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Title: Transdisciplinary Convergence to Accelerate Strategies to Mitigate Institutional Racism in Criminal Justice, Education, and Health Systems (Editor’s Commentary)

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2020

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Abstract: racism is a sociological construct and sociopolitical theory that emerged during the late 1960s and has been actively discussed in academic literature for more than a half-century. Institutional racism holds that mainstream disapproval of individual acts of bigotry belies a farreaching , stable, and insidious system of White racial preference that is interwoven into the normal practices and policies of organizations and institutions (Phillips, 2010). As a system of social control, institutional racism is a guiding principle that helps theorists across disciplines examine the systemic practices and policies that result in wealth, employment, housing, criminal justice, and political power disparities. Racially biased systems can supplant individual motivations and lead nonracist people to unwittingly contribute to racist outcomes in criminal justice, education, and health systems. Racially biased systems can have a diverse workforce, but still have racial preferences for White people. For instance, an original analysis of the American Community Survey (ACS) of the U.S. Census using the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) (Ruggles et al., 2017) estimates that approximately 136,000 police officers in the United States are Black. Collectively, about 30,000 Black police officers serve the five metropolitan areas with the largest number of Black people---New York, Chicago, Washington, DC, Atlanta, and Miami. In all of these areas, according to ACS estimates, the percentage of Black police officers is consistent with the percentage of Black people in the respective populations. Further analysis of IPUMS data reveal the social work profession has an overrepresentation of Black professionals. Black social workers comprise most of the profession in five states and the District of Columbia, including Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Maryland, and Delaware. However, institutional racism precludes Black social workers collectively from pushing social justice-oriented, culturally responsive social work at the institutional practice and policy level. According to Lavoie (2014), “social workers committed to critical, anti-racist practice are often frustrated in their attempts to bring about institutional change that addresses racism” (p. 1). Black people are more likely to choose helping professions generally and education specifically, especially among Black men. According to the ACS, social worker is the 7th most common occupation among Black men with at least a bachelor’s degree. For White men, it is 56th. Primary school teacher is the No. 1 profession of college-educated Black men and No. 3 for White men. Secondary school teacher is No. 5 for Black men and No. 14 for White men. Educational administrator is No. 6 for Black men and No. 20 for White men, and counselor is No. 7 for Black men and No. 40 for White men (Toldson, 2019). Theorizing about institutional racism through the social and behavioral sciences has done little to ameliorate long-standing discriminatory practices. Furthermore, the narrow scope of interventions, including diversifying hiring and cultural sensitivity trainings, are inadequate strategies for inspiring systemwide change. Unconscious and implicit bias, for instance, are popular investigative inquiries for understanding racial discrimination. However, researchers have criticized implicit bias research for insinuating that racism is perpetuated through guileless and unintentional motivations, while not addressing the established systems that undermine the progress of racial minorities (Tate & Page, 2018). Tate and Page (2018) indicate that “biases are usually influenced by background, cultural environment, and experiences” (p. 141). Thus, a comprehensive investigation of the system that cultivates racist behavior might be more important than studying the psychological underpinnings of individual biased acts. In the past, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) investment in ‘institutional racism’ has been low. An advanced keyword search of active and expired NSF awards on the NSF website was 2 ©The Journal of Negro Education, 2020, No. 89, No 1 recently performed, and for the keyword, ‘implicit bias,’ 65 active and past awards, totaling more than $48 million were found. However, some of the larger awards simply mentioned implicit bias in their best practice strategies for recruiting participants. To the contrary, a keyword search for the keyword ‘critical race theory...

Url: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/802560

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Authors: Toldson, Ivory A.

Periodical (Full): Journal of Negro Education

Issue: 1

Volume: 89

Pages: 1-7

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Race and Ethnicity

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