Perspectives on the Origins and Effects of Racial Ideology: Key Arguments in Contemporary Scholarship

Abstract

This work is a comparative analysis of three diverse approaches on science, economics and politics and their respective interrelationship to race concluding that science itself might be both the product of and the cause of racial ideology; that a capitalist economic structure is the main driver behind America’s racial structure; and, that racial ideology has a major influence on the current political environment. Analyzed in this work are Eduardo Bonilla Silva’s Racism Without Racists, Audrey Smedley’s Race in North America, and Mona Sue Weissmark’s The science of Diversity. An analysis of Smedley and Weissmark’s work reveals that racial ideology developed through centuries old classifications of human beings along a hierarchical structure. The examination of the works of Smedley and Bonilla-Silva spans from the early sixteenth century through present day and shows how a capitalist ideology spurred the formation of a racial ideology that engendered slavery and led to economic structures destined to produce racial economic inequality. Finally, and utilizing all three works, the study undertakes the use of race to sway the public’s political decisions, specifically, the perceptions of politicians like former President Barack Obama and how race influenced the election of former President Donald Trump while highlighting the salience of race in the political arena. The study produces an enhanced understanding of the elements that undergird racial structures, leading to a conclusion that race and racism are not independent forces in our society.