In many ways “systemic racism” and “structural racism” are synonymous.

It demands that we pay attention not just to individual-level discrimination, but to overall social outcomes. Racial equity holds society to a higher standard. This is in contrast to the current state of affairs in which a person of color is more likely to live in poverty, be imprisoned, drop out of high school, be unemployed and experience poor health outcomes like diabetes, heart disease, depression and other potentially fatal diseases.

In other words, racial equity would be a reality in which a person is no more or less likely to experience society’s benefits or burdens just because of the color of their skin. In a racially equitable society, the distribution of society’s benefits and burdens would not be skewed by race. Racial equity refers to what a genuinely non-racist society would look like. Instead it has been a feature of the social, economic and political systems in which we all exist. Structural racism is not something that a few people or institutions choose to practice. It identifies dimensions of our history and culture that have allowed privileges associated with “whiteness” and disadvantages associated with “color” to endure and adapt over time. Structural Racism:Ī system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity. It was created by the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change, a group that worked with leading innovators to produce strong and reliable frameworks for successful and sustainable community change and development. This glossary describes terms related to structural racism and terms used to promote racial equity analysis. It is part of America’s past and its present. Instead it has been part of the social, economic, and political systems in which we all exist.

Meaning to but hidden synonym