Institutional Racism

A Guide to Racial Justice Policy Development
Disparities in education, income, and healthcare between minorities and Whites are all
symptoms of structural racism. These all lead to higher rates of incarceration, lack of
accumulated wealth, and lower life expectancy. Despite the tremendous economic and
social advancement of many people of color in this country, structural racism continues
to regulate a vast majority of people of color to a state of almost permanent secondclass
citizenship.
As we have noted throughout this curriculum, structural racism is embedded in our
institutions, customs, and practices, and is perpetuated by policies that affect our
everyday lives. Some of these policies are so commonplace that we take them for
granted or don’t even realize how they’re affecting people of color as well as whites in
their daily lives. In order to begin dismantling the system of structural racism,
organizations committed to racial justice must identify policies that perpetuate the
system and develop new policies that will have positive racial impacts. Those policies
that perpetuate structural racism have the following characteristics:
" Allow for the segregation of resources and risks – redlining, subprime
lending (reverse redlining), certain zoning policies, toxic dumping policies, use of
property taxes to fund public education
" Create inherited group disadvantage or advantage – intergenerational
transfer of wealth through estate inheritance, lack of reparations for historical
injustices (restitution to Native Americans for lands taken by European settlers),
admissions procedures at universities that consider legacy
" Allow for the differential valuation in human life by race – curriculum policies
that teach certain histories and not others, racial profiling and discretionary
sentencing
" Limit the self-determination of certain groups of people – policies that result
in disproportionate incarceration rates for minorities and their subsequent
disenfranchisement, lack of proportional representation elections and decisionmaking.
The following are examples of historical policies that have perpetuated structural
racism. These policies all fall into one of the above categories.
" National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). As noted, some reforms that were
assumed to be race neutral have perpetuated race-based inequities. NLRB is
one example, because it excluded farm and domestic workers (who were
predominantly African American in the 1930s) to appease Dixiecrats.
" Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentencing. In the 1980s, this became a key
mechanism in the War on Crime, which targeted communities of color in the
wake of the civil rights movement.
" Zero Tolerance Polices in Schools. This became another mechanism for
criminalizing and stigmatizing youth of color, instead of addressing systemic
problems affecting our schools.
Grassroots Policy Project Race, Power and Policy Page 26