What's the Difference Between Prejudice and Racism?

Though they're often used interchangeably, prejudice and discrimination are two distinct concepts that represent different aspects of bias and unfair treatment.

Racism involves one group having the authority to enforce systematic discrimination (or unequal treatment of different groups) through societal institutions and policies, or by influencing cultural beliefs and values that uphold racist practices. On the other hand, prejudice is a typically negative attitude held by one individual or group toward another group and its members—often based on unfounded generalizations or stereotypes. While related, racism encompasses not only the attitudes fostered by prejudice but also the systemic nature of discriminatory practices and policies.

Why Understanding Racism and Prejudice Matters

Americans are still vastly divided when it comes to recognizing whether society overlooks racial discrimination, with nearly 90% of Black Americans believing it is a bigger problem than society seeing racism where it doesn't exist, compared to 45% of White Americans. Understanding the distinction between racism and prejudice is crucial because it enables people to understand the interplay between individual biases and systemic inequalities, thereby making more effective strategies to combat racism possible.

What Is Prejudice?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines prejudice as "an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge,” and this resonates with how sociologists understand the term. Quite simply, it is a pre-judgment that one makes of another that is not rooted in their own experience. For example, from a sociological standpoint, the "dumb blonde" stereotype and the jokes that reproduce it can be considered a form of prejudice.

While we typically think of prejudice as a negative view toward another group, prejudices can be negative or positive (i.e. when people hold positive stereotypes about members of other groups). Some prejudices are racial in nature and have racist outcomes, but not all forms of prejudice do, and this is another reason why it's important to understand the difference between prejudice and racism.

An Example of Prejudice

Jack explained that as a blond person of German descent, he experienced pain in his life due to the prejudice aimed at blond people. But are the negative consequences of prejudice the same for Jack as those who are called other racial slurs? Not quite, and sociology can help us understand why.

While calling someone a "dumb blonde" could very well result in feelings of frustration, irritation, discomfort, or even anger for the person targeted by the insult, there is no research to suggest that hair color affects one’s access to rights and resources in society, like college admission, the ability to buy a home in a particular neighborhood, access to employment, or the likelihood that one will be stopped by the police. This form of prejudice, most often manifested in bad jokes, may have some negative impact, but it is unlikely to have the same kinds of systemic negative impacts that racism does.

What Is Racism?

Race scholars Howard Winant and Michael Omi define racism as a way of representing or describing race that “creates or reproduces structures of domination based on essentialist categories of race.” In other words, racism results in an unequal distribution of power based on race. Because of this, using racial slurs does not simply signal prejudice. Rather, it reflects and reproduces an unjust hierarchy of racial categories that negatively impact the life chances of people of color, as is the case with slurs popularized by White Americans during the era of African enslavement.

Using offensive terms encapsulates a wide swath of disturbing racial prejudices. The wide-sweeping and deeply detrimental implications of this term and the prejudices it reflects and reproduces make it vastly different from suggesting that people with blond hair are dumb. For example, the "n-word" was used historically, and is still used today, to perpetuate systemic inequalities based on race. This makes the use of this term racist, and not simply prejudiced, as defined by sociologists.

The Consequences of Systemic Racism

Racist behaviors and beliefs—even when they are subconscious or semi-conscious—fuel structural inequalities of race that plague society. The racial prejudices encapsulated in racial slurs are manifested in the disproportionate policing, arrest, and incarceration of Black men and boys (and increasingly Black women); in racial discrimination in hiring practices; in the disproportionate lack of media and police attention devoted to crimes against Black people; and, in the lack of economic investment in predominantly Black neighborhoods and cities, among many other problems that result from systemic racism.

While many forms of prejudice are troubling, not all forms of it are equally consequential. Those that beget structural inequalities, like prejudices based on gender, sexuality, race, nationality, and religion, for example, are very different from others.