Interrogating, Disrupting, and Dismantling the Cycle of Racism: The Importance of Historical and Structural Consciousness/Thinking

• In Event: Reparative Educational Futures: Reimagining Futures through Historical Consciousness and Anti-Colonial Praxis

Abstract

This theoretical paper has two main objectives: first, to present a conceptual model of the cycle of racism and explain how it is enacted, sustained, and reproduced; second, to explore the potential for dismantling that cycle. Our model contributes to multidisciplinary literature on racism by visually illustrating how racial hierarchies are structurally constructed and embedded in systems that align with colonial and racial capitalist interests (Grosfoguel, 2016; Mills, 2022; Sriprakash et al., 2022). Drawing on theoretical and empirical research, we show how race-neutral bureaucratic practices such as displacement, marginalization, and unequal access to resources sustain racial inequality (Alexander, 2020; Bonilla-Silva, 2014; Goldberg, 2002; Ray, 2019; Wilkerson, 2020). We argue that dismantling the cycle of racism requires cultivating historical consciousness and structural competencies to reveal the racialized logics that govern our systems, institutions, and everyday experiences. Racial hierarchy, we contend, is not innate but historically produced and perpetuated through state mechanisms, particularly within settler colonial contexts (Allen, 2012; Goldberg, 2002). Recognizing this opens possibilities for collective agency, both to resist racialized ideologies and to reimagine shared humanity rooted in justice. In line with the conference theme, our work underscores how structural competencies can expose the role of state power in racializing people, land, knowledge, and resources. This recognition challenges dominant narratives of neutrality and meritocracy, shifting focus to how racial ideology is learned and reinforced through institutionalized legal and social processes. Understanding this dynamic enables individuals to recognize how they are positioned within the racial hierarchy and empowers them to disrupt its reproduction. Beyond theoretical framing, we emphasize the value of experiential learning as a catalyst for structural understanding and resistance. Opportunities for critical dialogue and reflection at heritage sites such as plantations, slave dungeons, prisons, and sites of resistance can foster cognitive dissonance and confront internalized narratives of domination or subjugation. These affective and epistemic encounters provide access to counter-histories that help individuals uncover the ongoing impact of colonial and racial hierarchies and activate a reparative consciousness (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018; Walsh, 2022). Although grounded in the U.S. context, we situate our work within a transnational frame. The formation and persistence of white supremacy, from the transatlantic slave trade to global colonial systems, requires a global lens to understand how structural racism transcends national borders (Pierre, 2012; Shumway, 2018). As such, efforts to dismantle racism must also operate across these borders, drawing on global histories and solidarities. Ultimately, this paper calls for a shift in how we understand, teach, and interrupt racism, not as an individual problem, but as a historically rooted, structurally maintained, and globally entangled system that can be collectively dismantled through conscious, reparative praxis.

Author

• Osly J. Flores, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign