Antiracism Definitions and Context

Racism refers not just to the color of skin; it includes the social or institutional power that a particular color of skin has access to. The skin color with the most advantages in American society is white. As a group, white people automatically have access to more opportunities and better treatment from strangers — they benefit from having white skin, regardless of their individual characteristics, education, or experience. This is known as White Privilege.  

On the other side, Anti-Black racism is denying opportunity specifically to Black people. In America, there is a long, documented history of bias against Black people specifically, from slavery to deliberate pillaging of wealth and barriers to opportunity.  

Please note that white people cannot experience racism in the same way as people of color; while a white individual may point to a specific moment when they felt discriminated against for being white, this discrimination did not present them with a consistent, societal disadvantage.  

The term ‘antiracism’ is perhaps best known from a quote by activist and scholar Angela Davis: “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.”  

Antiracism is a part of our current national consciousness. To be antiracist is to consciously battle not just overt racism but also systemic racism. It requires devoting resources — time and money– to actively prevent unconscious or systemic racism from denying opportunity to people.  

If your organization is not antiracist — i.e., actively preventing unconscious biases or barriers — then it can be seen to be continuing systemic racism.  

Systemic racism is when an organization, structure, or policy discriminates against people of color. Systemic racism often is not conscious or intentional; its presence, though, can be identified if the system only serves or benefits white people. Systemic racism often shows up as barriers to entry and participation.  

For example, if an orchestra’s musicians, staff, board, and audience are all predominantly white, it is likely that there exists systemic racism that prevents the participation of people of color.  

Unconscious, perhaps unintentional, attitudes and stereotypes that influence decision-making. Unconscious bias often is exhibited when people rely on their “gut instinct” to determine like/dislike or fit/unfit within a group. All human beings have biases; scientists posit that biases were an immediate way for ancient tribal humans to recognize and protect their own. However, in our current society, biases shared by a large group of people can result in direct harm to another group of people in a way that is unjust and unmerited. 

Read Dr. Aaron Flagg’s article Anti-Black Discrimination in American Orchestras to learn how orchestra unions deliberately prevented Black musicians from joining unions and thereby working in classical music. This intentional discrimination has led to some orchestras continuing to perceive Black musicians as inherently less talented than white or Asian, or to assume that Black musicians simply are not interested in classical music. 

The words of astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, illustrating the lack of Black people in science, resonate with the music field as well:  

“I’ve been black all my life and so let me perhaps offer some insight from that perspective. I got to see how the world around me reacted to my expressions of these ambitions. All I can say that is the fact that I wanted to be a scientist, an astrophysicist was, hands-down, the path of most resistance through the forces of society. … Now here I am, I think, one of the most visible scientists in the land. And I look behind me and I say, ‘Where are the others who might have been this?’ And they’re not there. And I wonder: Where is the blood on the tracks that I happened to survive that others did not simply because of the forces of society that prevent it at every turn?”

Neil DeGrasse Tyson