ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the major narratives that place racism at the center of racial and ethnic inequalities. The view that racism exists beyond class, including beyond the class struggle of Marxism and the socioeconomic underpinnings of capitalism. The resulting two themes, which are shares by liberals and conservatives and shape federal legislation, are individual responsibility and work–fare. In opposition to the views of W. J. Wilson and other liberals are conservatives, who not only call for minority self–help but insist on an end to excessive federal spending and affirmative action policies. The daily pressures on business, especially small business, in the US economy, Marable argued: The economic demands of day–to–day entrepreneurial struggle tend, in every capitalist society, to push the politics of small business persons to the right. The variance in the views of permanence, most of the observers see racism as existing beyond the issue of socioeconomic class.
