Which term refers to the manipulation of societal foundations to give preferences and advantages to whites and at the same time restrict the choices, rights, mobility, and access to people of color?

• A. Institutional Racism
• B. Cultural Racism
• C. Ethnocentrism
• D. White Privilege

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is how society’s structures and systems are arranged to benefit whites while limiting the rights, choices, and mobility of people of color. Institutional racism describes exactly that: policies, practices, and norms embedded in institutions—such as education, housing, employment, and the justice system—that produce racial advantages for whites and create barriers for people of color, often even when individuals within those systems do not hold explicit racist beliefs. This is about the way the social order itself operates to maintain racial hierarchy.

Cultural racism focuses on beliefs about cultures and the notion that cultural traits justify superiority, which is about attitudes and stereotypes rather than the actual operating of institutions. Ethnocentrism is a broader mindset of judging other cultures by one’s own standards, not specifically about systemic arrangements. White privilege refers to the unearned benefits that come with being white; while related, it describes the advantages experienced rather than the mechanisms that organize and control social structures to produce those advantages.