The Changing Nature Of Racism: From Old To New?

This essay addresses the theoretical perspective of the changing nature of racism. The author looks at racism in the Australian culture against Aboriginal Australians. The author, Walker, distinguishes in detail the differences between old fashioned and modern prejudices. The goal of this essay is to integrate different approaches to understanding racism and prejudice.

In spite of the progress during the 1960s to eliminate institutionalized discrimination, Walker maintains that contemporary European Americans still harbor bias, exclusion, and racism. Many European Americans still have the widespread assumptions that African Americans are naturally inferior ("old fashioned" racism). Walker defines racism as more obvious and overt racism that endorses biased attitudes against minorities.

In addition, the author maintains that although bureaucratic policies that address racial superiority no longer exist to a certain extent on the books, the resurgence of cultural intolerance has taken a new face in America. Modern racism takes place in the form of resistance to integrate neighborhoods and equal opportunity efforts in the workplace.

Modern racism, defined as subtle and covert endorsement of attitudes, indirectly express biases against African Americans. There are non-race related reasons for behaviors that targets systemic oppression. According to Walker, this form of racism is subtle and just as damaging because it continues to limit African Americans or indigenous Australians.

In conclusion, the author states that many Americans profess that racism does not exist and, consequently, discounts its historical impact. Subsequently, there is the general attitude that there is not a need to alter structures to create equity in American society. Despite the decades of a concerted effort to put right past racial injustices, racism still pervades today, though perhaps not in the overtly hostile forms of the past.