Full Description
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 inthe 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.
Contents
1. Introduction: The Ironic Dynamics of Race PART ONE Impediments to Dialogue: Why We Talk Past Each Other 2. Talking About Racism: How Our Dialogue Gets Short-Circuited 3. Blaming the Victim? 4. The Debate Over Culture 5. Ideology and IQ: Moving Beyond the Bell Curve PART TWO Prejudice, Vulnerability, and Identity: Psychological Foundations of Our Racial Impasse 6. Is Racism Inevitable? Motivational Foundations of White Racial Attitudes 7. Prejudice Without Intention? Cognitive Foundations of White Racial Attitudes 8. The Complexities of the Black Response to Oppression: Strengths and Vulnerabilities, Pride and Self-Doubt 9. Integration, Assimilation, and Separatism: The Ambiguities of Identity PART THREE The Seamless Web of Problems and Solutions 10. Crime and the Multiple Causes and Effects of Inequality 11. Separate Neighborhoods, Separate Destinies 12. Beyond Affirmative Action: Toward a Resolution of Our Divisions 13. Breaking the Cycle of Poverty and Disadvantage: Head Starts, Handicaps, and the Importance of Ongoing Life Circumstances 14. Beyond Black and White
