A Critical Race Approach to Systemic Inequity - Rory Bahadur

A Critical Race Approach to Systemic Inequity Rory Bahadur ISBN 9781531033132

This book examines the cognitive foundations of systemic inequity, demonstrating that hierarchical inequality is a persistent feature of human societies across history and cultures. Drawing on insights from cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and social theory, it argues that humans are evolutionarily predisposed to construct social hierarchies—whether based on race, as in the United States, or caste, as in India. These hierarchies endure not merely because of ideology or power, but because of involuntary cognitive reframing processes that shape how humans perceive reality.

The book contends that these cognitive mechanisms serve a dual function. On the one hand, they protect individuals and societies from existential despair by rendering social arrangements coherent and morally intelligible. On the other, they obscure systemic inequity, allowing it to appear natural, justified, and even desirable. Through this reframing, deeply unequal systems are normalized and insulated from sustained critique.

By methodically dismantling the cognitive illusions underlying American exceptionalism and meritocracy, the book reveals an American social reality structured largely by systemic inequity rather than individual achievement or fairness. This revelation is intentionally disorienting, challenging readers to confront the psychological processes that make inequality both invisible and morally acceptable.

The central dilemma the book explores is profound: the very cognitive mechanisms that legitimize systemic inequity are also essential to human social organization and to humanity’s success as an apex species. As a result, the book argues that dismantling systemic inequity is far more complex than changing individual attitudes or policies. Meaningful transformation would require a fundamental and disruptive reexamination of how humanity understands itself, constructs meaning, and organizes social life.

A Critical Race Approach to Systemic Inequity Rory Bahadur ISBN 9781531033132, 978-1531033132 & 9781531033149

Author:
Rory Bahadur