The depiction of crime in fictional mass media occurs differently for people depending on the color of their skin and what this color has come to symbolize in such a complex system of race, ethnicity, and stratification in the United States.
The Trayvon Martin case has become a national media event complete with competing individual evaluations, competing definitions of racism and competing blame narratives. In these “racial events,” Americans propensity for individualistic analysis coalesces with America’s racialized culture in order to produce a mix of individual evaluations and sweeping claims about racial groups and the institutional privileges and disadvantages of different racial groups. In my experience, this process reinforces many of the flawed ideas about race that sociologists regularly debunk...
Institutional racism is one of the key concepts sociology professors try to impart to students. Institutional racism refers to systemic processes which perpetuate racial inequality even in the absence of racial prejudice and intentional individual-level discrimination. The concept helps students understand how decisions made in the past affects present-day inequality and furthermore that present-day decisions do not take place in a race-neutral realm. Examining how institutions function discourages the use of anecdotal evidence and encourages students to employ a social-level...
by paulabowles Ten years after the publication of Sir William Macpherson’s report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, and the allegation of ‘institutional racism’ still hangs heavily over British policing. Although, there remains doubt over whether or not this allegation is still relevant – and indeed some confusion, for many, as to what the term ‘institutional racism’ actually means – it would seem that some positive steps have been taken. Most recently, the British Sikh Police Association has been set...
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