Anything But Race : The Social Science Retreat From Racism (original) (raw)

African American continue to occupy a disadvantaged position in the U. S. While historically, most social scientists emphasize the role that contemporary and historic racism has played in creating and perpetuating the disadvantaged position of African Americans, in recent years, theories that identify other explanations have been growing increasingly popular. They have in common the view that the sources of black disadvantage are characteristics of blacks themselves (e. g. biological, cultural, educational) or some other predominantly non-racial situation or condition. This paper critically examines some prominent theories or perspectives that illustrate the retreat from racism, including: social class, cognitive ability, lack of work ethic or morality, human capital deficits, spatial mismatch, and family structure. While these theories are not exhaustive, they are all “popular” explanations for black disadvantage. Despite their popularity they are all only weakly or incompletely su...