THE 18 TYPES OF RACISM AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS - ARTE - 2025

The most frequent types of racism are biological, sexual, cultural, internalized, spatial, institutional, colorism, xenophobia, age, and aversive. Unfortunately, today we are tired of seeing violent cases of racism, prejudice and social stereotypes towards different groups, be they foreigners, gays, disabled or any other condition that is different from oneself, in the media.

It is not uncommon to find dramatic news where people are attacked because of their physical condition or because they belong to a sexual group other than what is established by the norm. It is an act of discrimination that is carried out against a person or a group for racial or ethnic reasons, where certain individuals consider themselves superior and reject anyone who is not from their group.

Racism includes the belief that genetic or hereditary differences produce an inherent superiority or inferiority of one ethnic group to another. It is directed against an individual or group in a less privileged position.

It not only refers to social attitudes towards a certain group, but also to social structures and actions that oppress, exclude or discriminate against such individuals or groups.

We can also see racism in discriminatory laws, such as residential segregation, and in inequality of opportunities at the economic, educational or health level.

Racism has never ceased to exist, it has only been transformed as society has evolved. The main change is in the form of expression, as in the denominations that have been given, among them "modern racism", "symbolic racism", "aversive racism" or "subtle racism".

Types of racism

1- Biological racism

Biological racism rests on the belief that biological inheritance transmits superior physical and intellectual characteristics. It would therefore be to accept that there are races whose intellectual or physical capacity is above other races.

2- Sexual racism

Sexual racism consists of rejecting a person or group of people of a specific gender. Sometimes this type of racism can arise if the person has suffered some type of physical or psychological damage. In general, it usually occurs in women, especially if they have been severely hurt or humiliated by a man.

3- Cultural racism

Cultural racism consists of believing in a historical-cultural superiority of one race over another.

4- Racism due to skin color

This kind of racism is the most common, where a person or a group rejects others because of their skin color. The classic example we would have in racism between whites and blacks.

5- Racism due to disability

It would discriminate against all those people who have some kind of physical or mental disability, in such a way that they are denied accessibility to both housing and employment, even keeping them in poverty.

6- Racism due to the difference in religion

It occurs mainly in Middle Eastern countries, where some citizens may be discriminated against or mistreated just for belonging to a different religion.

7- Racism by social class

This type of racism can lead to behaviors as brutal as ending the life of anyone who has a sexual preference for the same sex, also known as homophobia.

9- Internalized racism

In this type of racism, people of color internalize the negative messages they have received and come to feel ashamed of themselves for being "different."

They even hate their skin color, hair, or other physical characteristics. This results in them developing low self-esteem and not feeling comfortable with themselves, because they believe that their race makes them inferior.

10- Space racism

Institutional racism refers to institutional and cultural practices that affect racial inequality. The benefits would be structured to the advantage of power groups. Examples of this racism are the Jim Crow and Redlining laws.

12- Racism in reverse

It is about directing racist behavior towards those people who are not used to racism. As for example towards the white race, since we are used to hearing jokes, series or TV programs where racism is centered on black people.

13- subtle racism

Those people who are victims of subtle racism may feel discriminated against or rejected by waiters, salespeople in stores, etc.

Surely it has ever happened to you that depending on the clothing you were wearing, the shop assistant was or not. It seems that they have a radar to detect those people who are not the latest in fashion or do not wear brands.

14- Colorism

It is often seen as a problem for those communities of color. It's kind of like discriminating against others for having darker skin than yours (which comes to be called curling the curl even more). For years in the black community, lighter skin was always seen as superior to darker.

Not only colorism occurs in the black community, but also in countries like Asia, where the products that exist to whiten the skin are sold very easily.

15- Xenophobia

It is the rejection, fear or hatred towards the foreigner. This racism consists of the rejection of one's own cultural identity, so that in xenophobia it is proposed to accept foreigners as long as they comply with the socio-cultural assimilation of the country in which they live.

In this way, the xenophobe justifies the segregation and discrimination that he does just by not losing his own identity.

Within xenophobia we can include Islamophobia, which is fear or a feeling of hostility towards Islamic culture.

More and more people are declaring themselves Islamophobic as a result of the events that are happening today. The government and the media are also responsible for generating a global fear of the entire society.

16- Ageism (age discrimination)

Ageism in Spanish comes to mean age discrimination.

Who has not ever heard that older people are slow, clumsy or have memory loss, without thinking about the consequences that this entails.

Already in several studies it was shown that those older people who lived under these labels felt and acted as they were told, with which their quality of life was affected.

Most older people are physically and mentally active regardless of age, yet social norms marginalize these people. A clear example is retirement.

17- Racism without knowing / unintentional

Unintentional racism can be just as destructive as intentional racism.

An example of this type of racism would be to put a picture of a black boy in a pot of chocolate and an image of a white boy in a pot of white chocolate. Another example would be to believe that all Chinese have the same eyes, when it is not true.

18- Aversive racism

According to the theory proposed by Samuel L. Gaertner and John F. Dovidio in 1986, there is a type of racism that consists in avoiding certain interactions with other ethnic groups due to the negative evaluations we have about them in our minds.

Aversive racism is characterized by expressions and attitudes that classify other individuals as "friend" or "enemy" depending on whether we consider ourselves part of the group to which they belong.

In a study carried out by David Amodio and Patricia Devine in 2006, a group of subjects had to indicate whether one of the words shown had a positive or negative value, at the same time that they were shown white or white faces. blacks.

The result was that when the faces were black, the participants assigned a negative word to them much more quickly than when the faces were white.