E-like Institutions with Racist Role Occupants

We have been focusing on the special, idealized case of pure institutional racism in which all the individual office holders who participate in E-like institutions are free of racism.

Suppose each of the individual officers in an E-like racist institution endorses or would endorse the institution’s racist goal were they to become aware of it. Suppose that each of them approves or would approve of the material consequences of the institution’s operation if they became aware of it. Suppose further that each is personally hostile to the racial group or groups that are disadvantaged by the institution’s operation. Suppose, in other words, that each is personally racist.¹⁵ Now, because the institution in which they participate is E-like, their personal racism does no heavy lifting: its racist operation does not depend upon their racism. Nonetheless, these individuals are blameworthy.¹⁶ One thing for which they are to blame is their personal racism (assuming that agents are responsible for the racial attitudes they hold). Another thing for which they are likely to deserve blame is compounding the harm done by the institutions in which they participate. Their personal racism disposes them to perform actions that make things worse. Racist officers might, for example, augment the harm attaching to an intrinsically racist task by carrying it out enthusiastically, using a derogating tone of voice, or casting a hostile glance, etc. Unlike the nonracist individuals participating in E-like institutions we considered earlier, these individuals can be criticized as oppressors. And because each of them endorses or would endorse their institution’s racist goal and approve or would approve of the effects of its operation, they can be blamed as individuals for enabling the institution to actualize its malefic goals.

Upshot. We have been focusing on E-like institutions, that is, social institutions that have a covert racist goal G and are organized in such a way that they actualize G their normal oper­ation, on institutions that are structurally racist. What we have seen is that the fact that an insti­tution is E-like does not entail that its officers are free from blame. The individual officers of such an institution may not be racist and consequently not blameworthy for racism. On the other hand, the individual officers of such an institution may be racist and deserve blame for their racism. The attitude-independent model of institutional racism on which racist institutions can promote racial inequality in the absence of personal racism on the part of office holders, does not absolve individuals of all responsibility.

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