structural racism

Question 1

systemic/structural racism

Answer 1

“Processes of racism that are embedded in laws, policies, and practices of society and its institutions that provide advantages to racial groups deemed as superior, while differentially oppressing, disadvantaging or otherwise neglecting racial groups viewed as inferior” … Williams et al., 2019

Question 2

give an example of structural racism

Answer 2

Ex. US HEALTH CARE SYSTEM ALGORITHMS
· Us health care system uses algorithms to guide health decisions
· Obermeyer et al: in one widely used algorithm, black patients assigned the same level of risk by the algorithm are sicker than white patients (means that the number of black patients identified for extra care is reduced by more than half)
This happens because the algorithm uses health costs as a proxy for health needs - less money is spent on black patients, so the algorithm concludes that they are healthier than equally sick white patients

SIMILAR ISSUES…
· Canadian medical system
· Mortgage lending
Housing inequalities - wells fargo subprime mortgages

CANADIAN CENSUS:
· Doesn’t consider Indigenous peoples visible minorities (what about black-indigenous identity?)
· White, south asian, chinese, black, filipino, arab, latin american, southeast asian, west asian, korean, japanese, other
· Collapses data across minoritized groups with wildly different experiences
· Can’t disaggregate data by racial group
If findings are disaggregated by visible minority group, they aren’t compared to white people

Question 3

why doesn’t demographic integration work as a solution to structural racism

Answer 3

· Doesn’t work if its not accompanied by an effort to undo the racial structure of society - power dynamics
Can’t address one part of the system in isolation

Question 4

why doesn’t reducing income inequality work as a solution to structural racism?

Answer 4

People also tend to think that racial disparities in health are because of socio-economic status differences not race
- Idea is that minority tend to be lower SES
- Low SES is associated with poor outcomes

Could we work to raise SES in minorities in order to limit racial disparities in health?

Study by Colen et al 2018 found:
- Found that racial disparities in self reported health are apparent even among people who have been upwardly socially mobile
- Disparities can almost fully be accounted for by discrimination depending on time (acute v chronic) and population (black or latinx - these are the groups that were studied)

Reducing income inequality can help but…

Differential exposures may drive continued disparities.
Ex. Black people do not benefit as much from the reduction of risk factors and introduction of promotive factors compared to white people (Assari, 2018)

Question 5

structural inequalities

Answer 5

• Labor market preferences and practices
  
  • Discrimination
  • Cumulative disparities due to initial advantage
    Cost of upward social mobility

Question 6

racial disparities in unemployment

Answer 6

· Between 1996 and 2006 black people in Montreal with graduate degrees had the same unemployment rate (13.4%) as non black people who didn’t finish high school
· Cbc article: people with ‘asian sounding names’ are 20-40% less likely to get a callback when applying

Question 7

cumulative disparities due to initial advantage

Answer 7

· Haves may be better able to capitalize on resources than have-nots
Initial advantage snowballs and leads to greater cumulative advantage

Question 8

examples of other structural racial disparities

Answer 8

in computers too!

· AI facial recognition -  5 known wrongful arrests based on AI face recognition have all been with black males Social media filters and generative art changes black people's facial features, skin, and hair to look more eurocentric