If you want to look at the cultural roots of racism in the US in its current form, you could go back pretty far but an interesting change happens after the Civil War with the rise of Social Darwinism - the idea that the people at the “top” of society, with the most wealth, are there because their (white) genes make them more “fit”, and therefore deserving of power regardless of the damage they do to the rest of society to get it. (sound familiar?)
The phrase “survival of the fittest” was coined not by Darwin but by Herbert Spencer, a eugenicist.
source: Inherently Unequal by Lawrence Goldstone
