Black Mens Studies. Serie McDougal III
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and feelings about people belonging to an ethnic group, which are generalized to all members of that group (Reed, 2009; Rome, 2004). Stereotypes are specific exaggerated beliefs, or distorted truths, or false notions about members of a group, such as the way they look, their behaviors, and their abilities. They shape and are shaped by prejudice. Black males face stereotypical images of themselves as (a) super-athletes, (b) criminals or gangster, and/or (c) hypersexual/patriarchal, (d) lazy, unintelligent, and irresponsible (Boyd-Franklin, 2003; Michael-Chadwell, 2014; Swanson et al., 2004).
Stereotypes are primarily used to justify socioeconomic inequality and to perpetuate racial exploitation in ways that maintain power relations (Markus & Moya, 2010). Although prejudice is often cited as the cause of racism, Reed (2009) argues that racism may also reinforce prejudice. Exposure to racism through racist social institutions (church, home, school, work, etc.) can amplify and provide rationales for prejudice by shaping what people think of Black males (Reed, 2009). Racism goes beyond that of prejudice and is more than a feeling or an attitude. Racism refers to the exercise of power against a racial group in ways that subjugate them; it is the behavioral manifestation of struggles for power (Jones, 1972; Reed, 2009). There are many different aspects of racism: individual, institutional, and cultural. However, in American society, the overwhelming emphasis is placed on prejudice and individual acts of racism.
Individual Racism
Individual racism occurs when a Black person is physically attacked because of his race, when a person tells a racist joke, or when a Black person is called by a racial epithet. Reed (2009) explains that individual racism occurs when racial prejudice is expressed in the behaviors of individuals acting alone or in small groups, such as the bombing of a Black church. Persistent individual acts of racism and microaggressions keep Black people constantly vigilant. Most Black men report experiencing racial ←31 | 32→slights and insults targeted at them (Merida & Washington Post Company, 2007). Microaggressions are everyday, subtle, conscious or unconscious acts that denigrate racially underrepresented groups (Allen, 2013; Wong & Schwing, 2014). These subtle encounters are daily reminders for Black males of their marginal status in society (Langley, 1994). Black men experience these microaggressions in many forms: cab drivers who refuse to stop for them; property owners who quote higher apartment rents and deposits to them; real estate agents who steer them away from buying in “White” neighborhoods; police harassment; teachers who refuse to call on them due to low expectations of Black youth; or when they get into an elevator with someone who quickly exits out of fear (Boyd-Franklin, 2003; White & Cones, 1999). Allen (2013) interviewed a Black male high school senior who gave the following account of his experience with microaggressions:
I experienced it with this lady that actually came to our school. She was like a visitor from somewhere else and she had to visit the athletic director and, you can tell she’s one of those people that hasn’t been around a lot of Black people, and you know our school [has a large Black population] so she’s holding her purse all close and stuff and she’s looking around and you can see her eyes are all big and she’s like wow, all these colored people. You could tell she was really nervous and I was the TA and I had to show her where the athletic office was and so I was walking with her and she was talking with me and she was like, “I can tell you’re—what’s your GPA?” I said 3.6. She said, “Yeah I can tell you have a really high [GPA] because of the way you talk and the way you carry yourself, you carry yourself so well!” And I’m like thank you but … it was just this realization of wow; this is how the world sees Black men. (p. 180)
More so than Black people, Whites tend to see incidents of racism as isolated incidents, but not indicators of racial oppression as a larger social condition (Feagin & Sikes, 1994). Remedies to racism are hampered by a widespread belief that the primary practice of racism is individual acts of racial prejudice (Reed, 2009). This leads to thinking about racism as something that is done by occasionally bigoted individuals, and not via larger social structures (Reed, 2009). Not understanding that racism is also institutional leads to the mistaken belief that racism requires personal animus, malice, or hatred for it to occur. When you have a culturally incompetent person who has internalized negative stereotypes about Black males working in a school, and that person is in a position to write and deliver curriculum or classify Black males as having mentally disabilities, you have the formula for institutional racism.
Individual racism gets more attention than other forms of racism and compels people to focus on racist acts driven by intentionality, although individual racism can be both intentional and unintentional (Reed, 2009). For example, teachers may have subconscious attitudes about Black male students’ lack of intellectual ability. This can cause them to unintentionally adopt low expectations of them, provide less feedback on assignments, and call on them less when their hands are raised compared to other students—all without realizing it (Reed, 2009). Those who wish to avoid addressing racism at an institutional level attempt to focus on intent instead of impact (Reed, 2009). Victims of racism often find themselves in a position where they must point out that the most important part of racism is its impact on people’s lives, more so than the intent of the perpetrator, given that racism can be intentional or unintentional. For example, White teachers in particular have been found to have lower expectations of Black and Hispanic children. This may be intentional in some cases and unintentional in others. Nevertheless, the consequences are critical given that they affect Black males’ life chances. For example, over 70% of teachers in American classrooms are White and female (Markus & Moya, 2010). Therefore, racism, according to Jones (1991a), doesn’t require proof of intent, malice, or evil-mindedness, to produce and reinforce race/gendered power differentials in society.
Milner, Allen, & McGee (2014) argue it is important to move beyond analyzing the acts of individuals because this frames racism as irrational and/or subconscious behaviors and prejudiced acts. In contrast, system-level approaches to racism reveal how pervasive it is. While individual acts of racism gain a lot of attention, other kinds of racism, like institutional racism, go under the radar.
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Institutional Racism
Institutional racism is racism expressed in the form of formal and informal policies and practices. It involves rules, practices, and economic and political structures that systematically disadvantage, subjugate, and ensure power over racially underrepresented groups. Institutional racism happens when these practices consistently lead to racial differences, with Blacks receiving lower status (White & Cones, 1999). Such policies and practices may intentionally or unintentionally produce racial inequalities (Reed, 2009). Racially discriminatory policies and practices in the U.S. are often normative and accepted as ordinary (Reed, 2009). According to Carmichael and Hamilton (1967), Black people are systematically deprived of power in the racialized colonial contexts; thus, “institutional racism is another name for colonialism” (p. 5). Lawrence (1994) claims that African Americans remain the principal targets of institutional racism because of their relatively large population size compared to other racially oppressed groups, and because they have been oppressed longer than any other group in the U.S. context (with the exception of Native Americans). Institutional racism is difficult to identify because unequal outcomes are often justified by racial differences in qualification, abilities, merit, or motivation (White & Cones, 1999). Without understanding institutional racism, Black people may direct energy at fixing other Black people, not realizing the role that institutional racism plays in creating the poverty, unemployment, and poor healthcare that plague this community on a daily basis.
Examining Different Levels of Systems
Institutional racism effects the delivery of critical services to Black people. It shapes how psychologists see Black patients, how teachers see Black students, how politicians see Black citizens, etc. However, recognizing institutional racism requires analyzing multiple levels of social systems. For example, one cannot assess the presence or absence of racism in the criminal justice system by looking only at judges’ rulings in criminal cases. Mauer (1994) explains, as an example, the need to examine multiple levels of the criminal justice system:
The seeming contradiction may depend on which part of the system is being examined. As described previously, much of the disparity in the justice system may lie in the early stages, at the level of arrest and prosecution. Thus, a Black drug offender