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Overview
Speaking wisely and provocatively about the political economy of race, Glenn C. Loury has become one of our most prominent black intellectualsand, because of his challenges to the orthodoxies of both left and right, one of the most controversial. A major statement of a position developed over the past decade, this book both epitomizes and explains Loury’s understanding of the depressed conditions of so much of black society todayand the origins, consequences, and implications for the future of these conditions.
Using an economist’s approach, Loury describes a vicious cycle of tainted social information that has resulted in a self-replicating pattern of racial stereotypes that rationalize and sustain discrimination. His analysis shows how the restrictions placed on black development by stereotypical and stigmatizing racial thinking deny a whole segment of the population the possibility of self-actualization that American society reveressomething that many contend would be undermined by remedies such as affirmative action. On the contrary, this book persuasively argues that the promise of fairness and individual freedom and dignity will remain unfulfilled without some forms of intervention based on race.
Brilliant in its account of how racial classifications are created and perpetuated, and how they resonate through the social, psychological, spiritual, and economic life of the nation, this compelling and passionate book gives us a new way of seeingand, perhaps, seeing beyondthe damning categorization of race in America.
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.
Table of Contents
Preface
1. Introduction
2. Racial Stereotypes
3. Racial Stigma
4. Racial Justice
5. Conclusions
Appendix
Notes
References
Index
What People are Saying About This
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.
Michael Walzer
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
Charles Tilly
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
William Julius Wilson
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.
Kenneth J. Arrow
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
Cass Sunstein
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
Orlando Patterson
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.