Racist beliefs persist because emotional investments, not logic, sustain them

Evidence

The payoff for adding a properly psychoanalytic dimension to the account is that instead of simply demonstrating the illogicality of racist beliefs - a relatively easy task whose accomplishment may make us feel useful as intellectuals but does little to tackle the underlying problem - we look at how these beliefs are underpinned by certain indicative structures of feeling or emotional investment that have their own rationale in the psychic economy of desire. It may then become possible to pinpoint hitherto unrecognized sources of undercover resistance to antiracist policies and to devise more effective ways of engaging with them. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1243

Categorization

• XREF: Strikes against the rationalist antiracist critique of prejudice that dominates much vault commentary on racism as false belief. — connects to: Racist ideas persist because they are launched by self-interest, not ignorance — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 1223; Discrimination causes racist ideas which cause ignorance and hate — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 25

Broader Connections

• Discrimination causes racist ideas which cause ignorance and hate #corroborates (0.95) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 25
• Racist ideas persist because they are launched by self-interest, not ignorance #qualifies (0.90) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 1223