Examples Of Institutional Racism

Institutional racism is societal patterns that influence discrimination against a particular race or ethnicity (Hart 2015: 14.) An example of institutional racism can be seen in the south side of Chicago, specifically with the schools located there. As a result of the poverty invested communities all around the area, children attending schools are often times forgotten about. Most of the schools are filled with minority groups, which causes schools to receive poor funding from Chicago Public Schools (CPS). On top of that, the south side is predominately a African-America community which only adds to the discrimination. While on the other hand, there are schools which receive more than enough funding in order to function thanks to all the resources available to their students which only tend to increase their academic success.
This privilege often times comes with unknowing advantages, which only increase the groups’ chances to have success. An example of this can be seen in how certain people portray whites versus blacks. For example, let’s say a woman is walking late at night and stumbles across an African-American individual. This woman might wrongfully portray that individual as a mugger or even worse force herself to take a different route home just because she believes her life might be in danger if she crosses paths with this particular individual. Whereas, if a woman stumbles across a white individual the chances of her switching sidewalks are relatively low, thanks to stereotypes depicting black individuals as dangerous individuals and whites as harmless for the most