Commemorating Brown: The Social Psychology of Racism and Discrimination


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‘Wide angle’ view of
racism explored
(January 2009 Issue)

“Commemorating Brown: The Social Psychology of Racism and Discrimination”
Edited by Glenn Adams, Monica Biernat,
Nyla R. Branscombe, Christian S. Crandall, and Lawrence S. Wrightsman
American Psychological Association
Washington, D.C., 2008

By Paul Efthim, Ph.D.

Social psychologists tend to pussyfoot around when talking about racism. College textbooks typically contain chapters carrying titles such as "Prejudice," "Stereotyping," and "Discrimination." Rarely do the terms "racism" and "oppression" appear in most texts or in broader psychological discourse.

This is not a case of different labels for the same object. Instead, the different words create different realities. Making reference to "stereotyping" and "prejudice" implies a reality wherein racism and oppression are located in individual minds. In contrast, referring to "systematic oppression" locates the psychological structures of racism not only in individual minds but also in the wider sociocultural contexts inhabited by those minds.

Ironically, in spite of social psychology's well-intentioned desires to combat racism, the individualistic, atomistic focus of most research tends to under represent the extent of oppression in society. A group of scholars from the University of Kansas recently released a fine book that seeks to stimulate progress on this front. "Commemorating Brown: The Social Psychology of Racism and Discrimination" presents a sociocultural model that shifts the focus away from studying bigotry in individuals toward a wide-angle view of implicit forces that promote discrimination regardless of individual actions.

The book's title refers to the 50th anniversary of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, which declared school segregation illegal. The 20 social psychologists who contributed to this edited volume express their collective aim "to rekindle the spirit of Brown and to provide an agenda for progressive action within social psychology, more broadly in the social sciences and among citizens at large." As such, the book succeeds handsomely. But it is sobering reading, quite disturbing at points.

On the positive side, several chapters review how social psychological research helped overturn segregation and break down racist practices; longitudinal research shows a range of favorable outcomes as a result of implementing Brown. However, the authors also demonstrate how progress in desegregation has stalled and in many ways has been reversed by an increasingly conservative Court over the past several decades. In the wake of Barack Obama's election, there is reason for hope. We may one day look back on this moment as a turning point equal in stature to the Brown decision.

But an enormous amount of antiracist work remains to be done. Toward that end, the book reviews a variety of emerging research "from the target's perspective," such as recent work on racial micro aggressions, invisibility, implicit/unconscious biases, stereotype threat, stereotype lift, white racial identity, "whitewashed" constructions of history and social identity biases.

For example, robust evidence demonstrates how standardized testing situations selectively undermine the performance of low status groups and actively promote the achievement of high status groups. Far from serving as benign, objective "yardsticks," tests such as the SAT actively contribute to the reproduction of social inequality. (This is one reason why an increasing number of competitive colleges are declaring themselves "SAT-optional.")

Thus we encounter the paradox of racism without a racist. The book's key argument is unassailable and well worth quoting at length: "[T]he problem of racism is not primarily an issue of subtly biased individuals.... Instead, racism is embedded in apparently harmless features of everyday worlds that even in the absence of action resembling discrimination create burdens for people from oppressed groups and enhance experience of people from dominant groups." This conclusion leads to a series of implications and recommendations for research, teaching and intervention.

Anyone interested in a deeper understanding of racism will find this book of great value as a review, critique and guide.

Paul Efthim, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist in full-time practice in Brookline, Mass. He holds faculty appointments at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology and the Boston Institute for Psychotherapy.