Society and Justice: Race and Ethnicity - Sociology and Criminology (week 4 lecture and seminar notes)

Module: Society and Justice


Lecture 4 – Race and Ethnicity


Lecture outline
Race, racism and sociology
 White privilege
 Critical race theory (CRT)
 Systemic racism

Ethnicity, racism and criminology
 Victimisation
 Self-reported offending studies vs BAME prison population – the committed
crime rates of ethnic minorities is lower than white people but this isn’t
reflected in the imprisonment population.
 News media depictions of ethnic minorities as a criminal threat


Race and sociology
In this lecture, we will look at race and sociology only, but you can talk about
ethnicity in your assessment if you want to.


Critical race theory, white privilege and systemic racism
 The three have many overlaps and are not opposing approaches or concepts
 White privilege and systemic racism are concepts
 Critical race theory is more of a theoretical approach to different topics and
looks at the racism within them.


MTV and white privilege
MTV have shown a number of programs that is based on the idea of white privilege –
it highlights the things that white people take for granted.


Systemic racism
Joe Biden recently spoke about systemic racism where he said that ‘systemic racism
is a stain on our nation’.




Critical race theory