With friends like these, who needs enemies? Structural discrimination and good intentions in everyday interactions

In this article, I discuss structural discrimination, an underrepresented area of study in Danish discrimination research. I define it here as discursive and hegemonic. Structural discrimination is presented as an analytical approach with which to understand, identify and address how exclusion functions as otherwise indiscernible within widely accepted societal (?) norms. I introduce the concepts of microdiscrimination and benevolent discrimination as two ways of articulating particular and opaque forms of racial discrimination that occur in everyday Danish (and other) contexts, and have therefore become normalized.
I present and discuss discrimination as it surfaces in data from my empirical studies of discrimination in Danish contexts. These studies underscore how everyday assumptions and norms contribute to inadvertent discriminatory practices in particular ways. The article, in introducing the terms microdiscrimination and benevolent discrimination, hopes to identify and acknowledge attitudes and behaviours that fall outside the purview of everyday understandings of discrimination and racism. In addition, it is my hope that these terms can be of use with regard to addressing and reducing challenges within inclusion, diversity and difference frameworks.