This is something that's been on my mind recently, and after reading an article today about the racism the Romani face in my usually progressive home country - Finland, I thought I'd bring the subject up.
Institutional racism, or a vicious circle of racism, is a phenomena where racism towards a particular group of people leads in to members of that group having difficulty finding employment, housing, or other things the majority population takes for granted, and that difficulty leading a part of that community to fall out of normal society, and into either dependence on welfare, or crime.
This leads to this maligned group then developing a larger than average proportion of criminals, and this increases the chances that the encounters of the average majority society member with a member of that minority will be negative.
Which feeds the racism - and makes people conclude that these "others" are inherently criminal, or morally corrupt.
It's a vicious cycle. But how can a society break out of it?
The article I read was about a young woman, of Romani heritage, that was taken into custody from her birth parents by child protective agency, and adopted by a regular Finnish family.
She does not remember or identify with the Romani culture very deeply, but she had a Romani name. She didn't think it would be a huge problem, but found that she had no success in finding an apartment to rent when she was planning to move out of her parent's home, and she got no replies to her job applications.
She ended up changing her name, and now, no longer with a Romani name, she was able to find an apartment and a job pretty easily.
The article continued to explain that this sort of difficulty has lead to families of Romani essentially depending on social services, and developing generational criminal cultures. This affects a significant portion of the Romani in Finland - not the majority, but a significant minority.
Enough to fuel the fires of racism viewing the Romani as criminals, or suspect.
I can understand this, and I'm more embroiled in the whole mess, because I drive the taxi, at night, in Helsinki - the Romani don't use the taxi very often (at least at night) and I'm sad to say that even though I rarely have Romani customers, the only (very rare) problems of a customer trying to leave without paying have been with a Romani customer, and a Somali customer (another group that uses the taxi very infrequently).
I purposefully choose not to discriminate against these groups, and will take them on as customers, even though it is a sad fact that I'm more likely to have problem with such a customer. I'd rather take that risk, than contribute to the problem of discrimination.
This is the fault of the cycle of racism and it's results on the target population, fueling crime and suspicion against the majority society, which feeds back to the racism. It is a bad situation for both the targeted group, and the society in which it happens.
So are there any good models on how to break that cycle? It is a difficult one indeed.
Institutional racism, or a vicious circle of racism, is a phenomena where racism towards a particular group of people leads in to members of that group having difficulty finding employment, housing, or other things the majority population takes for granted, and that difficulty leading a part of that community to fall out of normal society, and into either dependence on welfare, or crime.
This leads to this maligned group then developing a larger than average proportion of criminals, and this increases the chances that the encounters of the average majority society member with a member of that minority will be negative.
Which feeds the racism - and makes people conclude that these "others" are inherently criminal, or morally corrupt.
It's a vicious cycle. But how can a society break out of it?
The article I read was about a young woman, of Romani heritage, that was taken into custody from her birth parents by child protective agency, and adopted by a regular Finnish family.
She does not remember or identify with the Romani culture very deeply, but she had a Romani name. She didn't think it would be a huge problem, but found that she had no success in finding an apartment to rent when she was planning to move out of her parent's home, and she got no replies to her job applications.
She ended up changing her name, and now, no longer with a Romani name, she was able to find an apartment and a job pretty easily.
The article continued to explain that this sort of difficulty has lead to families of Romani essentially depending on social services, and developing generational criminal cultures. This affects a significant portion of the Romani in Finland - not the majority, but a significant minority.
Enough to fuel the fires of racism viewing the Romani as criminals, or suspect.
I can understand this, and I'm more embroiled in the whole mess, because I drive the taxi, at night, in Helsinki - the Romani don't use the taxi very often (at least at night) and I'm sad to say that even though I rarely have Romani customers, the only (very rare) problems of a customer trying to leave without paying have been with a Romani customer, and a Somali customer (another group that uses the taxi very infrequently).
I purposefully choose not to discriminate against these groups, and will take them on as customers, even though it is a sad fact that I'm more likely to have problem with such a customer. I'd rather take that risk, than contribute to the problem of discrimination.
This is the fault of the cycle of racism and it's results on the target population, fueling crime and suspicion against the majority society, which feeds back to the racism. It is a bad situation for both the targeted group, and the society in which it happens.
So are there any good models on how to break that cycle? It is a difficult one indeed.
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2y7bdFG
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