Denial of Institutional Racism Linked to Anti-Black Prejudice, Study Says

People who deny the existence of structural racism, a combination of institutional and societal factors that reinforce racial inequity, likely also exhibit anti-Black prejudices, a new study has found.

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The researchers sought to examine the associations of two different types of colorblind racial ideology, color evasion and power evasion, with anti-Black prejudices.

The color evasion ideology is defined by the idea that race and ethnicity are not important when discussing the issues of a group to reduce interracial tension and prejudice. Power evasion is the ideology by which people deny the existence of structural racism.

The researchers, led by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign doctoral student Jacqueline Yi, found that the average correlation between power evasion and prejudice against Black people was significant while the correlation between color evasion and anti-Black prejudice was not.

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“The denial of structural racism appears to be a big barrier to racial equity because it allows for more victim-blaming explanations of systemic inequality,” Yi said.

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