Structural Racism: The Rules and Relations of Inequity

Abstract

  Why do racial inequalities endure despite numerous attempts to expand civil rights in certain sectors? A major reason for this endurance is due to lack of attention to structural racism. Although structural and institutional racism are often conflated, they are not the same. Herein, we provide an analogy of a “bucky ball” (Buckminster­fullerene) to distinguish the two concepts. Structural racism is a system of intercon­nected institutions that operate with a set of racialized rules that maintain White supremacy. These connections and rules al­low racism to reinvent itself into new forms and persist, despite civil rights interventions directed at specific institutions. To illustrate these ideas, we provide examples from the fields of environmental justice, criminal justice, and medicine. Racial inequities in power and health will persist until we redi­rect our gaze away from specific institutions (and specific individuals), and instead focus on the resilient connections among institu­tions and their racialized rules.Ethn Dis. 2021;31(Suppl 1):293-300; doi:10.18865/ed.31.S1.293