In this chapter Foner explores the way in which race has consistently remained a tool for social stratification based on perceived visual distinctions between different groups and the ways in which prejudices against certain groups have evolved. To demonstrate her assertion that discriminations have evolved, she first explores the historically targeted groups of Jews and Italians. Though the dichotomy between these two groups and the larger “White” racial identity no longer appears to exist in our modern society, Foner looks at the “people of inferior breeding (144)”, once feared as the “inferior Europeans”, that would “mongrelize (144)” the “genetically pure and biologically superior… American stock (144)”, thereby “diminishing the quality of American blood (144)”. In order to create a perception of Jewish people and Italian people previously that assigned to them a lesser position on the social ladder, these people were referred to as swarthy and non-white. These very characteristics create the spectrum by which Foner describes how modern-day prejudice works. At the lowest end of the spectrum, those who are the most discriminated against and viewed as the most inferior, is a classification of people as Black while at the other end of the spectrum, those greeted with the least prejudicial sentiment and viewed as the most superior, is the classification of people as White. Ironically, this spectrum seems to exist for immigrants from all over the world, in which people who are not African American consistently try to escape being identified as such and distinguish themselves. This is true for African immigrants, West Indian immigrants, “Hispanic” immigrants and Asian immigrants across the board, who try to put themselves closer to the white end of the spectrum and distance themselves from the black end in order to escape the intolerances that accompany their distinctions.

This reading revealed the ways in which discrimination against darker skin appear to be a universal form of bigotry, not something exclusive and authentic to the United States and New York City. It baffles me that so many current minority groups and groups that were once targets of hatred who have since escaped the legislative de jure discrimination and societal de facto discrimination can so easily turn a blind eye to the way in which other groups of people are similarly being persecuted. People would rather snuff their noses at anyone they can claim to be superior to and distinguish themselves from the “have nots” than acknowledge the universal problem of using race, a societal construct to define the content of a person’s character and their place in society. The vicious cycle of people being limited and stuck in the same monetary circumstances because of the narrow-mindedness that comes with racially identifying people is being perpetuated by minority groups themselves, who will do anything to be seen as just one step away from black, and one step closer to white.