Race and Racism

Racism beliefs and racist behaviour do not necessarily accompany one another and those who control access to resources such as education employment or the media for example may discriminate but not hold racist beliefs. White people often cannot see and do not question the sources and legitimacy of their privilege and power, whereas people of colour experience daily its consequences. Even without conscious, personal racial animosity, these institutional structures, policies and practices generate and maintain racial discrimination, segregation and inequalities of opportunity. Furthermore, cultural difference and diversity are presented, even celebrated, but in ways that confirm and authorise dominate social, political, cultural and economic positions.

Racism is indeed a definition eroding since 1960s and is about individuals rather than a group focus. This term racism has created and reproduced structures of domination based on essentialist categories of race. The belief that racism has been overcome and inequalities in economic and social progress are the consequences of culture, biology, and individual life choices. Also know as modern racism, enlightened racism. Race and/or racism is therefore socially constructed and has implicated in power relations. Consequently, race is therefore a highly meaningful social construction because of the impact it has on quality of life and access to resources and social rewards.