Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-x2lbr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-06T22:53:25.768Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What is Systemic Racism?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2025

Aaron M. Griffith
Aaron M. Griffith*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Affiliate Faculty in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies College of William and Mary, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: amgriffith@wm.edu
Get access

Abstract

Black K-12 students are four times more likely to receive out-of-school suspension than their white peers; housing lenders are more likely to offer black homebuyers subprime loans even when they qualify for prime loans; employers call back candidates for interviews with ‘white-sounding’ names 50 per cent more often than candidates with ‘black-sounding’ names. All these are said to be examples of systemic racism. But what does it mean to say that racism is systemic? Using the tools of social ontology, this article explores the various ways in which social systems can be racist.

Keywords

injusticeracismsystemicinstitutions

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Think , Volume 23 , Issue 68 , Autumn 2024 , pp. 79 - 87
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Institute of Philosophy

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Alexander, M. (2010) The New Jim Crow (New York: The New Press).Google Scholar
Ásta, (2018) Categories We Live By (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Barnes, E. (2017) ‘Realism about Social Structure’, Philosophical Studies 174: 2417–33.10.1007/s11098-016-0743-yCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blum, L. (2002) ‘Racism: What it is and What it isn't’, Studies in Philosophy and Education 21: 203–18.10.1023/A:1015503031960CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2013) Racism without Racists, (Rowman and Littlefield).Google Scholar
Case, S. (2019) ‘The Boy Who Inflated the Concept of ‘Wolf’’, Quillette, https://quillette.com/2019/02/14/the-boy-who-inflated-the-concept-of-wolf/.Google Scholar
Coates, T. (2014) ‘The Case for Reparations’, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/.Google Scholar
Feagin, J. (2006) Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression (New York: Routledge).Google Scholar
Fleetwood, S. (2008) ‘Institutions and Social Structures’, Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 38: 241–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabrielson, R., Sagar, E. and Grochowski, R. (2014) ‘Deadly Force, in Black and White’, ProPublica, https://www.propublica.org/article/deadly-force-in-black-and-white.Google Scholar
Garcia, J. L. A. (1996) ‘The Heart of Racism’, Journal of Social Philosophy 27: 5–46.10.1111/j.1467-9833.1996.tb00225.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garcia, J. L. A. (1997) ‘Current Conceptions of Racism’, Journal of Social Philosophy 28: 5–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardimon, M. (1994) ‘Role Obligations’, Journal of Philosophy 91: 333–63.10.2307/2940934CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, S. (2012) Resisting Reality (New York: Oxford University Press).10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199892631.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, S. (2016) ‘What is a (Social) Structural Explanation?’, Philosophical Studies 173: 113–30.10.1007/s11098-014-0434-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, S. (2022) ‘Failures of Methodological Individualism: The Materiality of Social Systems’, Journal of Social Philosophy 53: 512–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill Collins, P. (2009) Black Feminist Thought, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge).Google Scholar
Hodgson, G. (2006) ‘What are Institutions’, Journal of Economic Issues, 40: 1–25.10.1080/00213624.2006.11506879CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Homer, (2017) ‘How Chicago Built its “Superhighways”’, Medium, https://medium.com/@freerangehuman/how-chicago-built-its-superhighways-2a3803ce919c.Google Scholar
McIntosh, K, Moss, E., Nunn, R. and Shambaugh, J. (2020) ‘Examining the Black–White Wealth Gap’, Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining-the-black-white-wealth-gap/.Google Scholar
Massey, D. and Denton, N. (1993) American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
N.C. State Conference v. McCrory, No. 16-1468 (4th Cir. 2016) https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/161468.P.pdf.Google Scholar
Newkirk II, V. (2018) ‘Voter Suppression is Warping Democracy’, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/poll-prri-voter-suppression/565355/.Google Scholar
Porpora, D. (1989) ‘Four Concepts of Social Structure’, Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 19: 195–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothstein, R. (2017) The Color of Law (New York: Liveright Publishing).Google Scholar
Searle, J. (2010) Making the Social World (New York: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shelby, T. (2002) ‘Is Racism in the “Heart”?’, Journal of Social Philosophy 33: 411–420.10.1111/0047-2786.00150CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sundstrom, R. (2003) ‘Race and Place: Social Space in the Production of Human Kinds’, Philosophy and Geography 6: 83–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, P. (2013) Race: A Philosophical Introduction (Malden, MA: Polity Press).Google Scholar
Taylor, P. (2016) Black is Beautiful (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell).10.1002/9781119118527CrossRefGoogle Scholar