In his book The Anatomy of Racial Inequality, Glenn Loury seeks to provide a nuanced analysis of the reasons for persistent racial inequality in the United States. Loury focuses primarily on black Americans as this group has faced some of the most severe discrimination over the history of the United States and is unique in that members of this group have historically been subjected to systematic slavery. Loury rejects arguments that inequality is based on inherent (genetic or cultural) differences between black people and white people, and rather seeks to examine how racial “stigmatization” (rather than racial discrimination) is the primary driver of persistent inequality between black people and people of other races today.
Loury’s analysis begins with a deeper explanation of racial stereotypes. Rather than rejecting stereotypes as prejudicial in themselves, he describes them as a rational form of social cognition universal to all humans. Since we inhabit a “murky, uncertain social world”, humans rely on physical observable characteristics in navigating this world. When these characteristics are aggregated and meaning can be attributed to them, racial stereotypes (while unfounded in biological taxonomy) form, due to our cognitive predisposition to pattern recognition. Loury develops a model for how these racial stereotypes become reinforced and persistent using examples of black trainees for a racially biased employer. The employer holds black trainees to a higher standard than white trainees; at some point black trainees – in the knowledge that they are more likely to be dismissed – find that the benefit of working harder during training may not pay off. These trainees therefore make more mistakes and eventually are dismissed by the employer. This mechanism results in both a reinforcement of the employer’s negative racial stereotype and a negative psychological effect on black workers themselves.
The feedback mechanism Loury proposes is rigorous and substantiated by several further examples. Loury does a good job of answering many questions that are left unanswered by the theory, conceding that the feedback mechanism is not the “be-all and end-all” explanation of race relations. Loury recognizes the flaws in the theory, the main one being “why don’t we do something about this feedback loop if it really exists?” Loury explains that this is an issue of both insufficient collective action and relies on “experimentation” with different methods of assessing a group of people’s characters – and most people or organizations would not have sufficient incentives to do so.
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Loury proceeds to examine the issue of racial stigma more closely. The feedback loop of racial stereotypes contributes to the formation of racial stigma. Loury presents a case where a hypothetical police officer is challenged to conduct arrests based on an individual’s character. However, upon encountering any given suspect, the officer is only aware of their “virtual social identity” (which includes his racial stereotype and any pre-existing bias the officer possesses), not their “actual social identity.” Given the relative ease of acting solely on “virtual social identity” the officer will never put in the effort to distinguish individuals. Loury provides a concise analogy that explains the difficulty of revising virtual social identities. Significations of race are analogous to traffic lights in that the color has no intrinsic meaning or value but changing our interpretation of the color would be extremely difficult (for example changing the meaning of red to “go” and green to “stop”).
Loury continues to examine why did these attitudes and perceptions formed in the first place. Unsurprisingly, the primary reason given is chattel slavery, which grounded the “social otherness” of blacks. Since the vast majority of slaves were black, a natural relationship was drawn and reinforced for decades between black skin color and the dehumanized and dishonored status of slaves. This relationship has led to several biases against blacks in the USA, most significantly developmental bias, which has impeded black social and economic mobility (since, Loury admits, equal opportunity laws do not automatically lead to equal opportunity. Very often, gaining employment is about knowing the right people). Loury concludes this section of his argument by debunking the conservative line on racism that black behavior, and by extension inequality, is due to cultural differences between blacks and other races. He suggests that instead, they are deeply rooted in American history and have persisted and evolved through political and economic institutions and complex mechanisms of human cognition.
In summary, Loury makes three main points in the first three chapters. The first is that racial stereotypes form and evolve as a natural part of human cognition; secondly, these stereotypes persist due to stable and positive feedback loops that reinforce them in the minds of both non-blacks and blacks; finally, racial stigma, rather than overt racial discrimination, is a core element of modern-day racial inequality. Loury uses concepts of psychology, historical events, modern day statistics and economic concepts to develop a convincing and complex mechanism to provide a new angle on racial inequality today. Loury is eager to criticize popular arguments, including the blanket term structural racism, that do not sufficiently attack the core of the problem.
It is interesting that The Anatomy of Racial Inequality is further from the conservative line that Loury is known to have advocated previously, and in many ways, criticizes this line as well. This, combined with his skepticism of modern liberal arguments, makes this text very interesting and engaging as it brings new, substantiated arguments to the conversation, that are not commonly heard in popular discourse, and do not necessarily gravitate to one side of the political spectrum. While his argument is not earth-shattering, it certainly warrants strong consideration and further research to attempt to empirically evaluate his mechanisms.
One aspect that is missing from the first three chapters is a discussion or analysis of direct prejudice against blacks in America. Events of explicit racism continue to occur in the United States on a fairly regular basis, such as excessive use of force by police officers against blacks or hateful actions by small groups of people and organizations. Loury’s racial stereotype and stigma arguments do not go far enough to explain where this behavior in itself stems from. Although Loury is focused on tackling the root cause and mechanisms of racial inequality, a serious problem is the treatment many blacks face every day; gaining a more nuanced understanding of the root causes of these problems would certainly be beneficial.
