Intellectual and Political Sources of Racism

It is ironic that the eighteenth-century Enlightenment provided the ground in which modern racism germinated—ironic, because the Enlightenment provided the basis for modern ideals of equality, participatory democracy, progress through reason, and the perfectibility of humankind. How, from this, did a point of view arise that denies equality, opposes social justice, and laughs at the idea of perfectibility for entire populations?