Culture of Intolerance: Chauvinism, Class, and Racism in the United States

Americans increasingly blame the failures of minority individuals in our society on "racial" inferiority. Anthropologist Mark Nathan Cohen argues cogently that the problems are cultural, not "racial," and that they are rooted in the assumptions of mainstream American culture, not in the biological or cultural failings of "others."

By summarizing scientific evidence proving that "races" do not exist and that few biological traits actually correlate with the color of one’s skin, Cohen shows th...