Racial violence is a multifaceted phenomenon involving acts of aggression, harm, or coercion directed towards individuals or groups based on their actual or perceived race or ethnicity, encompassing both overt physical attacks and systemic forms of harm embedded within institutions and social structures. As a research concept, it investigates the motivations, mechanisms, historical trajectories, and consequences of such racially targeted harm, analyzing its manifestation across interpersonal, collective, and structural levels. Key characteristics include the centrality of race or ethnicity as the basis for targeting and the asymmetry of power often involved, making its study crucial for understanding the persistence of racial inequality, dynamics of power and oppression, and the socio-historical construction of race.