Antiracism

Understanding racism

"Mainstream dictionary definitions reduce racism to racial prejudice and the personal actions that result. But this definition does little to explain how racial hierarchies are consistently reproduced."

Dr. Robin DiAngelo

It is tempting to think of racism as a dysfunction in individuals or certain groups of people, but this is only a small facet of the problem.  Broader concerns about racism involve how whole social systems are shaped by racist ideologies.  Unfortunately, racism shapes the language we speak, the laws that govern us, the entertainment we consume, the ways we "do" business, etc.  These ideologies reproduce themselves in everyday experiences and are highly adaptable to new circumstances.  A central claim of critical race theory* is that racism is not an exceptional experience, but is an everyday experience, that it manifests itself in interaction with institutions and in personal interactions.  Manifestations of racism are, by and large, subtle and practically invisible, and extraordinarily effective.

* For a quick introduction to critical race theory, see this post from globalsocialtheory.org.  For a more comprehensive introduction, see this entry from The New dictionary of the history of ideas.

"RobinDiangelo1" by ALA The American Library Association, CC BY-NC-SA

Below are background information sources available through the library

Below are selected ebooks available through the library

Selected web sources on racism

Recently, doctors and other health researchers have begun to look at the effect of racism on public and personal health.  The following videos look at these effects specifically.

Intersectionality

An extremely important concept in antioppression work, and antiracism is clearly a form of it, is the notion of intersectionality, which refers to the fact that a person's identity is actually a collection of identities.  When considering the life circumstances of a Chinese-American woman, for example, we would need to consider her status as a woman, as an American, and as an Asian-American; if she were an immigrant, a bisexual, or had a disability, we would need to consider those aspects of identity as well.  So intersectionality suggests that a person can be a member of multiple marginalized communities and we need to consider those identities as a whole and not a collection of independent factors because multiple oppressions have a cumulative effect. Below are several source to learn about the concept.