The difference between us episode looks for biological differences between the races, and they find one. In fact there are more differences between people of the same race e.g white and white, than there are between people of different races e.g. white and black.
As concerns pseudo-science, Dr. Hammonds, a historian of science says the scientists are a product of their own society. Most scientists lived in a society where the people in power, who were white, were obsessed with the idea of race and racial superiority and they were looking for any clue that can distinguish their race as the superior one. It is a scary thing that even with the scientific advances we have, pseudo science has not gone away. Just last week the Heritage foundation came up with a study that says immigrants will never reach high IQ levels!
Last year I went to Thomas Jefferson's home in Monti Cello, and I could not help remarking to my friends the irony that the guy who said 'all men are created equally' had slaves working and waiting on him when he was coming up with this wisdom. But it is clear he meant 'all WHITE men are created equally.' So back to the subject of idea of racism, which is the subject of the second episode. The second episode mentions his other lesser known work 'Notes on Virginia' where he categorically (and might have been one of the first people to say outrightly) says that the black race is inferior to the white race.
Episode three talks about what Croteau and Hoynes call 'racialization of the state' (implementation of policies that discriminated against minorities and provided the whites numerous advantages). This systemic policies meant that immigrants could not get citizenship or own property; blacks returning from the war could not take advantages of government subsidies to get housing and segregated schooling which ensured inequality when looking for jobs.
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