Race and structural injustice
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Flip to reveal answersStructural injustice (about race)?
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Question
Structural injustice (about race)?
Answer
Unfairness built into and passed on by a society's systems over time — not mainly in today's individual hearts.
Question
Why can racial inequality outlast racist laws?
Answer
Wealth, housing and opportunity are inherited, so gaps created generations ago keep shaping lives today.
Question
Charles Mills' Racial Contract?
Answer
An unspoken, unsigned agreement that quietly built society to favour some racial groups — wired into institutions we still live in.
Question
How does Mills use the social-contract idea?
Answer
He turns it against itself: the frame meant to explain fairness exposes the silent deal that left some groups out.
Question
Racial Contract vs an ordinary contract?
Answer
An ordinary contract is written and signed; Mills' Racial Contract is unspoken, unsigned and largely unacknowledged.
Question
Does ending racist laws end racial inequality?
Answer
Necessary but not enough — the inequality is inherited and institutional, so the systems that pass it on must change too.
Question
The critical move in Mills (Go further)?
Answer
Using a theory's own tool (the social contract) to reveal what it hid — the deal that was actually struck.
Question
Structural injustice in one line?
Answer
A past injustice, inherited across generations, becomes a present one — even with no one acting unfairly today.
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Topic 8.2 hub
Equality and discrimination
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