This exists when implicit racist assumptions, particularly cultural ones, infect the conduct, practices and arrangements of institutions. This type of institutionalized racism often leads to a perception of a particular group, generally blacks, as "culturally deprived" and, although biologically equal, environmentally disadvantaged to the point of being somehow incapable of fully exploiting that biological equality. Noted African-American social psychologist, Kenneth B. Clark, in his book Dark Ghetto, comments on the negative effects seductive cultural deprivation theories exert on institutions. Of the American educational institution he writes:.
"To what extent are the contemporary social deprivation theories merely substitution notions of environmental immutability fatalism for earlier notions of biologically determined educational unmodifiability."(p 17).
Although the author shares Mr. Clark's position and is aware of the dangers presented by institutionalized cultural racism, he does not believe it to be an insurmountable obstacle to multiracial coalition building. He believes that the individual is the single most important consideration in coalition building and that it is the individual's personal ideology that will define his willingness to participate in multiracial organizations, institutionalized racism notwithstanding.
Wilson believes another obstacle to coalition building to be the widespread belief among the disadvantaged African-American class that their situation continues to exist primarily as a result of racial discrimination, independent of nonracial factors. The author explains at length that although racial bias continues to be an important factor aggravating black employment problems, it is primarily nonracial economic forces that have sharply increased joblessness and declining real wages among many African-Americans over the past several decades. The race neutral forces of the new global economy display an inherent bias in favor of the well educated computer literate, primarily white, professional over the less educated, unskilled worker.
