Verywell / Joshua Seong
The psychological study of racism can be summed up in one word: evolving.
Many Americans, particularly White Americans, were complacent going into the year 2020.
At a Glance
With the added spotlight has come a renewed interest in understanding racism.
Verywell / Joshua Seong
But there are severe limitations to viewing racism solely through this lens.
Racism is real regardless of whether White people recognize or accept it.
Recap
Early explanations of racism were often inherently racist.
Prejudice vs. Racism
Many people misunderstand and confuse the definitions of racism and prejudice.
Though related, they are different.
Prejudice can be racial, but it can also be sexist, ageist, or classist, for example.
That belief would then affect the teacher’s behavior with their students, whether consciously or subconsciously.
In this way, racism is embedded in the reality of everyday life.
Maybe you’ve even said something to that effect yourself.
It’s the same responding to “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter.”
Continuing to support this individualistic American narrative results in blindness to the realities of America’s racist systems.
Ignoring racism doesn’t make it go away.
Below is a list of possible psychological explanations for why racism exists.
Sometimes, hostility arises toward those people who have been alienated.
While in a clique, people tend to think and behave more like the people they surround themselves with.
It becomes much easier to attack others when you’re among people who share the same viewpoint.
Lack of Compassion
Alienation of others eventually leads to lesscompassionfor those who have been ostracized.
People begin to only show compassion and empathy for those they regularly associate with.
This dismissal may or may not be overt racism, but it begins with a lack ofempathy.
Alienated groups can easily become scapegoats for those who ignore their own personal flaws.
Poor Mental Health
Is racism a sign of poor mental health?
Not necessarily, but it can be.
Hatred and Fear
Extreme hatred is almost always based on fear.
People may feel threatened by people they view as"different" or “foreign.
“They may fear losing power.
Racism is not a mental illness, but it is certainly related to psychological adaptation.
Factors such as personal insecurity, lack of empathy, and projection may contribute to racism.
Those factors are the following.
Categories
Humans learn to group people into categories based on race from a young age.
Category labels can support a belief that category members have a shared identity, which promotes stereotypes.
This categorical grouping and the concept of shared identity later lead to factions.
Segregation
Being segregated from other racial groups greatly influences attitudes and feelings about race.
That is why segregation by race early in life can influence the development of racistattitudes.
Hierarchy
A hierarchical system assigns wealth, power, and influence unevenly across groups.
Power
Power grants groups the ability to build a society that benefits them.
It also allows them to create what are considered to be culturally acceptable standards.
They control resources and are allowed to exploit others and assume dominance.
When power is distributed along racial divides as it is in the U.S., so are advantages.
Media
The media plays a role in sustaining racism.
On one level there is simply representation (or lack thereof).
On another level, there is how the media portrays racial groups.
Passivism
The final factor Roberts and Rizzo describe is perhaps the most important.
It is the passive racism that results from ignorance,apathy, or denial.
When racism is systemic and ingrained in social structures, all that is required to sustain it is inaction.
Research suggests that many factors contribute to racism on both individual and systemic levels.
The researchers found marked differences in how information was presented.
At mostly Black schools, however, information more directly addressed racism and the effects of racial barriers.
Combating racism is about more than being “not racist,” which often equates to passive racism.
Learning to be activelyanti-racistis essential.
But cultural-psychological approaches to understanding racism challenge these ideas.
Racism is in more ways a cultural phenomenon than an individual psychological occurrence.
What this means is that you do not need to be racist to uphold racist systems.
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