Examples Of Institutional Racism

One of all kinds of racism is institutional racism. It is the term for racism perpetrated by large systems than individual people. (Jackson, 1987) and it can be considered as the most important one in urban life, since it has crucial prohibitive effects on the main social necessaries in the modern city such as human rights, residential, educational equalities, equal employment opportunities and social integration. Institutional racism does not target an individual so it is mostly applied unintentional, through the public policies, institutional practices built on social stratification. (Bhatia, Hofrichter, 2010)

Britain could be the best country to observe serious deal of institutional racism. It is deeply rooted in British society’s unequal

(Jackson, 1987). It is the cycle of poverty based on race. When an ethnic group, or a specific race does not have job opportunities as much as dominant group does, they make less money, so that they can only afford cheap residences in isolated neighborhoods, they are excluded and as a result they cannot easily get jobs since they have been excluded. Even housing demand of ethnic groups is supplied by a governmental agencies, it fails to look for locations near jobs and important infrastructure, like working schools, decent public transportation, and other services. (GIA, 2009)

Another relevant example relating to institutional racism is that, in nearly all West European countries, Labor market legislation discriminates against foreigners. They are granted labor permits for a specific job in certain firm for a limited period. They do not have the right to move to better paid or more highly qualified positions, at least for some years (Martionelli, Rath, 2010)

Taking into consideration all the social outcomes of institutional racism, it certainly shapes and influences what many planners do. However the planning profession did not embrace the pursuit of racial justice until the 1960s. A group of planners, calling themselves "planners for equal opportunity" and led by Paul Davidoff (1965), actively supported the civil rights movement and proposed standards for racial justice.

The main purpose of social rented dwellings is to provide the opportunity of decent housing for the low-income. Therefore the target group is mainly the immigrants. Since the public housing is kept under control by the government, they might decide to allocate dwellings in a certain neighborhood exclusively to non- immigrants. Housing associations can subtly refuse to register immigrant families by saying that no large dwellings are currently vacant or by asking high registration fees. (van Kempen, Schutjens, van Weesep, 2002). Also officers who work for government and other institutions can allocate resources according to their own implicit goals, values, assumptions and ideologies. This means that stereotypes and racism might influence their decisions. As a matter of fact it is a plain example for individual racism caused by institutional racism. Even they are chosen for a public dwelling, sometimes there is quota that does not allow more than a certain percentage of immigrants to live in a given neighborhood or block of houses and when rental units are unavailable or inaccessible, households are forced to buy