Racism is a deep-seated issue in society, maintained by discrimination and prejudice.  Racist discrimination can range from unintentional misunderstandings and lack of awareness through deliberate and/or malicious acts.

Different types of race discrimination

The Equality Act 2010 states that there are four main types of discrimination within the protected characteristic of race, these are:

Direct discrimination - Direct discrimination is when someone is treated unfairly because of a protected characteristic, such as their race.  Direct discrimination also could include how a person’s race is perceived regardless of whether this perception is correct or not, or the race of someone they are associated with such as a friend or family member.   

Indirect discrimination – Indirect racism is usually less obvious than direct racism.  This can happen when an organisation puts a rule, policy or a way of doing things in place which has a worse or negative impact on someone with a protected characteristic than someone without one. 

Harassment - Harassment occurs when someone makes you feel humiliated, offended or degraded.  Harassment is defined as unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic with its purpose of violating a person’s dignity and or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment for that person.

Victimisation - This is when you are treated badly or more unfavourably than others because you have made an allegation, supporting a complaint of discrimination, given evidence relating to a complaint of discrimination or raised a grievance concerning equality or discrimination under the Equality Act 2010.  Victimisation may also occur if a person is suspected of doing one or more of the above.  

Other forms of racism include:

Microaggressions - is a term used for brief and commonplace daily remarks, questions, or actions whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative prejudicial slights and insults, particularly towards ethnic minority groups or groups that are discriminated against or subject to stereotypes.

Macroaggressions - Large-scale or overt aggression toward those of a certain race, culture or gender.  Macroaggressions are obvious intentional insults where there is no chance of a mistake on the part of the transgressor to be provoking, insulting, or otherwise discourteous. 

Racial Gaslighting - racial gaslighting is related specifically to psychological abuse surrounding racism.  Racial gaslighting is when a victim is led to doubt and question their own sense of reality regarding racism.  This can include countering a person’s memory of events, withholding "understanding", refusing to listen, "forgetting" or denying that something happened, playing down a person's feelings as unimportant or irrational, questioning the credibility of what the person is saying and victim-blaming.

For more information about racial discrimination and some useful resources, please see the useful resources section of this page.