Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia, which began on 13 May 1969...
of 13 May 1969, consequent to an election campaign focused on the rights of non-Malay people and the ketuanan Melayu matter. From that arose the "ultras
Ultra (Malaysia)
During the 1960s in Malaysia and Singapore, some racial extremists were referred to as "ultras". The phrase was most commonly used by the first Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, and other leaders of his political party, the People's Action Party , to refer to Malay extremists...
", advocating a one-party government led by UMNO, and increased racist emphasis that the Malays are the "definitive people" of Malaysia — i.e. only a Malay could be a true Malaysian. Non Muslim Malaysian are being discriminated in the form of government employments, government licence and contracts, universities entry etc.
Institutional racism in Sri Lanka
There are four main ethnic groups on the island of Sri LankaSri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
: the Sinhalese
Sinhalese people
The Sinhalese are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group,forming the majority of Sri Lanka,constituting 74% of the Sri Lankan population.They number approximately 15 million worldwide.The Sinhalese identity is based on language, heritage and religion. The Sinhalese speak Sinhala, an Indo-Aryan language and the...
who made up 69% of the population in 1946, Indian Tamils (12%), Sri Lankan Tamils (11%) and Sri Lankan Moors
Sri Lankan Moors
The Sri Lankan Moors are the third largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka comprising 8% of the country's total population . They are predominantly followers of Islam. The Moors trace their ancestry to Arab traders who settled in Sri Lanka some time between the 8th and 15th centuries...
(6%). The discrimination against the Sri Lankan Tamil minority by the Sinhalese controlled Sri Lankan state
Politics of Sri Lanka
Politics of Sri Lanka takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Sri Lanka is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both...
was one of the main causes of the 26 year Sri Lankan Civil War
Sri Lankan civil war
The Sri Lankan Civil War was a conflict fought on the island of Sri Lanka. Beginning on July 23, 1983, there was an on-and-off insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam , a separatist militant organization which fought to create an independent Tamil state named Tamil...
which killed between 80,000 and 100,000 people.
Immediately after independence the Sinhalese dominated government of Ceylon introduced the Ceylon Citizenship Act
Ceylon Citizenship Act
The Ceylon Citizenship Act No. 18 of 1948 was a controversial law passed by the Ceylon Parliament which denied citizenship to 11% of the population.-Background:...
of 1948 which deliberately discriminated against the Indian Tamil ethnic minority by making it virtually impossible for them to obtain citizenship
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
of Ceylon. Approximately 700,000 Indian Tamils were made stateless
Statelessness
Statelessness is a legal concept describing the lack of any nationality. It is the absence of a recognized link between an individual and any state....
. Over the next three decades more than 300,000 Indian Tamils were deported back to India. It wasn't until 2003, 55 years after independence, that all Indian Tamils living in Sri Lanka were granted citizenship but by this time they only made up 5% of the island's population.
In 1956 the Ceylon government introduced the Sinhala Only Act
Sinhala Only Act
The Sinhala Only Act was a law passed in the Ceylonese parliament in 1956...
, replacing English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
with Sinhala as the official language of Ceylon
Languages of Sri Lanka
Several languages are spoken in Sri Lanka within the Indo-Aryan, Dravidian and Austronesian families. Sri Lanka accords official status to Sinhala and Tamil. The languages spoken on the island nation are deeply influenced by the languages of neighbouring India, the Maldives and Malaysia...
. The Act was a deliberate attempt to correct the perceived disproportionately high number of Sri Lankan Tamils working in the Ceylon Civil Service
Ceylon Civil Service
The Ceylon Civil Service, popularly known by its acronym CCS, originated as the elite civil service of the Government of Ceylon under British colonial rule in 1833 and carried on after independence, until May 1, 1963 when it was abolished and the much larger Ceylon Administrative Service was...
and other public services
Public services
Public services is a term usually used to mean services provided by government to its citizens, either directly or by financing private provision of services. The term is associated with a social consensus that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income...
. However, the Tamil language
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
speaking minorities of the Ceylon (Sri Lankan Tamils, Indian Tamils and Sri Lankan Moors) viewed the Act as linguistic, cultural and economic discrimination against them. Many Tamil speaking civil servants/public servants were forced to resign because they weren't fluent
Fluency
Fluency is the property of a person or of a system that delivers information quickly and with expertise.-Speech:...
in Sinhala. The detrimental impact of the Act on the civil/public services forced the government to relax the language laws: in 1977 Tamil was made a 'national language' and in 1987 it was made an official language.
The 1971 Universities Act introduced a the policy of standardization
Policy of standardization
The policy of standardization was a policy implemented by the Sri Lankan government in 1973 to rectify disparities created in university enrollment in Sri Lanka under Colonial rule.-The reasoning for the law:...
to correct disproportionately high number of Sri Lankan Tamils students entering universities. Officially the policy was meant to discriminate in favour of students from rural
Rural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
areas but in reality the policy discriminated against Sri Lankan Tamil students who were in effect required gain more marks than Sinhalese students to gain admission to universities. The number of Sri Lankan Tamil students entering universities fell dramatically. The policy was abandoned in 1977.
Other forms of official discrimination against the Sri Lankan Tamils included the state-sponsored colonisation
Sri Lankan state sponsored colonisation schemes
Sri Lankan state sponsored colonisation schemes refers to government backed establishment of Sinhalese communities in regions traditionally considered to be Sri Lankan Tamil lands in the northern or eastern parts of the Sri Lanka...
of traditional Tamil areas by Sinhalese peasants, the banning of the import of Tamil language media and the precedence given by the 1978 Constitution of Sri Lanka
Constitution of Sri Lanka
The Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka has been the constitution of the island nation of Sri Lanka since its original promulgation by the National State Assembly on 7 September 1978. It is Sri Lanka's second republican constitution, and its third constitution since the...
to Buddhism, the main religion followed by the Sinhalese.
The Sri Lankan Tamils reacted to the discrimination by calling for political devolution
Devolution
Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...
(federalism) and staging peaceful protests but were met with violence and ethnic riots. This in turn resulted in moderate Tamils calling for self determination but some young Tamils reacted by forming a number of militant groups
Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups
Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups rose to prominence in the 1970s to fight the state of Sri Lanka in order to create an independent Tamil Eelam in the north of Sri Lanka. They rose in response to the perception amongst minority Sri Lankan Tamils that the state was preferring the majority Sinhalese...
, the most prominent being the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was a separatist militant organization formerly based in northern Sri Lanka. Founded in May 1976 by Vellupillai Prabhakaran, it waged a violent secessionist and nationalist campaign to create an independent state in the north and east of Sri Lanka for Tamil...
(LTTE). By 1983 full scale civil war had erupted between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government. The civil war ended in May 2009 with the defeat of the LTTE but many independent/international observers recognised that the continued discrimination against the Tamils would leave the ethnic conflict unresolved. The United Nations Human Rights Council
United Nations Human Rights Council
The United Nations Human Rights Council is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations System. The UNHRC is the successor to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights , and is a subsidiary body of the United Nations General Assembly...
has urged the Sri Lankan government to "to combat discrimination against persons belonging to ethnic minorities".
In the Metropolitan Police Service
In the UKUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, the inquiry about the murder of the black Briton Stephen Lawrence concluded that the investigating police force
Policing in the United Kingdom
Law enforcement in the United Kingdom is organised separately in each of the legal systems of the United Kingdom: England & Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland ....
was institutionally racist. Sir William Macpherson of Cluny used the term as a description of "the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin", which "can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes, and behaviour, which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping, which disadvantages minority ethnic people". Sir William’s definition is almost identical to Stokely Carmichael
Stokely Carmichael
Kwame Ture , also known as Stokely Carmichael, was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to prominence first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party...
’s original definition some forty years earlier. Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton 1967 were black power activists and first used the term 'institutional racism' to describe the consequences of a societal structure that was stratified into a racial hierarchy that resulted in layers of discrimination and inequality for minority ethnic people in housing, income, employment, education and health (Garner 2004:22).
The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report, and the public’s response to it, were among the major factors that forced the Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan police
Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...
to address its treatment of ethnic minorities. More recently, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner
Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis
The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis is the head of London's Metropolitan Police Service, classing the holder as a chief police officer...
, Sir Ian Blair
Ian Blair
Ian Warwick Blair, Baron Blair of Boughton, QPM is a retired British Police officer who held the position of commissioner of police of the metropolis from 2005 to 2008 and was the highest ranking officer within the Metropolitan Police Service.On 2 October 2008 Blair announced that he would...
said that the British news media are institutionally racist, a comment that offended journalists, provoking angry responses from the media, despite the National Black Police Association welcoming Sir Ian’s assessment.
In May, 2010, Met faced a racism case as senior black officer claims he was sidelined. A top black officer is suing the Met for race discrimination amid claims that senior police covered up a damaging report alleging racism in the ranks.
In psychiatry
According to the Institute for the Study of Academic RacismInstitute for the Study of Academic Racism
The Institute for the Study of Academic Racism is an organization that monitors "changing intellectual trends in academic racism, biological determinism, and eugenics." ISAR states that in this capacity it "acts as a resource service for students, academics, journalists, legislators and civil...
, scholars have drawn on a 1979 work by social psychologist Michael Billig
Michael Billig
Michael Billig is Professor of Social Sciences at Loughborough University. Working in contemporary social psychology, he trained in Bristol with Henri Tajfel as an experimental psychologist and helped design the so called minimal group experiments which were foundational to the social identity...
- "Psychology, Racism, and Fascism" - that identified links between the Institute of Psychiatry
Institute of Psychiatry
The Institute of Psychiatry is a research institution dedicated to discovering what causes mental illness and diseases of the brain. In addition, its aim is to help identify new treatments for them and ways to prevent them in the first place...
and racist/eugenic theories, notably in regard to race and intelligence
Race and intelligence
The connection between race and intelligence has been a subject of debate in both popular science and academic research since the inception of intelligence testing in the early 20th century...
, as for example promoted by IOP psychologist Hans Eysenck
Hans Eysenck
Hans Jürgen Eysenck was a German-British psychologist who spent most of his career in Britain, best remembered for his work on intelligence and personality, though he worked in a wide range of areas...
and in a highly publicised talk in August 1970 at the IOP by American psychologist Arthur Jensen
Arthur Jensen
Arthur Robert Jensen is a Professor Emeritus of educational psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Jensen is known for his work in psychometrics and differential psychology, which is concerned with how and why individuals differ behaviorally from one another.He is a major proponent...
. Billig concluded that "racialist presuppositions" intruded into research at the Institute both unintentionally and intentionally. More recently in 2007, the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
reported that a "race row" had broken out in the wake of an official inquiry that identified institutional racism in British psychiatry, with psychiatrists, including from the IOP/Maudsley, arguing against the claim, while the heads of the Mental Health Act Commission
Mental Health Act Commission
The Mental Health Act Commission was an NHS special health authority that provided a safeguard for people detained in hospital under the powers of the Mental Health Act 1983 in England and Wales...
accused them of misunderstanding the concept of institutional racism and dismissing the legitimate concerns of the Black community in Britain. Campaigns by voluntary groups seek to address the higher rates of sectioning, over-medication, misdiagnosis and forcible restraint on members of minority groups.
See also
- Affirmative actionAffirmative actionAffirmative 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...
- Ketuanan MelayuKetuanan MelayuKetuanan Melayu is a political concept emphasizing Malay preeminence in present day Malaysia. The Malays of peninsular Malaysia claimed a special position and special rights owing to their long domicile and the role of the Malay rulers of the nine Malay states...
- State racismState racismState racism is a concept used by French philosopher Michel Foucault to designate the reappropriation of the historical and political discourse of "race struggle", in the late seventeenth century....
- Teaching for social justiceTeaching for social justiceTeaching for social justice is an educational philosophy designed to promote socioeconomic equality in the learning environment and instill these values in students. Educators may employ social justice instruction to promote unity on campus, as well as mitigate boundaries to the general curriculum...
- Race and healthRace and healthRace and health research, often done in the United States, has found both current and historical racial differences in the frequency, treatments, and availability of treatments for several diseases. This can add up to significant group differences in variables such as life expectancy...
- White privilege
- Environmental racismEnvironmental racismEnvironmental racism is a sociological term referring to policies and regulations that disproportionately burden minority communities with negative environmental impacts....
External links
- Institutional A first step in tackling institutional discrimination By Berend Scholten @ UEFA.com Institutional A first step in tackling institutional discrimination By Berend Scholten @ UEFA.com
- Institutional Racism and the Police Institutional Racism and the Police: Fact or Fiction?
- ERASE Racism A multifaceted definition of institutional racism
- Defining Institutional Racism Definition and history of the term
- Racism: Institutional Racism - The Canadian Encyclopedia
- Race: The Power of an Illusion Interactive resource tracing the history of race in America and the effects of institutional racism
- Paying the Price: The Human Cost of Racial Profiling On causes and effects of institutional racism in the Canadian criminal justice system
- Arabic Workers Network Eliminating prejudice against Arab and Muslim Australians
- Newham Monitoring Project Monitoring racist incidents and statutory response, especially policing, in East London
- Weaver v NATFHEWeaver v NATFHEWeaver v National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education EAT is a UK labour law case, concerning racial discrimination.-Facts:...
- Equality of Tamil a facade
- Indictment against Sri Lanka