Racism is structural rather than the moral failure of individual bigots.

Evidence

See Weiner, supra note 227, in which Crenshaw notes: They don’t care about what the ideas are. They can take the name, fill it with meaning, and create this hysteria, and that can be a winning issue when they really don’t have any other agendas to push. Obviously they don’t get that one of the main points of critical race theory is that to understand racism in our history only as a matter of prejudice or bias—as a matter of individuals who are morally bankrupt—is not to understand the history of race in America. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 451

Categorization

• DEFINE: Crenshaw states the core CRT commitment in her own words: racism is not reducible to individual prejudice or moral bankruptcy.
• XREF: This is the exact definitional hinge the reader needs for comparing CRT’s structural racism to the Fields sisters’ racecraft and to Aziz’s Racial Muslim framing. — connects to: Contemporary racism often operates indirectly rather than through overt bigotry. — Sherman A. Lee, Chelsea A. Reid, Stephen D. Short, Jeffrey A. Gibbons, Ruth Yeh, and Matthew L. Campbell, Fear of Muslims: Psychometric…, 47; Racism persists as structure, not merely as bad individuals’ stereotypes. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 316; Modern racism legitimizes itself through cultural difference rather than biological hierarchy. (+17 more)

Broader Connections

• Racism persists as structure, not merely as bad individuals’ stereotypes. #corroborates (1.00) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 316
• Racism functions structurally apart from individuals’ personal intent #corroborates (1.00) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1477
• Racism persists by being reframed as private individual acts rather than institutional inequality. #corroborates (1.00) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 130
• Structural racism operates beyond individual intentions and prejudice #corroborates (1.00) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 42
• Racism operates at a structural level irreducible to interpersonal group rivalry #corroborates (1.00) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1388
• Contemporary racism often operates indirectly rather than through overt bigotry. #expands (0.95) — Sherman A. Lee, Chelsea A. Reid, Stephen D. Short, Jeffrey A. Gibbons, Ruth Yeh, and Matthew L. Campbell, Fear of Muslims, 47
• Modern racism legitimizes itself through cultural difference rather than biological hierarchy. #complicates (0.85)
• Most people perceive racism as individual bad acts, not structural harm. #complicates (0.85) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 491
• Modern racism is framed as individual deviance rather than systemic structure #contradicts (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1817
• Racism has relative autonomy from other social relations #complicates (0.75)
• Racism may not require presuming intrinsic inferiority of the other #complicates (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 64
• Symbolic racism frames opposition to welfare as moral defect rather than racial inferiority. #complicates (0.75)
• Racism varies across a spectrum of distinct configurations rather than being one fixed phenomenon. #complicates (0.75) — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 97
• Racism operates as a changing process rather than a fixed project #complicates (0.75)
• State racism operates pragmatically rather than from coherent durable ideology. #complicates (0.75)