In this fascinating book, Feagin develops a theory of systemic racism to interpret the highly racialized character and development of this society. Focusing centrally on white-on-black oppression, he asks what distinctive social worlds have been created by racial oppression over nearly four centuries, and what this has meant for the people of the United States. After an introductory chapter, Feagin draws in later chapters on the commentaries of black and white Americans in three historical eras: the slavery era; the legal segregation era; those of white Americans. Feagin examines how major institutions have been thoroughly pervaded by racial stereotypes, ideas, images, emotions, and practices. While significant changes have occurred in this racist system over the centuries, key and fundamentally elements have been reproduced over nearly four centuries, and U.S. institutions today imbed the racialized hierarchy created in the seventeenth century. Today, as in the past, racial oppression is not just a surface-level feature of this society, but rather pervades, permeates, and interconnects all major social groups, networks, and institutions across the society.