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INSTITUTIONAL RACISM (It. razzismo istituzionale; Fr. racisme institutionel; Ger. institutioneller Rassismus)

from Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity & Culture

The expression was first defined by Stokely Carmichael (later to be known as Kwame Ture) and Charles Hamilton in

their 1967 book Black Power (BLACK POWER). In using this term they sought to draw attention to pervasive and

systemic racism in the USA which, they argued, influenced and affected all aspects of society. Institutional racism is a

conception of RACISM as a stable and long-standing structural feature of society, rather than a psychological or

cultural trait of individuals and groups. The constituent elements of institutional racism can include assumptions,

customs and informal culture, routine practices, as well as procedures, rules and regulations.

Carmichael and Hamilton treated the distinction between individual and institutional racism as akin to the distinction

between overt and covert racism. While individual racism can be seen and heard, institutional racism is ‘less overt,

far more subtle, less identifiable in terms of specific individuals committing the acts … [it] originates in the operation

of established and respected forces in the society’ (Ture and Hamilton, 1992: 4). This latter aspect is important

because it draws attention to racism emanating from powerful groups, and to racism operating through bureaucratic

procedures. To differentiate between the individual/overt and the institutional/covert forms they provide this

illustration. Individual and overt racism can be seen where a black family is racially attacked for moving into a white

neighbourhood. However, it is institutional racism that keeps black people locked into slum housing, through

exploitation and discrimination by landlords and estate agents. This situation is either ignored by society or thought

to be unchangeable. This example indicates a number of ways in which institutional racism operates. First, dominant

groups may simply be indifferent to patterns of inequality in society, such as slums. Secondly, there may be a feeling

that it is simply too difficult to change the social conditions that give rise to slums and so no meaningful response is

ever contemplated. In both these instances there is little active discrimination, but the effects or consequences can

be seen as the product or outcome of institutional racism. A third way in which institutional racism can operate is by

rejecting the view that racism is structural and by reverting to cultural explanations instead. Some dominant social

and political discourses may suggest that slum housing is largely the fault of the poor themselves.

Carmichael and Hamilton also saw institutional racism as based upon ‘active and pervasive’ (Ture and Hamilton,

1992: 5) anti-black attitudes and practices. They maintained that whites believed themselves to be superior as a

group to blacks and that this racist attitude operated on both individual and institutional levels, and overtly and

covertly (WHITENESS). They considered institutional racism a form of INTERNAL COLONIALISM in the USA, in that

although blacks had the same CITIZENSHIP status as whites, they stood as colonial subjects in relation to white

society.

The distinction between individual/overt and institutional/covert forms of racism can be mapped on to the division

between direct and indirect racism made in the 1976 Race Relations Act (RACE RELATIONS) in the UK. The 1976 Act

aimed to make unlawful conditions that disproportionately affect particular racial minorities, for example height

requirements in employment that cannot be justified by the nature of the job. Another example of indirect racism was

evident in patterns of allocation to public housing in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s. While the housing rules did not

bar black and Asian people, they did specify that applications for public housing could not be considered from those

who had recently arrived in a local authority area (Rex, 1987). In the private sector, the restriction on loans and

mortgages for the purchase of homes in areas with significant ETHNIC MINORITY populations was also found to be a

form of indirect discrimination. In the field of education cultural bias has been shown to be operating in supposedly

objective proficiency or academic tests. In all these cases, there is no explicit policy or statement of discrimination

against ethnic and racial minorities, but they clearly produce disadvantageous outcomes for some of these

minorities. Institutional racism is usually treated as something hidden or concealed. Its underlying causes may be

difficult to detect; it may not even be based on overt prejudicial attitudes (PREJUDICE), or on any intention to

discriminate.

The distinction between intentional and unintentional forms of racism is evident in two differing definitions of

institutional racism in the UK. Both definitions are from official inquiries which were concerned with issues of race

(specifically with young blacks of African-Caribbean origin) and policing in the inner city. One - the Scarman Report -

was an inquiry into the public disorders or riots in Brixton, south London in 1981. The other, chaired by Sir William

Macpherson, was concerned with police failure to solve the racist murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in

a different part of south London in 1993. Lord Scarman rejected the charge that the police were institutionally racist,

because he found no evidence that there was any policy or intention to discriminate, or that their actions were

knowingly and as a matter of course discriminatory. In contrast, Macpherson specifically ruled that the police's

failures were due to institutional racism and came up with this new definition of it as ‘the collective failure of an

organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic

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origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through

unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people’

(1999, § 6.34).

The concept of unwitting racism is significant. It means that institutional racism arises unintentionally and

thoughtlessly, though its effects or manifestations are considered to be visible in the treatment of particular groups,

and in the social and economic patterns of contemporary societies. The Macpherson Inquiry's view remains

contested and highly controversial. The conclusion of the inquiry and its definition of institutional racism is rejected

by some right-wing newspapers and many police officers. Most of that opposition rests on two interlinked pillars. For

some in the police, the finding is seen as a blanket accusation that all police officers are racist. Similarly, for sections

of the media the rejection is based on the view that Macpherson's definition brands the whole of British society as

racist. The first of these erroneously elides individual and structural (or institutional) forms of racism. The second

however touches on an important issue about the ‘catch-all’ nature of the term ‘institutional racism’, which lacks

precision in determining the extent of racism in the UK, and in differentiating between stronger and weaker forms of

racism.

Following Macpherson the existence of institutional racism has been acknowledged in a number of governmental

and other organizations. Measures to address it include recruitment and training programmes and reviews of

organizational polices and practices for forms of indirect racism. However, some critics maintain that these actions

are superficial and do not address deep-seated power imbalances within organizations. There are a number of

problems with the ways in which the term institutional racism has been defined and used. First, the view that it refers

to covert forms of racism is questionable. Institutionalized racism can be both overt and covert. For example,

apartheid and other systems of RACIAL SEGREGATION have been an open part of official ruling ideology and

governmental programmes. Another example is immigration legislation in the UK, which has not explicitly articulated

an aim to discriminate though this has certainly been its effect and intent. Both of these can be regarded as

examples of institutional racism, though it is arguable that the latter could better be described as ‘institutionalized

discrimination’, particularly where class and gender divisions intersect with racial and ethnic ones.

There is also a good deal of confusion about how to account for unintended institutionalized racism. While it is

possible that institutional practice may embody assumptions and values that are not explicitly discriminatory, in some

cases an institution's own acknowledgement of racism seems to be a device to obviate individual responsibility.

Alternatively, individual racist behaviour is sometimes taken as a sign of institutional responsibility. While the term

was intended to shift attention away from individual and subjective forms of racism as prejudicial attitudes, and while

it seeks to account for the persistence of racial inequalities (COMMISSION FOR RACIAL EQUALITY, RACE AND

INEQUALITY) even in societies with formal and active commitments to EQUALITY, in practice it has been used to

describe both, even though distinct policies and interventions may be required according to whether racism is

judged to be intentional or unintentional.

The distinction between individual and institutional forms is dubious since it places individuals outside institutions,

‘thereby severing rules, regulations and procedures from the people who make and enact them, as if it concerned

qualitatively different racism rather than different positions and relations through which racism operates’ (Essed,

1991: 36).

In addition there is a problem of asserting that it is racism or institutional racism that accounts for all racially biased

outcomes or effects. The use of ‘institutional racism’ in this way overlooks other possible causes, such as social class

and gender inequalities. It also risks treating institutions as homogeneously racist. An alternative view would stress

the different ways that racism works and examine its articulation with other forms of subordination and inequality.

There may be multiple racisms in organizations, their operation dependent on context. A blanket description of an

organization as institutionally racist is not sensitive to this.

The relationship between the idea and effects may not be straightforward. Ideologies and practices may not match

up, either positively or negatively. Institutional racism is largely treated as a case of white (institutional) power over

blacks. This is not sensitive to variations in power within and between whites and blacks, and it concentrates on

inter-racial differences rather than intra-racial and ethnic differences.

The stretching of the meaning of institutional racism is an instance of what Miles (1989) more broadly regards as the

‘conceptual inflation’ of the term ‘racism’ to encompass both ideas and actions. Linking it to consequences or

outcomes makes it impossible to isolate the specificity of racism from class and gender relations. For example,

recruitment policies that rely on informal hiring practices may also be designed to exclude women and so could not

be treated as instances of institutional racism. Miles argues that ‘institutional racism’ should be restricted to those

instances where a racialized (RACIALIZATION) discourse or a racist ideology is invoked or implied. In spite of these

difficulties the term can be useful in highlighting the institutional production of outcomes or patterns that are racially

discriminatory, and in accounting for indirect and implicit forms of racism that produce persistent forms of

discrimination. It suggests the need for greater self-examination of institutional practices. Examples of issues that are

at the forefront of debates about the nature of institutional racism in the UK include the differences in the treatment

of racial and ethnic minorities in the following areas: employment and promotion patterns; school exclusions; stop

and search operations by the police; the treatment of prisoners; differential sentencing of ethnic groups by the

courts; and differences in diagnosis of schizophrenia and other mental illnesses (RACISM AND MEDICINE). In these

and other cases, the term ‘institutional racism’ ought to act as a prompt to examine the ways in which organizational

policy and practice help to produce distinctive racial and ethnic patterns. Instances where such outcomes are not

acted upon or addressed by relevant authorities are likely to confirm the suggestion of institutional racism. As

Goldberg says, ‘where there is a recognizable, institutionally governed pattern of racially predicated discrimination or

exclusion, ongoing because unrectified, the presumption must be that continuing exclusions are considered

permissible by those institutionally able to do something about them’ (1993: 99). Institutional racism should be

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applied to the interactions between subjective and institutional processes, and to outcomes not reducible to

individual racism. This needs to be complemented with an awareness of the process of institutionalization, as a way

in which social activities become routine, persistent and stable features of social structures.

Essed, P. (1991) Understanding Everyday Racism, Sage London.

Goldberg, D. (1993) Racist Culture, Blackwell Oxford.

Macpherson, W. (1999) The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, The Stationery Office London.

Miles, R. (1989) Racism, Routledge London.

Rex, J. (1987) Race and Ethnicity, Open University Press Milton Keynes.

Scarman, L. (1981) The Brixton Disorders, HMSO London.

Ture, K. (originally Carmichael, S.), Hamilton, C. (1992) Black Power (1967), Vintage Books New York.

Karim Murji

© Psicoanalisi Contro di Lorenzo Rossi Passegiata di Ripetta 11, Rome, Italy.

Chicago Harvard MLA

Murji, K. (2003). Institutional racism. In G. Bolaffi, R. Bracalenti, P. Braham, & et. al., Dictionary of race, ethnicity &

culture. Sage UK. Credo Reference:

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