How did racial inequality in the United States come about? How did racist ideas about “types of people” come about?

For educators, knowing some history is crucial. In my classes, I do a gallop through almost 600 years of history, to show:

1) How racial categories were created despite their having no valid genetic basis, starting with colonial expansion and slavery (see anthropologist Audrey Smedley’s book Race: The Origin of a Worldview);

2) How those categories became central to who got which opportunities in the colonies and United States, in part through laws (see legal scholar Ian Haney Lopez’ book White By Law);

3) How these inequalities were “justified” by “scientists” trying to prove that some “races” were less valuable and less smart than others (see The Mismeasure of Man, by scientist Stephen J. Gould);

4) How racial inequality continued to accumulate over time, in large part through the unequal distribution of opportunity via schools. (To start thinking about this, see the work on “cumulative racial disadvantage” by economist Rebecca Blank: Blank, Rebecca M. 2005. Tracing the Economic Impact of Cumulative Discrimination. American Economic Review 95(2): 99-103.)

******(I may post a series of my Contextual Lectures on these points in the future on schoolracetalk.org.)