(2012) - Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life - Barbara & Karen Fields
Historian Barbara Fields and sociologist Karen Fields argue that race is not a natural fact but an ideological product of racism, invented to justify exploitation and exclusion. In聽, they show how Americans used 鈥渞ace鈥 to explain historical and ongoing inequalities, treating injustices as if they reflected innate biological differences rather than deliberate discrimination. They call this reversal 鈥渞acecraft,鈥 likening it to a cultural sleight of hand: habits of thought, language, and perception that make racism invisible by framing race as the cause rather than the result of unequal treatment. They trace racecraft through everyday practices and causal assumptions that sustain racial hierarchy by keeping the focus on race instead of racism.
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Race belongs to the same family as the evil eye. Racism belongs to the same family as murder and genocide. Which is to say that racism, unlike race, is not a fiction, an illusion, a superstition, or a hoax. It is a crime against humanity.