Structural Racism
The word “racism” is commonly understood to refer to instances in which one individual intentionally or unintentionally targets others for negative treatment because of their skin color or other group-based physical characteristics. This individualistic conceptualization is too limited. Racialized outcomes do not require racist actors. Structural racism refers to a system of social structures that produces cumulative, durable, race-based inequalities. It is also a method of analysis that is used to examine how historical legacies, individuals, structures, and institutions work interactively to distribute material and symbolic advantages and disadvantages along racial lines.
At the Kirwan Institute, we think that identifying and addressing structural racism is a key civil rights challenge for the 21st century. Our work operates on the premise that opportunities exist in a complex web of interdependent factors, and that to alleviate inequities in any single area, we must first consider the entire structure that supports these inequities. Without this holistic framework from which to view social inequities, our work becomes reactionary at best, and at worst, we can actually produce problems in one area while seeking to remedy them in another.
The Kirwan Institute attempts to bring a structural analysis to all of its work. Our extensive work around spatial racism, for example, brings the structural lens to bear on our land use policies to understand how space has become racialized and how this racialization denies people of color access to opportunity and reproduces disparities along racial lines. We have convened a Structural Racism Caucus seeking to unite policymakers, advocates, academics and grassroots organizations to define structural racism, understand the ways in which it operates, and ultimately to dismantle it.
