ABSTRACT
Sociology and anthropology, which grew out of the European Enlightenment, were filled with essentialist racist theory, most of which was grounded in natural science or the science of biology. Immanuel Kant, who proposed the existence of universal moral imperatives, developed a theory of race stratification, which also gave a justification for the enslavement of African peoples who he described as being incapable of developing a higher sense of moral reasoning. Much of early race theory was grounded in religious beliefs and myths, including the notion of how races were constructed by God. The social construction of race has been a significant component of contemporary race theory. A perspective that appears to be making inroads with a wider nonacademic audience, but one focused on issues of race and inequality, is Critical Race Theory. Afrocentric theorists purposefully avoid engaging with poststructural race theory, most of which they tend to discard out of hand as white theory, or theory utilizing a Eurocentric perspective.
