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“Cultural racism” is perhaps the most insidious and damaging form of racism because it serves as an overarching umbrella under which individual and institutional racism thrive. It is defined as the individual and institutional expression of the superiority of one group's cultural heritage (arts/crafts, history, traditions, language, and values) over another group's, and the power to impose those standards on other groups (D. W. Sue, 2004). For example, Native Americansssss1 have at times been forbidden to practice their religions (“We are a Christian people”) or to speak in their native tongues (“English is superior”), and in contemporary textbooks the histories or contributions of people of color have been neglected or distorted (“European history and civilization are superior”). These are all examples of cultural racism.

To summarize, individual racism is the source of microaggressions; institutional/structural racism is the source of macroaggressions; and cultural racism validates, supports, and enforces the expression of both (D. W. Sue et al., 2019).

As awareness of overt racism has increased, however, people have become more sophisticated in recognizing the overt expressions of individual, institutional, and cultural bigotry and discrimination. Because of our belief in equality and democracy, and because of the Civil Rights movement, we as a nation now strongly condemn racist, sexist, and heterosexist acts because they are antithetical to our stated values of fairness, justice, and nondiscrimination (Dovidio, Gaertner, Kawakami, & Hodson, 2002; Sears, 1988). Unfortunately, this statement may apply only at the conscious level and may be changing as President Donald J. Trump and his allies express widely publicized racist, sexist, and xenophobic sentiments. For example, in the current political climate where those in authority openly express bigotry, researchers found that such displays foster ethnic hostility contagion among adolescents who overheard or witnessed overt acts of prejudice (Bauer, Cahliková, Chytilová, & Želinsky, 2018). The experimenters found that harmful behavior directed toward a disliked minority group is twice as contagious as behaviors that harm members of one's own group. They issued an ominous warning that even in social situations or societies with minimal interethnic hatred, witnessing or publicly overhearing biased behaviors or comments can create a “social contagion” where overt prejudice and discrimination can thrive and spread quickly.