The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures) (Hardcover)

by Glenn C. Loury (Author)
Key Phrases: reward bias, racial stigma, observing agents, United States, African Americans, Good Question (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Intellectually rigorous and deeply thoughtful...The Anatomy of Racial Inequality is an incisive, erudite book by a major thinker. -- Gerald Early, New York Times Book Review, March 3, 2002

Loury reveals the true nature of subjugation by race in the United States...[A] scrupulous account. -- Anthony Walton, Harper's, August 1, 2002

[A] thoughtful, interdisciplinary book that argues that it isn't racial discrimination but racial stigma...that sustains inequality. -- Globe and Mail [Toronto], February 16, 2002

[This book is] thought-provoking and insightful and the author's musings on a variety of sensitive subjects certainly merits our attention. -- Edward C. Smith, Washington Times, February 24, 2002

Review
A fresh, challenging analysis of the racial inequality endured by African-Americans. Loury first presented these arguments as the W. E. B. DuBois 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 thatof "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 20020801)

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 20040501)

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.
--Adam Shatz (New York Times Magazine )

In this fascinating and original book, 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 )

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.
--Gerald Early (New York Times Book Review )

[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.
--Edward C. Smith (Washington Times )

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.
--William Jelani Cobb (The Crisis )

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.
--J. Peder Zane (Raleigh News and Observer )

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.
--Anthony Walton (Harper's )

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.
--Larry L. Rowley (Educational Researcher )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (February 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674006259
• ISBN-13: 978-0674006256
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #950,950 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deeply Distrubing, February 2, 2004

By	Dr. Steve "The Prognosticator" (TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures) (Paperback)

The classic collision of teleological (emphasizing the result) and deontological (empahsizing the procedure) philosophy applied to race relations in the United States. More than mere economic consquentialism, or sociological stucturalism, Loury rails against racial stigmatism, and posits powerfully in favor of "racial egalitarianism," by use of moral suasion. Any right thinking, moral minded human being will be disturbed by his polemics, and cannot help but be swayed by his appeal. I will, however, leave it to you, the reader, to discover for yourself which side of the philosophical divide, mentioned above, Loury favors. Very highly recommended.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful, persuasive, enjoyable, January 2, 2004

By	Jeremy Michalek (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Glen is an accomplished economist, and you can tell in the style of his writing: He is organized and sets up axioms and bullet points to clarify his arguments. I had the opportunity to hear him speak in 2002, and he is quite persuasive. In this book, Loury makes a case against liberal individualism, the popular assumption that liberalized, free market, "race-blind" policies will naturally dissolve unjust inequalities over time. In this discussion, Loury avoids the topic of overt "racial discrimination", which is easier to spot and has more obvious effects, and focuses instead on the strong, persistent, and self-replicating patterns caused by more subtle forces, which he terms "racial stigma". Stigma refers to bodily markings that are automatically cognitively perceived in all social interaction and which have strong social associations that affect perception and behavior of observers. This stigma, and the associations and stereotypes that are cognitively linked with it, acts to rationalize and sustain systematic racial inequality, perpetuating factors that drive formation of stigma. I believe that these arguments appear more compelling if the reader has previous knowledge of theories in cognitive psychology suggesting that mental associational categorization based on observed statistical tendencies applied to readily observable stimuli may form the basis of all thought and learning Glen's arguments are not airtight, and he relies primarily on philosophical thought experiments for illustration; however, his explorations are useful, and a perspective of racial inequality that did not consider and respond to these perspectives would be naive and incomplete.

http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com

5.0 out of 5 stars The Anatomy of Racial Inequality - Glenn Loury, May 27, 2008

By	Robert Pritchett (Grove City, Ohio) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures) I purchased this book from Usabookexchange and as advertised was in excellent condition. The shipping was fast as promised. Upon checking the site found it to represent a company that I will purchase books from again.