Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the focus of the book—the scaffolding that supports systemic institutional racism. It provides a brief explanation of the paradox presented by the coexistence of a declaration that “all men are created equal” and the persistent inequality between whites and people of color in the United States. The chapter gives a contemporary example of racial oppression, describes types of racism, and provides the authors’ definition of racism. It also introduces concepts used throughout the book to explain institutional racism: social construction, oppression, racial scaffolding, and institutional web, and notes the active and complex nature of these concepts within the American societal infrastructure. In addition, social construction is discussed as it relates to perceptual differences between racial groups and as the basis for racial oppression within the infrastructure of American society. This chapter culminates by presenting concept that constructs racial scaffolding (poles and rungs). The concept of scaffolding is used throughout the book to provide an understanding of the various components of the society that contribute to and promote the continuation of racism in American society.
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Notes
- 1.
Indigenous peoples, also known as first peoples, aboriginal peoples, native peoples, or autochthonous peoples, are ethnic groups who are descended from and identify with the original inhabitants of a given region, in contrast to groups that have settled, occupied, or colonized the area more recently (UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2008). In the authors attempt to develop an anti-racism book with understanding of these terms we have chosen to identify these groups as First Nation People because this label is more preferential than the term Native American. This is the authors’ attempt to utilize terms that are embraced by the people and not just the language constructed by the federal government.
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Tourse, R.W.C., Hamilton-Mason, J., Wewiorski, N.J. (2018). Racial Scaffolding: Conceptual Overview. In: Systemic Racism in the United States. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72233-7_1
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