This document defines and discusses various forms of oppression including racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and class privilege. It addresses how racism can be active or passive and manifests individually through prejudice or culturally. It also discusses structural and institutional racism. Color-blind racism strategies like abstract liberalism, naturalization, and biologization of culture are explained. The document also covers internalized oppression, stereotypes, heterosexism, sexism, and how homophobia functions as a weapon to maintain sexism and gender roles.

1. z Understanding
Racism, Sexism,
Heterosexism, and
Class Privilege
Part II

2. z
Defining Racism
 Impact of racism begins early
 Preschool years
 Exposed to misinformation about people different than ourselves
 Most of early information we receive about others does not come from
firsthand experience
 Many grew up in neighborhoods with limited opportunities to interact with
people different from our own families
 Second hand information we do receive
 Distorted, shaped by cultural stereotypes, incomplete

3. z
Defining Racism
 Prejudice - Conceived judgment or opinion, usually based
on limited information created by continually being
exposed to misinformation about others
 Cultural Racism – the cultural images and messages that
affirm the assumed superiority of whites and the assumed
inferiority of people of color

4. z
Defining Racism
 Stereotypes. A widely held but simplified image or idea of a
particular type of person or thing believed in common by
others
 What are some common stereotypes?
 What kind of Asian are you?
 Internalized Oppression – when member of the stereotyped
group internalizes the stereotypical categories about his or her
own group to some degree

5. z
Defining Racism
 Can people other than whites be racist?
 Yes. If Racism is defined as racial prejudice.
 No. If there is no advantage based on race. People of color do
not benefit from racism.
 Example on page 115.
 Sexism usually associated with men discrimination
against women because men or men run systems
benefit from sexism

6. z
Defining Racism
 Active Racism
 Blatant, intentional acts of racial bigotry and discrimination
 Passive Racism
 Bystander acceptance of actions tantamount to racism
Ex.
 Not speaking out against discriminatory hiring practices
 Laughing when racists jokes are made
 Avoiding dealing with racial related situations

7. z
Beyond Hate: Strategic Racism
 Three Racisms
 The racism-as-hate model
 Most common understanding of racism emphasizes discrete acts of bigotry by malicious individuals
 Under this version, racism is easy to spot and clearly reprehensible
 Structural racism
 Racism under this view is woven into society’s fabric
 Institutional racism
 Implicit bias
 Stress that almost all of us draw on racial ideas at the implicit level, sorting those we meet and
forming early judgments virtually automatically long before our conscious minds have a chance to
recognize, let alone object to the errors.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrHIQIO_bdQ

8. z
Color-Blind Racism
 Abstract liberalism
 By framing race-related issues in the language of liberalism, whites can
appear “reasonable” and even “moral,” while opposing almost all practical
approaches to deal with de facto racial inequality.
 Ex. Opposing affirmative action programs because they give special
treatment to certain groups (ignoring underrepresentation)
 Naturalization
 When whites normalize actions or events that could otherwise be
considered racially motivated or racist
 Ex. Everyone just wants to spend time with people who are like them
 Ex. Everyone in upper management is white because that’s the way it
is

9. z
Color-Blind Racism
 Biologization of Culture
 No longer relies on claim that blacks are biologically inferior, they
biologized their presumed cultural practices. Used as a rationale for
explaining racial inequality
 Ex. Minorities are lazy and that’s why they don’t achieve anything
 Minimization of Racism
 Although whites and blacks believed that discrimination is still a
problem, they dispute its prominence
 Ex. Whites believe it has all but disappeared; Blacks believe is as
American as apple pie

10. z
Racial Themes
 Racialization
 One theme is the importance of racial categorizing in anti-Asian
violence
 Nativism and Racism
 “Intense opposition to an internal minority on the ground of its foreign
connections”
 Racial hierarchies and interracial conflict
 Asian Americans appear to occupy on a social and economic ladder
that places whites on top and blacks at the bottom
 Model minority
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg1X1KkVxN4

11. z
Ableism, Heterosexism, and Sexism
 Modes of Oppression
 Ableism
 Can lead to keeping disabled persons hidden
 Heterosexism
 Structuring of institutions so as to legitimate heterosexuality
only
 Sexism
 Sufficiently interfused with heterosexism that they are hard to
separate
 Modes of oppression work simultaneously

12. z
Homophobia as a Weapon of Sexism
 Who does gender roles serve?
 Men and women who seek power from them
 Who suffers from gender roles?
 Women most completely and men in part
 How are gender roles maintained?
 Weapons of sexism: economics, violence, and homophobia

13. z
Homophobia as a Weapon of Sexism
 Lesbian perceived as threat to nuclear family, male dominance and control, to very
heart of sexism
 Gay men perceived as threat to male dominance and control
 Homophobia expressed against them has same roots in sexism as homophobia
against lesbians
 Visible gay men objects of extreme hatred and fear by heterosexual men
 Breaking ranks with male heterosexual solidarity seen as damaging rent in very fabric
of sexism
 Betrayers, traitors who must be punished and eliminated
 Sexisms also affects males
 Rigid, dehumanizing gender roles

14. z
Homophobia as a weapon of sexism
 Being vulnerable to a homophobic world can lead to losses
 Employment
 Family
 Children
 Heterosexual privilege and protection
 Safety
 Mental health
 Community
 Credibility