WASIC Goal: Eliminate Systemic Racism
Systemic racism explained: Four dimensions of racism and how to be part of the solution.
The CEO of Portland’s Center for Equity and Inclusion, Hanif Fazal, and the CEO of North Star Forward Consulting, Lillian Green, have dedicated their careers to empowering the community with an understanding of racism to create a more equitable future.
Internalized racism refers to our own thoughts, feelings and actions, conscious and unconscious, as an individual.
This racism exists in forms like believing negative racial stereotypes, denying services to someone based on the color of their skin, or denying racism even exists.
Then there's interpersonal racism: acts of racism between one person and another.
This is how most of us have been taught to see racism, Fazal said. It's about negative ways people treat one another: harassment, discrimination from a boss, a racist rant caught on a cell phone video.
There's institutional racism, which some people use interchangeably with systemic racism, but Green makes a distinction. She says institutional racism in connected to the policies and practices that reinforce racists standards within a workplace or organization.
This can be seen in discriminatory hiring practices, silencing of black voices in the boardroom, or a work culture that prioritizes a white point of view.
That brings us to the main focus: systemic racism. This is how the other three dimensions are allowed thrive in society, both openly and in the shadows.
“This is a type of racism that has been normalized in all the systems in which we engage in,” Green said.
“When I think about systemic racism, I think about policies,” Fazal said. "I think about practices. I think about a culture that supports that racial arrangement."
Source: Portland’s Center for Equity and Inclusion
(Photo courtesy of ehimetalor-akhere-unuabona on Unsplash)
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