America’s official egalitarian creed is historically exceptional among nations

Evidence

In the end, this book exposes the illusion of innocence at the heart of this nation by pointing out the concrete effects of persistent racial inequality. Most Americans see inequality—and the racial habits that give it life—as aberrations, ways we fail to live up to the idea of America. But we’re wrong. Inequality and racial habits are part of the American Idea. They are not just a symptom of bad, racist people who fail to live up to pristine ideals. We are, in the end, what we do. And this is the society we have all made. So much so that we can have a black man in the White House and nearly one million black men and women in the Big House. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 25 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Americans embrace equality as an ideal but resist its practical implementation — Marcy Crouch, Magnet Schools and Other Means of…, 2; Citizenship in America has historically been tied to whiteness and Christianity; Racial inequality is constitutive of Americanness, not an aberration from its ideals — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 25 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Racial inequality is constitutive of Americanness, not an aberration from its ideals #complicates (0.80) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 25
• American exceptionalism’s self-image erases the country’s own colonial and imperial history #complicates (0.80)
• Citizenship in America has historically been tied to whiteness and Christianity #complicates (0.75)
• Founding-era unity rhetoric was a conscious misrepresentation of American diversity #complicates (0.73) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 146
• The three-fifths clause proves the American Idea never excluded racial hierarchy #complicates (0.72) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 86