I would agree with that.
I am not sure of the distinction between situational racism and institutional racism.
If the power over people comes from one’s position in an institution, ISTM that there is little distinction.
Regards,
Shodan
I think it’s flawed though, of the top of my head I can think of a scenario: three people of the same social level on the street, A and B see C, of ethnicity X walk by, A says to B, “all X are (insert negative stereotype)”, “sure they are” says B.
They both are making prejudiced assumptions (AKA discriminating) of C on the basis of ethnicity, even if their discrimination doesn’t actually materialize into
A non race related example would be that poor people can discriminate against rich people, even though they are not in a position of power over them.
What does need power to happen is oppression, not discrimination.
The distinction I’ve been making is the fear of repercussions as a limiting factor. In the bad old days, white people had no concerns about facing any repercussions for discriminating against black people. They literally would pose for photographs standing next to the bodies of lynching victims. There was no fear that they might get arrested for murder.
Situational racism is much milder. It’s when somebody abuses their power but is aware that their power is not unlimited. It’s when somebody acts in a racist manner but is thinking “I’ll be okay as long as nobody can prove I’m doing this.”
They have not discriminated yet though - they are assholes and racists, and quite possible discriminate.
But at that point it is just words spoken among friends.
I meant to say “The founding fathers were wary of tyrannies of the MINORITY but only a footnote to the more obvious threat of tyranny of the majority.”
If that is the definition of institutional racism you’re going by it almost exclusively favors blacks in America. Affirmative action is government sanctioned institutional racism. When a university is allowed and encouraged to admit students who otherwise wouldn’t get in based on their race that is institutional racism. When an employerfeels they are unable to promote white males due to societal pressure to “increase diversity” that’s institutional racism. Being perceived as oppressed is actually very powerful.
Which is why the leadership of all of our highest institutions are dominated by black Americans.
Which is why federal employees are overwhelmingly black Americans.
Cite?
Yep, I think this is it. Like a lot of social science concepts, the definitions of terms themselves can be highly contentious. This is not the only example - witness the endless arguments over the border between “literacy” and “illiteracy” - reading all the research, it’s difficult to not conclude that some of the researchers may be “illiterate” according to each others’ definitions.
According to the Office of Personnel Management, 17.8% of federal employees are black and 66.0% are white. cite
Did you get your figures from Pat Buchanan? I know he’s been claiming black people dominate the federal workforce.
So black workers are represented among federal workers at a slightly higher rate than their overall population. Not even close to “overwhelmingly” anything, except perhaps uninteresting.
There are other factors as well. If you limited yourself to qualified candidates, there would be an imbalance in favor of blacks. However the pool of qualified candidates is heavily skewed in favor of whites due to socio-economic factors.
Do you mean “in favor of whites” in your second sentence? If not, I don’t understand. Though I think there may be factors in addition to the socio-economic that are involved.
No, I meant in favor of blacks.
The pool of qualified candidates is skewed in favor of whites, as mentioned, but from that pool the winning candidates would be skewed in favor of blacks.
To put some completely bogus numbers on it just to illustrate the concept, imagine that the population is 12% black and 70% white, then the pool of qualified candidates for “leadership of all of our highest institutions” might be 2% black and 90% white. From that group, the actual people in these leadership positions would be 3% black and 85% white.
Okay, but why?
The point drewder was making was about affirmative action, and that’s probably the biggest part of it (whether government mandated - directly or indirectly - or PR-driven, as the case may be).
There are probably other factors as well, though, as part of the mix, not all of which cut the same way.
Yea, the Civil Rights movement didn’t win over the public. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was actually filibustered for 83 days before it was passed.
Those aren’t mutually exclusive.