According to Nash, what is the relationship between slavery and racism?

• A. Slavery caused racism to disappear
• B. There is no link between slavery and racism
• C. Widespread Negro slavery led to widespread white racism
• D. Racism caused slavery to end quickly

Answer: (C)

The main idea here is that economic practices and social ideas reinforce each other. Nash argues that when slavery spread widely, white society developed and popularized racist beliefs to justify and sustain that system. The vast ownership and control of enslaved people required a worldview that labeled Black people as inherently inferior, which then circulated through laws, culture, and everyday attitudes. In this view, slavery helps produce racism, and racism in turn helps uphold slavery. That’s why the option claiming a direct link—where widespread slavery leads to widespread white racism—is the best fit. The other ideas imply no connection or the wrong causal direction, which clashes with how slavery and racial ideology reinforced one another in this framework.