That race is a mere social construct is an oft-repeated assertion in the media and academia. That there is no currency to the color of someone’s skin, but there is for the content of his or her character has become the mantra of this supposedly post-racial era. Then why does the concept of race still poison our discourse? And in a time of rapidly growing income inequality, how does race cloak the much-needed issue of tackling this problem for all Americans, regardless of race?

In their fantastically lucid and much-needed exposé of the mental terrain that underlies the issue of race, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life, Karen and Barbara Fields deal with how it obscures gross income inequality. They coin the term “racecraft”—the illusion of race produced by the practice of racism.

Karen Fields discussed these and other topics concerning the practice of racecraft in two illuminating interviews, respectively for the New Books in Sociology podcast and The Academic and the Artist on KBeach radio.

Audio below the jump