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

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. Book Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Contents......Page 5 Preface......Page 8 Introduction The Ironic Dynamics of Race......Page 14 Talking about Racism How Our Dialogue Gets Short-circuited......Page 36 Blaming the Victim?......Page 54 The Debate over Culture......Page 70 Ideology and IQ Moving beyond the Bell Curve......Page 86 Is Racism Inevitable? Motivational Foundations of White Racial Attitudes......Page 110 Prejudice without Intention? ~Cognitive~ Foundations of White Racial Attitudes......Page 134 The Complexities of the Black Response to Oppression Strengths and Vulnerabilities, Pride and Self-Doubt......Page 156 Integration, Assimilation, and Separatism The Ambiguities of Identity......Page 178 Crime and the Multiple Causes and Effects of Inequality......Page 206 Separate Neighborhoods, Separate Destinies......Page 232 Beyond Affirmative Action Toward a Resolution of Our Divisions......Page 254 Breaking the Cycle of Poverty and Disadvantage Head Starts, Handicaps, and the Importance of Ongoing Life Circumstances......Page 280 Beyond Black and White......Page 294 Notes......Page 300 Index......Page 336 Psychologist Paul Wachtel has won an international reputation for his studies of how people get caught in vicious circles that end up perpetuating the very difficulties from which they wish to escape. Here he applies his path-breaking approach to the larger sphere of race relations. Wachtel's analysis probes beneath the surface of our troubled relations and illuminates how blacks and whites together unwittingly participate in the perpetuation of our divisions. Whether in discussing schools, jobs, crime, or affirmative action, Wachtel's analysis helps us to overcome the tunnel vision that has shaped blacks' and whites' very different perspectives and to understand how our daily actions and reactions have become self-fulfilling prophecies. In laying bare the deeper structure of our persisting breach, Race in the Mind of America takes us a crucial step closer to its resolution. As well as presenting US race relations from a perspective sought by an international audience, Wachtel applies principles to solving black and white tensions that may be applied to other groups within and beyond the United States Watchel challenges the orthodoxies that shape black and white opinion and liberal and conservative policies, and applies principles to solving racial tensions that may be applied to other groups beyond the United States