Identify and describe the four common forms of racism discussed in the text using examples to illustrate your points.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Institutional racism refers to the use of societal institutions for domination and manipulation for the purpose of providing preferences and advantages on behalf of the politically and socially dominant group, Whites, which ultimately justify oppression of racial and ethnic minorities. Institutional racism is both overt and covert and results in restriction of the rights of minorities and a denial of their access to services. Unfortunately, the dominance of the counseling profession by White counselors could be said to have implications for reinforcing institutional racism that may result in oppression. An example is the media coverage of police killings of Black men from the perspective of the powerful and the police. Individual racism consists of personal beliefs, attitudes and acts by individuals from the dominant culture, which results in humiliation and degradation based on race and ethnic membership. An example is name-calling. Everyday racism is incidental to individual racism because it is the persistently perpetrated on minority individuals daily. It consists of microassaults, microinsults, and microinvalidations. A good example given in the text is being followed or constantly watched in the department store. Cultural racism refers to the conscious or unconscious belief that White cultural values and worldviews are superior and the norm for society. The implication of cultural racism for the counseling profession is the need for the counselor from the dominant group to become aware of her or his values and worldviews and not to allow them to impact the counseling process with members from the minority cultures. Examples include believing in rugged individualism or future orientation and regarding language or vocabulary used by certain minority groups as substandard. Environmental racism is racial discrimination because of environmental policy making resulting in the official sanctioning of poisons and pollutants in communities of color. An example is the policy to allow housing developments for low-income minorities to be built in contaminated areas or polluting companies to be built in low-income neighborhoods, resulting medical illnesses for the residents.