ABSTRACT
In this chapter we extend our arguments about systemic racism in previous chapters by examining in more detail one central and revealing case about how white Americans, elite and ordinary whites, have racially framed and organized U.S. society—and thereby often taken action to prevent access to real liberty and socioeconomic advancement for a great many Americans. Our specific example of this systemic discrimination by elite white men involves one of the country’s oldest, largest, and most oppressed communities of color—African Americans. Our historical and contemporary examples in this chapter underscore the centrality of white-on-black oppression to the past and present development of U.S. society.
