Institutions create inequality, so highlighting them counters bias rationalization

Evidence

People take evidence of what is and use it to justify how the world should be (Kay et al., 2009). One way to interrupt this vicious cycle and combat ideas that inequity is “natural” or “inevitable” is to highlight the power of institutions to create inequality. A focus on institutions may enable advocates for social change to draw the public’s attention away from individual and group-based stereotypical traits and toward an acknowledgment of the role structural bias plays in creating the disparities (Hetey & Eberhardt, 2018). — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 415

Categorization

• XREF: Relates to my reading on manufactured enemy: institutional attributions vs dispositional attributions of inequality parallel system-justification effects (Kay et al.).
• ADDENDUM: Directly supports the framing for any essay on how structural explanations of disparity resist the backfire effect where calling out disparities reinforces stereotypes.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 415