race, prejudice, racism definitions

People of color enter race conversation at a 401 level due to their lived experiences.  People classified as white enter into race conversation at a 101 level.  That has been true for me.  I thought I would write some posts over the next days offering a bit of a primer, a Racism 101, from my journey of learning.  I am still en route, often ignorant and arrogant, so just to qualify this: I am but a fellow learner who is seeking understanding, transformation, justice.

One helpful distinction for me in being educated was to learn about the following definitions and the difference between prejudice and racism. 

Prejudice is to pre-judge based on socialized biases.  We can pre-judge based on so many things: age, weight, religion, ethnicity, a person's education, race, gender, sexual orientation, urban, rural, political parties, socio-economics, and on and on. 

People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond defines Race as:  A fictitious or created classification of human beings created by Europeans which assigns human worth and social status using “white” as the model of humanity and the height of human achievement for the purpose of establishing and maintaining privilege and power.  

Racism, then, is actually racial prejudice with power (institutional) attached to it.  When people who are in power use their racial prejudices to create a society's institutions in a way that keeps power and access in the hands of some people while keeping it out of the hands of others, this is racism. (There are also other -isms that involve prejudice + power...sexism being another example)

All humans have stereotypes and show prejudice or bias, but to be racist means that you have racial prejudice plus have the institutional power to affect laws, policies, and society to the benefit of your defined race.   Racism, then, is attributed to white America since racial classifications and values were made up and have been maintained by a dominant white culture.  It doesn't make sense, then, for example, to call a Hispanic woman who may not like me due to my whiteness a "reverse-racist" or a "racist".  Rather, she is pre-judging or has prejudice against me. 

For a great many years of my life, I thought racism was synonymous with  prejudice.  I did not know that racism = race prejudice + institutional power.

I also had never thought about race being socially constructed.  Growing up, I had thought about race as a biological characteristic.  When I took an Undoing Racism class some years back, participants were asked how we determine race.  Answers were:  color of skin, language, name, birth country, culture, physical characteristics, religious beliefs, DNA.  We went back through that list and determined that we really couldn’t determine race by any of these things.  Some Hispanics look white.  Some are darker and look almost black.  Language doesn’t determine race.  Nor does a person’s name, the country you live in.  Physical characteristics vary, as do religious beliefs, and we are 99.8% genetically alike.  What, then, is race?  Race was actually socially constructed to create a pecking order that classified some humans as more valuable than other humans for the purpose of protecting power and privilege. 

I grew up in Waterloo, IA, and I didn't critically or consciously think much past interpersonal relationships and prejudices until I was in my 40's.  That's real and true.  I hope these definitions will help some others as they helped me to begin getting educated about the foundations, nature, and impacts of racism.  How have you grown up thinking about race and racism?