Preface 1. Introduction 2. Racial Stereotypes 3. Racial Stigma 4. Racial Justice 5. Conclusions Appendix Notes References Index
Coolly, clearly, and relentlessly, Glenn Loury traces the devastating effects of racial stigmatization on relations between blacks and whites in America. He uses the analytic tools of economics deftly without for a moment falling into pomp or mystification. No one has better stated the case against presuming that liberal states and free markets will of themselves dissolve unjust inequalities. -- Charles Tilly, Professor of Sociology and Political Science, Columbia University According to Glenn Loury, the problem of racial inequality should no longer be seen as one of racial discrimination. The fundamental problem is one of racial stigma, which contributes to the second-class citizenship of African-Americans. This fact-filled, impossible-to-pigeonhole, impressively interdisciplinary book should inaugurate a new and better discussion of racial equality in America--and with any luck, new and better policies as well. -- Cass Sunstein, Professor of Law, University of Chicago In these lectures, the distinguished economist Glenn Loury has reoriented the public discussion on black-white inequality. He has drawn on economic and sociological analyses to emphasize the historical roots essential to understanding the social stigma which underlies the more overt forms of discrimination and inhibits the development of black capabilities. His analysis implies a critique of liberal individually-based political philosophy, while at the same time recognizing its virtues. -- Kenneth J. Arrow, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Stanford University This is social criticism at its best. Glenn Loury provides an original and highly persuasive account of how the American racial hierarchy is sustained and reproduced over time. And he then demands that we begin the deep structural reforms that will be necessary to stop its continued reproduction. -- Michael Walzer, Professor of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton This strikingly original book will likely emerge as one of the most important analyses in recent times of America's unyielding problem of "race". In four tight, intensely argued chapters, Loury compellingly elucidates the often tragic "rationality" of discriminatory behavior that results, less from raw racist antipathy than from the logic of self-confirming stereotypes, as well as the role of social stigma, collective dishonor and exclusion, in explaining persisting racial inequalities. In a clear, crisp style, he dissects the simplicities of conservative cultural determinism, the moral and logical limitations of "color-blind" liberal individualism, and the intellectual complacency of the conventional left who would explain all with the dated cry of attitudinal racism. Loury demonstrates once again how the best insights of economics can be integrated with those of sociology and policy studies to untangle the tortuous "cycles of cumulative causation" beneath the nation's most vexing social problem. Powerfully argued, relentlessly honest, and morally engaged, it lifts and transforms the discourse on "race" and racial justice to an entirely new level and may just be the breakthrough text we have long been waiting for. -- Orlando Patterson This is a brilliant book. With an original conceptual framework, Glenn Loury breaks new ground in the study of racial inequality in the United States. His insightful analysis of why "racial stigma" is a more important concept than "racial discrimination" in explaining African American disadvantages and in determining the kinds of reforms needed to address them is bound to generate an important debate among scholars in the field. -- William Julius Wilson
Glenn C. Loury is Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Economics at Brown University. An award-winning economic theorist, he is the author of One by One from the Inside Out: Essays and Reviews on Race and Responsibility in America and coauthor of Race, Incarceration, and American Values.
Intellectually rigorous and deeply thoughtful… The Anatomy of
Racial Inequality as much as anything, might be considered Loury’s
declaration of independence, his fully articulated position as a
neoliberal… Loury’s book deals with racial stigma quite directly,
but in its political and philosophical aspects as a cause of black
disadvantage… The Anatomy of Racial Inequality is an incisive,
erudite book by a major thinker.
*New York Times Book Review*
Glenn Loury’s new book, The Anatomy of Racial Inequality, paints in
chilling detail the distance between Martin Luther King’s dream and
the reality of present-day America… In page after page of
statistics gathered over a period of decades, Loury reveals the
true nature of subjugation by race in the United States… [A]
scrupulous account.
*Harper’s*
In [The Anatomy of Racial Inequality] Loury makes a striking
departure from the self-help themes of his earlier work, defending
affirmative action and denouncing ‘colorblindedness’ as a euphemism
for indifference to the fate of black Americans. [The book] offers
a bracing philosophical defense of his new views. Returning to an
argument he first presented in his dissertation, Loury argues that
blacks are no longer held back by ‘discrimination in
contract’—discrimination in the job market—but rather by
‘discrimination in contact,’ informal and entirely legal patterns
of socializing and networking that tend to exclude blacks and
thereby perpetuate racial inequality. At the root of this
unofficial discrimination, he says is ‘stigma,’ a subtle yet
pervasive form of antiblack bias.
*New York Times Magazine*
In The Anatomy of Racial Inequality, Loury assails
‘race-blindedness’ as often (if inadvertently) indifferent to the
cause of racial justice. In his view, the degradation of slavery in
America translated into an enduring ‘stigma’ that has marginalized
the majority of Blacks and negatively affects their life chances.
Evidence of this phenomena is to be seen in the vast numbers of
African Americans languishing in the nation’s prisons… Loury has
written a concise and, at times, provocative analysis of the
American racial conundrum—one in which he exercises that most
central of intellectual virtues: the capacity to change one’s
mind.
*The Crisis*
Loury is both a renowned economist and the director of the
Institute on Race and Social Division at Boston University. In this
fascinating and original book, he combines those two qualifications
to examine why, a century and a half after the abolition of slavery
and 50 years past the beginning of the U.S. civil rights movement,
there are still such inequalities between whites and African
Americans. The result is a thoughtful, interdisciplinary book that
argues that it isn’t racial discrimination but racial stigma
(‘which is about who, at the deepest level, they are understood to
be’) that sustains the inequality.
*Globe and Mail*
Books that make readers truly uncomfortable, that hold up a mirror
to our hearts and minds and reflect something horrible and true,
are rare. The Anatomy of Racial Inequality by Glenn C. Loury is
such a work. A provocative dissection of contemporary white/black
relations, it belies the notion that mainstream Americans no longer
harbor ugly racial beliefs… His book is a wake-up call for everyone
who frames the modern history of race as a happy tale of
progress.
*News & Observer*
[Glenn Loury] explores and explains the continuing struggle to
achieve racial parity and social progress. His examination of
racial stereotypes are particularly arresting, especially when one
considers how many blacks—much to their detriment—not only accept
negative images of themselves but seem to be living out and
rationalizing them as well… Mr. Loury is a balanced interpreter of
American society, so he predictably criticizes both liberals and
conservatives for their ‘simplistic’ approaches to resolving racial
misunderstandings that all too often contribute to the creation of
unnecessary conflicts between the races… [This book is]
thought-provoking and insightful and the author’s musings on a
variety of sensitive subjects certainly merits our attention.
*Washington Times*
A fresh, challenging analysis of the racial inequality endured by
African-Americans. Loury first presented these arguments as the W.
E. B. Du Bois Lectures at Harvard in April 2000. One of his
principal observations is that those who consider racial issues
should replace the concept of racial discrimination with that of
‘racial stigma.’ People are stigmatized, he says, when they are
viewed by others not as individuals but as members of a race. He
believes that American blacks have patently suffered the most from
stigmatization and identifies slavery as the chief cause… There’s
no question that this is a significant, even crucial text gravid
with vital ideas.
*Kirkus Reviews*
In this highly persuasive analysis of race stigma in U.S. society,
Loury…argues that it is not simply racial discrimination (which is
‘about how people are treated’) that keeps African-Americans from
achieving their goals, but rather the more complex reality of
‘racial stigma’—‘which is about who, at the deepest cognitive
level, they are understood to be’… [Loury] grapples eloquently and
vigorously with such concrete examples as affirmative action,
arguments about racial IQ differences and racial profiling… Loury’s
arguments are provocative and productive.
*Publishers Weekly*
The Anatomy of Racial Inequality by Glenn C. Loury is a theoretical
treatise that attempts to reconfigure and refocus the conceptual
perspective from which social scientists construct frameworks for
studying and explaining African-American social and economic
disadvantage… He presents a compelling look at issues of racial
inequality, which ostensibly deals with economic issues by drawing
upon other social science fields such as sociology and social
psychology. His approach is well conceived and ‘novel’ in that it
makes use of the insights of these other fields by applying them to
broader aspects of the American social matrix than is traditionally
allowed in analyzing economic inequality. He succeeds primarily
because he does not restrict his analysis of economic inequality to
those constricts and variables that can only be explained by
quantitative analysis of economic data, phenomena, and trends…
[W]hat is new in Loury’s treatise is his contention that their
racial stigma should clearly displace racial discrimination as the
key conceptual approach to studying and understanding racial
inequality… [The Anatomy of Racial Inequality] provide[s] important
contributions to our understanding of the challenges that continue
to confront African-Americans socially, educationally, and
economically… Loury’s work provides ample theoretical fodder and a
sound rationale for empirically testing and assessing the
structural aspects of these same constructs.
*Educational Researcher*
In these lectures, the distinguished economist Glenn Loury has
reoriented the public discussion on black–white inequality. He has
drawn on economic and sociological analyses to emphasize the
historical roots essential to understanding the social stigma which
underlies the more overt forms of discrimination and inhibits the
development of black capabilities. His analysis implies a critique
of liberal individually-based political philosophy, while at the
same time recognizing its virtues.
*Kenneth J. Arrow, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Stanford
University*
This strikingly original book will likely emerge as one of the most
important analyses in recent times of America’s unyielding problem
of ‘race.’ In four tight, intensely argued chapters, Loury
compellingly elucidates the often tragic ‘rationality’ of
discriminatory behavior that results, less from raw racist
antipathy than from the logic of self-confirming stereotypes, as
well as the role of social stigma, collective dishonor and
exclusion, in explaining persisting racial inequalities. In a
clear, crisp style, he dissects the simplicities of conservative
cultural determinism, the moral and logical limitations of
‘color-blind’ liberal individualism, and the intellectual
complacency of the conventional left who would explain all with the
dated cry of attitudinal racism. Loury demonstrates once again how
the best insights of economics can be integrated with those of
sociology and policy studies to untangle the tortuous ‘cycles of
cumulative causation’ beneath the nation’s most vexing social
problem. Powerfully argued, relentlessly honest, and morally
engaged, it lifts and transforms the discourse on ‘race’ and racial
justice to an entirely new level and may just be the breakthrough
text we have long been waiting for.
*Orlando Patterson*
According to Glenn Loury, the problem of racial inequality should
no longer be seen as one of racial discrimination. The fundamental
problem is one of racial stigma, which contributes to the
second-class citizenship of African-Americans. This fact-filled,
impossible-to-pigeonhole, impressively interdisciplinary book
should inaugurate a new and better discussion of racial equality in
America—and with any luck, new and better policies as well.
*Cass Sunstein, Professor of Law, University of Chicago*
Coolly, clearly, and relentlessly, Glenn Loury traces the
devastating effects of racial stigmatization on relations between
blacks and whites in America. He uses the analytic tools of
economics deftly without for a moment falling into pomp or
mystification. No one has better stated the case against presuming
that liberal states and free markets will of themselves dissolve
unjust inequalities.
*Charles Tilly, Professor of Sociology and Political Science,
Columbia University*
This is social criticism at its best. Glenn Loury provides an
original and highly persuasive account of how the American racial
hierarchy is sustained and reproduced over time. And he then
demands that we begin the deep structural reforms that will be
necessary to stop its continued reproduction.
*Michael Walzer, Professor of Social Science, Institute for
Advanced Study, Princeton*
This is a brilliant book. With an original conceptual framework,
Glenn Loury breaks new ground in the study of racial inequality in
the United States. His insightful analysis of why ‘racial stigma’
is a more important concept than ‘racial discrimination’ in
explaining African American disadvantages and in determining the
kinds of reforms needed to address them is bound to generate an
important debate among scholars in the field.
*William Julius Wilson*
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