Blog (5) 6: Argument on "How Structural Racism Works" by Tricia Rose

 Throughout her talk, Tricia Rose argues how structural racism and the colorblind ideology cannot exist within our society. Rose talks about structural racism as the measurement of acts of discrimination that usually create white advantages and disadvantages for people of color. She goes on to compare it to colorblind ideology and how it's the belief that ignorance will create a solution to racial inequality but in actuality, it takes away all measurements that structural racism utilizes to understand the spectrum of racial discrimination. Rose goes on to explain the HSRW Project and how it impacts the structures of mass media, housing, wealth/jobs, education, and criminal justice. All of these are heavily impacted by the systemic racism that exists within the gaps that our society creates through years of discrimination. Rose goes on to that racism is aided by the culturalization that criminalizes people of color, worsening the impact of structural racism that exists.

    The main point Rose wants us to take away is that colorblind ideology is not viable. Society cannot be left to its own devices to fix a system that they inherited broken. People can’t fix something that they choose not to see because it doesn’t impact them. It makes them uncomfortable knowing that they contribute to structural racism. Structural racism needs to be addressed for what it is and how it creates lasting impacts within our society. I think that structural racism needs to be blatantly addressed for what it is, just as the Fair Housing Act of 1968 exposed how not a single dollar was withheld from known organizations that participated in unequal housing. We need to hold ourselves accountable and accept that there is a problem within our society. We need to get comfortable with the idea of being comfortable and create an environment that makes it ok for us to call each other out for our contributions to ignorance. By making excuses for ourselves we turn against and fail each other because we can’t handle the concept that we are wrong but at the end of the day, we are! We all make mistakes and we are all ignorant so the question I leave with is how can we learn to accept our ignorance and grow from it when we are in a society that is so reluctant to accept we live in a structurally racist society. The Structural Racism Remedies Repository goes further in depth about the pillars from the HSRW project Rose talked about and expanded upon other structures where structural racism exists.