Structuralist and Individualist Accounts of Racism

Abstract

This thesis attempts to demarcate the use of the term “racism” by looking at two of main accounts of what the word means. The first, individualism, defines racism as normally meaning an individual act or attitude of antipathy or apathy towards a person on the basis of their perceived race. The second, structuralism, defines racism as normally meaning the various beliefs, ideologies, laws, and actions that a cultural group participates in as caused by the structures of society which negatively affect a racialized group. I believe that neither of these accounts can adequately define nor address racism. As is shown in chapter III, many of the critiques made against individualism do not adequately answer the major structuralist concerns, but, as is shown in chapter IV, the same can be said for individualist critiques of structuralism. As I show in chapter V, each of them address an important aspect of racism, but fail when they attempt to entirely address it. Both act as a useful evaluative lens, but I will argue that we should be able to use both, rather than have to explain one by using the other