2. Some Definitions of Racism
• Cultural racism: Images, actions, and messages that “affirm the assumed superiority of
Whites and the assumed inferiority of people of color” (Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why Are
All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race. New
York: Basic Books, 1997, p. 6).
• “The essential feature of racism is not hostility or misperception, but rather the defense
of a system from which advantage is derived on the basis of race” (David Wellman,
Portraits of White Racism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977, p. 210)
• “Racism cannot be fully explained as an expression of prejudice alone…[it is] not only a
personal ideology based on racial prejudice, but a system involving cultural messages and
institutional policies and practices” (Tatum 1997, p. 7. Original emphasis.)
• The key defining characteristic of racism is POWER (Tatum 1997, p. 10 and elsewhere).
3. Racism: How Does It Operate?
A. It is transmitted culturally, via music, movies, television,
advertising, education, and consumerism.
• For example, in movies and TV, Arab-American men are
typically figured as taxi drivers and gas station operators
or, at worst, religious extremists. Arab-American women
are figured as submissive and oppressed.
• Black men are figured primarily as rappers, athletes, or
criminals
4. Racism: How Does It Operate?
An example of the cultural
transmission of racism: A 2008
Vogue magazine cover, figuring
LeBron James in a King-Kong-
like pose with a white model,
which draws from a long
history of hypersexualization
of black men and their threat to
white women’s purity.
See also < http://jezebel.com/368655/is-vogues-lebron-kong-cover-offensive >
5. Racism: How Does It Operate?
B. Individual transmission
•How do family members speak of other races?
•How do other students or co-workers “joke” or make use of racial stereotypes?
C.What has NOT been said, what people have NOT been exposed
to
•What representations of people of color are still missing in the media?
•How many times have affirming or positive messages been sent to you about
people of color?
6. Forms of Racism
Internalized racism: members of stereotyped group develop/follow
categorizations. In other words, one “buys into” the stereotype and
then fulfills it.
Institutional racism: various patterns of racism perpetuated by our
institutions; how do institutions create situations where racial
groups have fewer resources and options? This is what McIntosh
calls “invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance.”
Intra-racism: racism within a culture, where privilege is given
based on “levels” of blackness (i.e. light-skinned over dark-
skinned).
7. Racism vs. Prejudice
Prejudice: a preconceived judgment or opinion, usually
based on limited information (Tatum, 1997)
A. Prejudice is transmitted in the same ways as racism.
B. Prejudice is distinguished from racism because prejudice
does not confer power or privilege, especially in the long-
term sense.
C. Anyone can be prejudiced, but people of color cannot be
racist (except for intra-racism), because their prejudice does
not confer social and political power or privilege on them.
8. White Privilege
What Is It?
Unearned benefits, rights, and advantages that one receives because of
one’s race
How Does It Work?
• Because it’s invisible to those who enjoy it, white privilege grants
white people permission to ignore race and thus oppress others.
• It is enjoyed and experienced, most often, unconsciously.
Why Is It Useful (to Whites)?
It reinforces theory of meritocracy, which is the idea that good things
happen to those who deserve it, work hard, “play by the rules,” etc.