Page 57 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

Ideologies 41

their rule or their claim on social wealth seem natural, legitimate, and
uncontestable. For several centuries, social groups that have laid claim
to excess social resources have used the ideas freedom and liberty to
justify such inequality. In its most recent iteration or incarnation, the
ideology of freedom fostered the belief fairly widely around the world
that markets should be unregulated by governments. This, of course, was
tantamount to walking into a playground in which a small group of
rowdy bullies had been prevented from lording it over everyone else by
school rules and announcing, “ No holds barred. It ’ s a free - for - all. ” In
such a scenario, the weaker would suffer; the bullies would use their
physical advantage in sheer force to dominate everyone else. The way
the ideology of freedom played out did not mimic this scenario exactly.
Lots of people around the globe jumped on the bandwagon and thrived
economically – but always by taking advantage of others ’ poverty and
comparative weakness in “ free ” labor markets to generate a huge amount
of wealth for themselves.
Ideologies are usually held by groups of people with a particular interest
that is served by the ideology. Ideologies provide explanations that make
the world seem more easily understandable, and usually the explanations
are self - serving. Ideologies usually are inaccurate and unscientifi c. They
often mix non - rational forms of thinking with mistaken interpretations of
the world. In the case of the White conservative racist ideology regarding
African Americans, the mistake consists of thinking an effect or result of

racism is a justification for racism. One of the crucial operations of ideol-
ogy is to turn effects into causes. The process goes like this: race - based
discrimination has over time deprived African Americans of access to
economic power. As a result, many African Americans in the US have been
pushed into poverty, and poverty, when persistent over time and from
generation to generation, produces a sense of disillusion and disaffection.
That sense of disaffection can reduce initiative because effort seems not to
guarantee results. But that lack of initiative, instead of being seen as an
effect of racism, is seen as the cause that accounts for economic failure.

And this justifies the claim that African Americans lack talents and abilities
of the sort that would bring them wealth. An effect of discrimination – such
as disaffection, a lack of initiative, or the absence of a sense of economic
purpose – becomes a reason or cause for discrimination in the minds
of conservatives. The group practicing racist discourse thus justifi es their
own greater access to economic resources by making others appear less
deserving.