Race in the Mind of America: Breaking the Vicious Circle Between Blacks and Whites [Hardcover]

Paul L. Wachtel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 22, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0415920000 | ISBN-13: 978-0415920001 | Edition: 1

Internationally recognized psychologist Paul L. Wachtel sheds new light on the psychological foundations of our nation's racial impasse and applies his pathbreaking "vicious circle" approach to help resolve it. This timely and fascinating analysis shows how the ways we attempt to cope with racial tensions and inequalities often lead to the perpetuation of our difficulties rather than their resolution. Understanding the ironies that characterize contemporary race relations is the first step toward extricating our nation from the vicious circle.

Both controversial and healing, Race in the Mind of America challenges the orthodoxies that shape black and white opinion and liberal and conservative policies while sensitively exploring the way the world looks to both sides and why it looks that way. Wachtel probes the daily experiences of blacks and whites, shedding new light on how individual experiences and larger social, historical and economic forces continually re-create each other. In illustrating how blacks and whites get caught in vicious circles that sustain the very behaviors and attitudes they wish would change, Wachtel also points toward the concrete solutions to our seemingly enduring dilemmas and shows how to move beyond the adversarial rhetoric that divides us.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Just when you think everything has been said about race in America, here is another book to say it again, this time from a psychological point of view. Psychotherapist Wachtel uses his "minority" City College students in lab experiments that are the basis for his theory that our present racial impasse is perpetuated by vicious circles. For instance, he writes that "stereotypes about black intellectual inferiority can lead to black withdrawal from intellectual pursuits which in turn leads to failure to develop skills to contradict the stereotype." Wachtel argues that much of what we describe as racism may more accurately be understood as "indifference" or "symbolic racism," whereby whites' principles of individuality, work ethic and discipline together with unconscious "antiblack feeling" shape race-based attitudes toward busing or affirmative action. Citing sources as disparate as the Moynihan Report and The adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Wachtel says that if blacks "understood" these "impersonal" factors, they would gain a new way of seeing "the troubling behavior they encounter from whites." He urges setting up "magnet neighborhoods" and voluntary enclaves "designed to assure a genuine racial mix" to end entrenched residential segregation. At times, Wachtel's argument depends on a language of obfuscation in its sly projection of black inferiority, as when he explains that "middle-class blacks often work or go to school with whites whose grades are significantly higher and worry they are only in a certain position because of affirmative action." In the end, his contention that "understanding how stereotyping derives from our common human heritage will modify how stereotyping feels and is responded to" seems overly optimistic. Agent, Jill Grinberg.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Wachtel focuses on the impasse in race relations in America. Many Americans fail to recognize that reactions to discrimination often support the initial stereotype that was the basis for the discrimination. Wachtel notes a vicious cycle of racism, provoking negative responses that tend to feed the original biases. For example, black youth (and others) responding to, and in anticipation of, discrimination often display behavior reasonably perceived as antisocial. Whites often anticipate certain negative stereotypical behavior and project that anticipation in the way they treat minorities, eliciting responses that seem to justify such racist behavior. Although the vicious cycle would seem to suggest little hope for change, Wachtel says the actions and reactions are learned, not inherent. The enormous cost of social problems that result from racism and the opportunity cost of ignoring such problems should prompt recognition of the need to change those learned behaviors. Vernon Ford

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (January 22, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415920000
• ISBN-13: 978-0415920001
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,537,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb explanation the psychology of race relations., May 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Race in the Mind of America: Breaking the Vicious Circle Between Blacks and Whites (Hardcover)

Many books on race deal extensively with social and economic issues. While not ignoring these issues, this book concentrates on the powerful psychological factors that influence race relations. It explains the vicious circles that blacks and whites are caught in that perpetuate racial problems. The book explains how both blacks and whites participate unknowingly, and often innocently, in maintaining these vicious circles that inhibit progress. Besides presenting the many problems and difficulties to be overcome, the book provides hope and guidance for resolving many painful issues.