Systematic Racism, Essay Example

While the concept of racism is structured around the oppression or the marginalization of individuals on the mere basis of their racial background, systemic racism provides another dimension to such malpractice. In particular, systemic racism is structured around the developments that occur when cultural systems and institutions exhibit individual racism. Through systemic racism, discriminatory actions prevail across the American criminal justice system and the educational system, among others. As such, individual attitudes based on bigotry and prejudice are integrated into the operations of the existing cultural institutions. As a result of systemic racism, society is bound to suffer in various ways, including the burgeoning of political disenfranchisement, racial wealth gap, and mass incarceration. Furthermore, the implications of systemic racism also result in increased employment, housing, education, and health disparities. It is also imperative to note that systemic racism creates an avenue whereby racial immigration policies are subject to micro-aggressions, racist media imagery, and racial profiling.

The Three Main Components of Systemic Racism

As argued by Bonilla-Silva, the prevalence of systems that perpetuate racial discrimination and marginalization are structured around three main components. The first component is the historical specificity of the systems in the sense that they change over time and are often based on the respective location (PinonJun, 2020). In this regard, the predominant institutions and beliefs that categorize and define the underlying relationships between races share the same attributes across diverse cultures and countries. However, the systems that uphold them embark on adopting distinct and unique conditions. For instance, different historic occurrences shared the same effect when considering the violent disregard of African Americans. Chattel slavery was characterized by specific rules that established it as a system that differed from the Jim Crow Laws and the racist housing policies.

Bonilla-Silva’s second component describes the unmistakable structural nature of systematic racism. In this component, the predominant behaviors, as well as practices that are applied to foster systematic racism, are inherent to the system itself. Based on the insights set forth by PinonJun (2020), with some individuals opting to refrain from racism and embrace inclusivity, they may find themselves participating in its systemic form if at all they are in the system. When one is in a particular system, their actions play a part in either dismantling or upholding it. This may apply to something as benign as selecting a group of friends or a neighborhood to reside in that upholds a certain racial order.

Finally, Bonilla-Silva establishes that another component of systemic racism is its prevalence as an inversely proportional concept regarding the benefits. As such, when the system offers some benefits to certain individuals or groups, it simultaneously provides disadvantages to others. For instance, in a culture of white dominance countrywide (U. S.), only people from the white race are bound to benefit, while all the other individuals are disadvantaged. Unfortunately, such a situation prevails across American institutions and systems despite the nation being founded on liberty, fairness, and equality for all individuals despite their cultural, socioeconomic, and gender-based differences.

Systemic Racism in the “Native American Boarding Schools”

The approach taken to facilitate the development of “Native American boarding schools” between 1869 and the 1960s was utterly founded on systemic racism. The primary purpose of having boarding schools was to foster the development of cultural genocide by reprogramming and removing children from the Alaska Native and the American Indian background. Children who were taken into these schools would be punished for communicating in their native language on top of being stripped of their personal belongings, traditional clothing, as well as any behaviors that would reflect their native culture (Dog & Erdoes, 1999). Since churches and governments operated the boarding schools, systemic racism was applied to eradicate the ‘inferior’ cultures by having the children recite prayers daily and adhering to strict codes of discipline like waking up at five o’clock and marching by the clock from left to right.

Based on the three components of systemic racism established by Bonilla-Silva, the operation of the Native American boarding schools marked a unique historical specificity that would be subject to changes over time. Conversely, the operation of these boarding schools was characterized by distinct structural phenomena; it was based on adopting practices such as abuse and neglect that would facilitate the annihilation of some cultures. Dog & Erdoes (1999) provide an example of how the Native American boarding schools promoted systemic racism through their description of its continued implications across modern-day society. On this note, up to now, when the schools have been considerably improved, teachers have been well-trained, and the food made tolerable to the students, the psychology of white students remains to be different from that of their counterparts. Finally, as the children from minority groups had their cultural identity stripped away, those from the shite race would further stamp their dominance and ‘superiority’ across the society. An example of such a development, as depicted by Dog & Erdoes (1999), is that children from diverse cultural backgrounds were often shocked upon enrolling in a school. This includes the 11-year-old girl who resorted to attempting suicide by jumping out of the window and another who actually hanged herself from the exasperation derived from the unbearable situation of systemic racism within a school.

References

PinonJun, N. (2020). What is systemic racism? Retrieved from: mashable.com/article/what-is-systemic-racism

Dog, M., & Erdoes, R. (1999). Civilize them with a stick. Mapping the Social Landscape. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 573-577.