The Race Discrimination System
Abstract
To understand the persistence of racial disparities across multiple domains (e.g., residential location, schooling, employment, health, housing, credit, and justice) and to develop effective remedies, we must recognize that these domains are reciprocally related and comprise an integrated system. The limited long-run success of government social policies to advance racial justice is due in part to the ad hoc nature of policy responses to various forms of racial discrimination. Drawing on a systems perspective, I show that race discrimination is a system whose emergent properties reinforce the effects of their components. The emergent property of a system of race-linked disparities is über discrimination—a meta-level phenomenon that shapes our culture, cognitions, and institutions, thereby distorting whether and how we perceive and make sense of racial disparities. Viewing within-domain disparities as part of a discrimination system requires better-specified analytic models. While the existence of an emergent system of über discrimination increases the difficulty of eliminating racial disparities, a systems perspective points to strategies to attack that system. These include identifying and intervening at leverage points, implementing interventions to operate simultaneously across subsystems, isolating subsystems from the larger discrimination system, and directly challenging the processes through which emergent discrimination strengthens within-subsystem disparities.
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Structural or institutional racism exists within, and is reinforced and supported by, multiple societal systems, including the housing market, education system, labor market, criminal justice system, credit markets, economy and health care system.
“structural or institutional racism (we use these terms interchangeably) exists within, and is reinforced and supported by multiple societal systems, including the housing market, the education system, the labor market, the criminal justice system, credit markets, the economy and the health care system.”
From Reducing Racial Inequities in Health: Using What We Already Know to Take Action (2019) · cites this paper as [12]
Racism has created dynamic, interdependent components or subsystems that reinforce each other and create and sustain reciprocal causality of racial inequities across various sectors of society.
“racism has created a set of dynamic, interdependent, components or subsystems that reinforce each other and create and sustain reciprocal causality of racial inequities across various sectors of society [12]”
From Reducing Racial Inequities in Health: Using What We Already Know to Take Action (2019) · cites this paper as [12]
Racial inequities in any given societal domain are a product of racist policies and processes across multiple domains and subsystems.
“racial inequities in any given societal domain are a product of racist policies and processes across multiple domains and subsystems [12]”
From Reducing Racial Inequities in Health: Using What We Already Know to Take Action (2019) · cites this paper as [12]
Civil rights by social domain, such as health care, education, employment, and housing, are multiply interconnected.
“Although we discuss civil rights by social domain, such as health care, education, employment, and housing, these rights are multiply interconnected Reskin (2012).”
From Civil rights as determinants of public health and racial and ethnic health equity: Health care, education, employment, and housing in the United States (2018) · cites this paper as Reskin (2012)
All domains of civil rights are mutually reinforcing when in place, and mutually harmful when unenforced.
“Moreover, it is likely that all domains of civil rights are mutually reinforcing when in place, and mutually harmful when unenforced Reskin (2012).”
From Civil rights as determinants of public health and racial and ethnic health equity: Health care, education, employment, and housing in the United States (2018) · cites this paper as Reskin (2012)
While the scope of efforts to protect civil rights has greatly expanded in recent history, evidence presented here and elsewhere shows that enforcement of civil rights has been uneven and incomplete, and, at least in domains of health care, education, and housing, resistance to civil rights laws and their implementation persists.
“While the scope of efforts to protect civil rights has greatly expanded in recent history, evidence presented here and elsewhere (Reskin, 2012, Smith, 1999, Chemerinsky, 2002) shows that enforcement of civil rights has been uneven and incomplete, and, at least in domains of health care, education, and housing, resistance to civil rights laws and their implementation persists.”
From Civil rights as determinants of public health and racial and ethnic health equity: Health care, education, employment, and housing in the United States (2018) · cites this paper as Reskin, 2012
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“For example, racial residential segregation allows whites access to more resources such as wealth (e.g. through housing values), neighborhood resources (e.g. full scale grocers), access to desirable jobs, the best public education, and distance from environmental hazards (Reskin, 2012).”
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“Historically, outcomes across various domains, including education, wealth, and health, have been marked by significant racial and ethnic disparities (Reskin, 2012).”
- Authors
- Reskin, B.
- Affiliations
- University of Washington (US)
- Corresponding author
- Reskin, Barbara
- Venue
- Annual Review of Sociology
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2012-08-11
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 17-35
- ISSN
- 0360-0572 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-2115
- OpenAlex
- W2098265062
- Semantic Scholar
- 466bbb9665576f86d936f7d765c72d3ebcc62178
- Cited by
- 558
- References
- 12
- Citations by year
- 2026: 34 · 2025: 49 · 2024: 66 · 2023: 63 · 2022: 66 · 2021: 81 · 2020: 53 · 2019: 28 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 7
- FWCI
- 6.04
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Annual Review of Sociology (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research
- Keywords
- racial discrimination, racial disparities, systems approach, emergent properties, leverage points, racial justice, social policy, structural racism
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