A Critical Race Approach to Systemic Inequity

Thông tin sách: A Critical Race Approach to Systemic Inequity (Paperback, 264 trang) – Carolina Academic Press, 2025. Ngôn ngữ: Tiếng Anh.

To read the Introduction from A Critical Race Approach to Systemic Inequity, .

This book explores and explains the cognitive basis of American systemic inequity and demonstrates that across all human societies and throughout human history systemic inequity has always existed. Humans are evolutionarily wired to create hierarchies in society, whether based on race, like in America, or on the caste system, as in India. These hierarchies exist because humans involuntarily reframe reality and this reframing not only prevents permanent depression but it renders systemic inequity invisible and results in the inequity presenting as moral, desirable, and just.

This book illustrates this reality by carefully dismantling the cognitive illusions that undergird American exceptionalism and meritocracy. The result is a disorienting and painful reveal of an American reality based almost entirely on systemic inequity. The dilemma the book develops and explores is that the identical reframing mechanisms that render systemic inequity normative and moral are also essential for human societies to exist and for our position as an apex species on the planet.

Dismantling systemic inequity therefore is a much more difficult task than most currently understand. It has nothing to do with changing individual attitudes but rather it requires a complete and disruptive revision of what we currently understand as humanity.

Editorial Reviews Review Rory Bahadur's A Critical Race Approach to Systemic Inequality is an honest, uncomfortable, and insightful blend of theory, history, critical analysis, and just good, old-fashioned deep thinking that forces readers to confront the most painful truths about inequity in our country, our religions, and our world. Bahadur helps readers understand that our challenges reflect issues inherent in humans and societies everywhere while also forcing readers to confront the harm caused by systemic inequality. Delivered with Bahadur's characteristic incisiveness, the book also bleeds with his love for the United States and its promises. Perhaps the book's most important contribution is its convincing argument why change on an individual level, while admirable, is meaningless, and only significant systemic change can produce a just society. -- Michael Hunter Schwartz, Dean of the McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific

Bahadur offers a searing, insightful exploration of systemic inequities rooted in racial, cultural, and socio-political structures. With its unflinching analysis of bias, power dynamics, and the mechanisms that perpetuate inequality, this book is a clarion call for all who seek to understand and combat racial injustice in America. Bahadur weaves together historical and contemporary narratives, dismantling myths of meritocracy and systemic reform with incisive clarity. Readers are compelled to confront uncomfortable truths about the systems of bias they inhabit, making this work an indispensable resource for scholars, activists, and anyone committed to fostering equity and justice. The book's unyielding honesty and intellectual rigor make it a vital contribution to the discourse on racial justice. -- Carla D. Pratt, Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher Chair in Civil Rights, Race and Justice, University of Oklahoma College of Law About the Author Rory Bahadur is a Professor at the Washburn University School of Law.