The Pragmatics of Institutional Racism: Beyond Words

Abstract

The modern arguments about the apparent emergence of a "new"racism are noted and discussed. While this "new" racism refers to forms of racist talk which lack the crude bigotry often associated with racism, there seems to be an inconsistency between concern about such a development and the recorded levels of crude racism in the community as evidenced by racial attacks and harassment as well as indicators of racial inequality. Research into responses to Black people compared to White people attempting to join an organization is presented and discussed in the light of these modern ideas. The organizations in question were voluntary social service ones who were approached by volunteers, through letters, about the availability of voluntary work with the organization. Some of the letters of enquiry were signed by a person using the name Croft and others using the name Kumari. These were deliberately chosen to represent White and Black applicants. Differences between the replies to the Black and White signed letters were analyzed in order to assess discrimination on the basis of the race of the applicant. While White and Black applicants were just as likely to receive replies, the amount of encouragement given to the two types of applicant differed significantly with White applicants receiving the highest levels of encouragement. Furthermore, there was evidence that there was greater "embarrassment" at refusing a White person work than for a Black person. If the applicant was refused voluntary work, White people were much more likely to be made suggestions of other organizations to approach for work, for example. The work of "excusing" rejection primarily went into replying to White applicants, there seemed to be less of a problem rejecting Black applicants. Contrary to some views about present-day racism, racial discrimination required no special justification in language.