The racial ideology that became widely accepted in the US during the 19th and 20th centuries supported white Americans as they sought to

• A. promote multiculturalism
• B. colonize only within U.S.
• C. promote desegregation
• D. justify political expansion and racial segregation

Answer: (D)

Racial ideology in this era functioned as a justification for power, with white supremacy used to rationalize both expanding political control and enforcing racial segregation. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, pseudo-scientific racism and the belief in a racial hierarchy made it seem natural to claim lands, justify conquest, and govern non-white populations as inferior. Domestically, this fed laws and practices that separated people by race—think Jim Crow and other segregationist policies. Abroad, it supported imperial expansion and colonization by portraying non-white peoples as needing stewardship or control. Because the idea was to defend and extend white dominance while dividing society along racial lines, the best description is that it justified political expansion and racial segregation.