Mills critiques European and American philosophy by showing that, beyond
ignoring racism, these schools of thought are largely
founded on racism. If 17th-, 18th-, 19th-, and early 20th-century Euro-American philosophers do not mention race, this is likely only because white supremacy was common sense to them, so it did not need to be explained or justified. But the recent shift away from explicit white supremacy has done little to change contemporary societies’ underlying political and economic structure. In fact, for Mills, it is a way of maintaining this same structure by denying reality and refusing to change.