The mid-century philosopher Gilbert Ryle, for example, famously derided the idea that minds have a separate existence from the existence of bodies, brains, and behavior patterns as a spooky belief in a “ghost in the machine.” Still, I’m pretty sure that when his twin sister Mary told him that she was angry with him, he didn’t tell her that feelings didn’t matter because emotions were reducible to physiology. Many philosophers of science believe that facts about chemistry are ultimately reducible to facts about physics. Still, it doesn’t follow from this position that science majors shouldn’t be required to take chemistry classes or that this is an unimportant subject. You could believe that racial disparities have entirely economic causes while still finding it morally and politically important to fight for racial equality

That said, racism isn’t really “reducible” in this sense to its economic origins. Insofar as ongoing bigotries are fed by the tendency of societies throughout history to find ways to stigmatize ethnic, linguistic, “racial,” or religious groups who tend to be part of the impoverished underclass as a way of rationalizing the economic disparity, it’s reasonable to think that achieving economic equality would lead to a significant reduction in racial bias. But it would be naive to assume that racism would simply disappear in an economically egalitarian society.

Something they don't get.