Open AccessStructural Racism: The Rules and Relations of Inequity
Author(s) -
Gilbert C. Gee,
Margaret T. Hicken
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
ethnicity and disease
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.767
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1945-0826
pISSN - 1049-510X
DOI - 10.18865/ed.31.s1.293
Subject(s) - racism , analogy , sociology , inequality , criminology , economic justice , institutional racism , psychological intervention , law and economics , political science , gender studies , law , psychology , epistemology , mathematical analysis , philosophy , mathematics , psychiatry
Why do racial inequalities endure despite numerous attempts to expand civil rights in certain sectors? A major reason for this endurance is due to lack of attention to structural racism. Although structural and institutional racism are often conflated, they are not the same. Herein, we provide an analogy of a “bucky ball” (Buckminsterfullerene) to distinguish the two concepts. Structural racism is a system of interconnected institutions that operate with a set of racialized rules that maintain White supremacy. These connections and rules allow racism to reinvent itself into new forms and persist, despite civil rights interventions directed at specific institutions. To illustrate these ideas, we provide examples from the fields of environmental justice, criminal justice, and medicine. Racial inequities in power and health will persist until we redirect our gaze away from specific institutions (and specific individuals), and instead focus on the resilient connections among institutions and their racialized rules.Ethn Dis. 2021;31(Suppl 1):293-300; doi:10.18865/ed.31.S1.293