Racism operates through routine practices, not only individual prejudice or formal institutions

Evidence

The concept of everyday racism defies the view that racism is either an individual problem or an institutional problem. When we reduce racism to personal prejudices we get easily misled into believing that the psychology of the prejudiced person is the main problem. The development of alternative conceptualizations of racism, that is, a shift from intent (the motive behind discrimination) to outcome (the effect of discrimination to the lives of discriminated groups) has greatly benefited from critical US publications. The Kerner Report (Kerner Commission, 1968) a study of the conditions of black riots, benchmarked a structural approach, later captured in the notion of “institutional racism” (Carmichael and Hamilton, 1967). The institutional dimension refers to cooperative systems forming part of the ruling apparatus. Institutions embody cultural values organized around a distinctive function — education, health care, law, housing, media, and the like (Smith, 1987). Racism is ideologically mediated through actual practices in all these institutions. This means that the taken-for-granted feeling that one’s own group comes first, the idea that people of a different racial and ethnic background are less competent, less civilized, a cultural threat, or less intelligent operates (latently) when “individuals in carrying out the routine practices of their employment or institution produce outcomes which in their effect discriminate against members of ethnic minority populations” (Husband, 1991:53). Discrimination occurs whether or not actors are aware of their attitudes and motives. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1473

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the earlier trade-institutions readings on systemic vs. individual mechanisms — Milgrom’s law merchant and the diamond bourse both show systems-level effects arising from routines rather than intent. — connects to: Racism is real but race is only an idea manufactured by racist practice.; Racism creates races through practice, and the practice hides itself as its own evidence — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 322; The same racecraft tools operate against every subordinated minority across centuries — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 455 (+6 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The shift from intent to outcome as the analytic axis for racism is a genuine paradigm-level move with wide application beyond race.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1473