Essay Exam

Racist Ideology as a Social Force (Feagin, Chapter 3)

This chapter examines the overarching racist ideology

of the American past and present, with an emphasis on

the role of white elites in framing and perpetuating an

antiblack ideology. Major ideological frameworks,

including racist frameworks, are typically created,

codified, and maintained by those at the top of a

society. Racist thought did not come accidentally to the

United States. It was, and still is, actively developed

and propagated.

[A] The Emerging Anti-Black Ideology: From the

1600s to the 1830s

(1) Religious Ideology of Black Subjugation: From

the 1600s to the 1800s English and other European

Protestants dominated the religious scene on the

Atlantic coast of North America, and their religious

views incorporated notions of European superiority

and non-European inferiority. The early English

Protestants regarded themselves as Christian and

civilized (i.e., rational, ascetic, self-governing, and

sexually controlled), but those they conquered as

unchristian and savage (i.e., irrational, uncivilized,

instinctual, and uncontrolled).

(2) Developing an Explicit Ideology of "Race": A

clearly delineated concept of "race" as a distinctive

pseudo-biological category was developed by northern

Europeans and European Americans about the time of

the American Revolution. Based on the radical new

idea that "all men are created equal," slavery was

challenged as immoral. In response, the idea of white

supremacy was developed. For example the

Naturalization Act of 1790 allows only “free white

persons” to become U.S. citizens.

(3) Scientific Racism: From the middle of the

eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth

century, the physical and social sciences were

regularly used to defend the oppression of Americans

of color. Leading scientists developed a scientific view

of black Americans and other peoples of color as

innately and permanently inferior beings. In 1776, for

example, the prominent German anatomist and

anthropologist, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, worked

out a racial classification that became influential.

[B] Expanding the Racist Ideology: From the 1830s

to the 1930s

(1) Reactions to the Antislavery Movement: During

the mid-decades of the nineteenth century the growing

antislavery movement in Britain and the United

States spurred an elite reaction. In a vigorous attempt

to defend slavery against abolitionism, many U.S. and

European intellectuals argued for white supremacy and

African inferiority. Preeminent physical scientists

accepted the idea of white supremacy. For example, in

the mid-nineteenth century the leading French

anatomist Paul Broca argued that variations in human

head shape were linked to significant differences

among the races.

(2) Social Darwinism: In his momentous and

influential writings Charles Darwin applied his

important evolutionary idea of natural selection not

only to animal development but also to the

development of "races" of human beings. For example,

he saw natural selection at work in the killing of the

indigenous peoples of Australia by the British, wrote

of blacks as a category between whites and gorillas,

and spoke against social programs for the "weak"

because they permitted the least desirable people to

survive. The "civilized races" would eventually replace

the "savage races throughout the world." During the

late 1800s and early 1900s a perspective called "social

Darwinism" developed the ideas of Darwin and

argued aggressively that certain "inferior races" were

less evolved, less human, and more apelike than the

"superior races."

(3) Eugenics Movements: By the late 1800s a

eugenics movement was spreading among scientists.

U.S. eugenicists opposed "racial mixing" (or

"miscegenation") because it destroyed racial purity.

Allowing "unfit races" to survive would destroy the

"superior race" of northern Europeans. The belief that

government intervention was required to weed out or

neutralize inferior breeding stock could justify a

variety of policies, including immigration restriction,

prohibition of interracial marriage, the forced

sterilization of undesirables, and ultimately the

euthanasia of entire categories of people in Nazi

Germany.

(4) “One Drop Rule”: During the segregation era, the

“one drop rule” becomes codified in law and custom,

appearing on legal documents ranging from birth

records to marriage licenses to census forms.

[C] Perpetuating and Developing the Racist

Ideology: Contemporary America

The Second World War was the climax and turning

point in the history of racism in the twentieth century.

It is the reaction of the Western world to the Nazis’

murder of six million Jews. The resulting shock did

more to discredit racism than had any previous

historical event. Within the United States, there was a

growing realization among those concerned with

international relations that Jim Crow not only was

analogous to Nazi treatment of the Jews and thus

morally indefensible but was also contrary to the

national interest. During the early Cold War, the

Soviets gained an enormous propaganda advantage in

calling attention to America’s practice of segregation

and to the incidents of racial violence and terrorism

that continued to occur in the southern states. Indeed, it

was not until 1967 that a Supreme Court decision

nullified the last state laws enshrining the central

symbol of a racist regime—the ban on intermarriage.

(1) Increased Equality Rhetoric: Racial segregation

and protests against it were creating international

problems for a U.S. government trying to fight a racist

Nazi Germany and, after World War II, trying to

contend with the Soviet Union for the allegiance of

non-European nations around the globe. From the

1960s onward the rhetoric of racial equality, or at least

of an equality of opportunity, grew in volume among

members of the white elite.

(2) A More Conservative Orientation since 1969 to

the Present: The federal courts provide an important

example of this conservative shift. In the decades since

the 1970s, U.S. Supreme Courts have often ruled that

group-remedy programs against racial discrimination

violate the U.S. Constitution, which they assert only

recognizes the rights of individuals, not groups.

(3) Still Arguing for Biological "Races": Since the

late 1960s several social scientists have continued to

argue that racial-group differences in average scores on

the so-called IQ tests reveal genetic differences in

intelligence between black and white Americans.

Perhaps the most widely read example of biological

determinism is a 1990s book, The Bell Curve. The

authors of The Bell Curve argue that IQ test data show

that black (and Latino) Americans are inferior in

intelligence to whites.

(4) Cultural Racism: Another aspect of older racist

views that can be found in new dress is the idea of

what one might call "cultural racism"—the view that

blacks have done less well than whites because of their

allegedly deficient culture with its weak work ethic

and family values. Prominent author Ken Auletta

wrote an influential set of New Yorker articles, later

expanded in his book The Underclass. He accented the

black underclass and its supposed immorality, family

disorganization, and substandard work ethic. A later

article in the Chronicle of Higher Education surveyed

the growing research on the underclass, noting that

"the lives of the ghetto poor are marked by a dense

fabric of what experts call 'social pathologies'—

teenage pregnancies, out-of-wedlock births, single-

parent families, poor educational achievement, chronic

unemployment, welfare dependency, drug abuse, and

crime—that, taken separately or together, seem

impervious to change."

(5) Asserting Innocence, Denying Racism: An

important aspect of the contemporary ideology

buttressing systemic racism is the omnipresent notion

of white innocence. Today, many whites deny the

seriousness of antiblack racism in the past and present

history of the United States. Members of the white

elite see racism as having declined significantly in

importance. For that reason they often argue that

certain government action, such as affirmative action,

is no longer needed as a remedy for discrimination.

(6) Romanticizing the Past: In the best-selling book

The End of Racism (1995) journalist Dinesh D'Souza

has argued not only that antiblack racism has come to

an end but also that the historical background of white

oppression of black Americans has been misperceived.

In his view the enslavement of black Americans had

some very good features: "Slavery proved to be the

transmission belt that nevertheless brought Africans

into the orbit of modern civilization and Western

freedom."

(7) Fear of a Multiracial, Multicultural Future:

Racist thinking is more than rationalizing oppression,

for it also represents a defensive response, a fear of

losing power to Americans of color. In several

speeches and articles Patrick Buchanan, for example,

has argued that "our Judeo-Christian values are going

to be preserved and our Western heritage is going to be

handed down to future generations and not dumped on

some landfill called multiculturalism."