Synopses & Reviews
Americans believe strongly in the socially transformative power of education, and the idea that we can challenge racial injustice by reducing white prejudice has long been a core component of this faith. How did we get here? In this first-rate intellectual history, Leah N. Gordon jumps into this and other big questions about race, power, and social justice.
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; To answer these questions, From Power to Prejudice examines American academiaand#151;both black and whiteand#151;in the 1940s and and#8217;50s. Gordon presents four competing visions of and#160;and#147;the race problemand#8221; and documents how an individualistic paradigm, which presented white attitudes as the source of racial injustice, gained traction. A number of factors, Gordon shows, explain racial individualismand#8217;s postwar influence: individuals were easier to measure than social forces; psychology was well funded; studying political economy was difficult amid McCarthyism; and individualism was useful in legal attacks on segregation. Highlighting vigorous midcentury debate over the meanings of racial justice and equality, From Power to Prejudice reveals how one particular vision of social justice won out among many contenders.
Review
"With its five institutional case studies, From Power to Prejudice offers a new interpretation of the rise and fall of anti-prejudice education in the United States. While others have emphasized the structural causes of racial inequality and discrimination in American life, Gordon highlights the ways in which an ideology of racial individualismand#8212;the notion that a society's racial order hinges on individual attitudesand#8212;came to shape American psychology, sociology, and ultimately education in the mid-twentieth century. The result is a refreshingly critical look at the relationship between social science and social reform."
Review
and#8220;From Power to Prejudiceand#160;is a powerfully argued, deeply grounded study of a crucial period in the development of American racial discourses. The strength of Gordonand#8217;s work lies in the depth of the archival research and her judicious culling of evidence from that research base to illustrate the complexity of the relationship between theory and practice in this thorny area of inquiry. This is an important and compelling study.and#8221;
Review
"What kind of people become racists? Gordon shows how mid-century Americans came to see racism as a personal problem, rooted in individual psychology rather than structural inequality. But socio-economic theories of prejudice continued to sprout, especially at historically black colleges and universities, where scholars connected racism to labor markets, housing patterns, and educational opportunity. What kind of society produces racial injustice and discrimination? That's a very different order of question, and Gordon's tightly argued book calls us to answer it."
Review
andldquo;Gordon has written a carefully reasoned account of how and why American liberals turned to individualized ways of framing the race issue in the decades after World War II, with social scientific theories and legal strategies that treated racial inequality as a problem of white prejudice and individual rights violations that could be educated or litigated away.and#160;Her explanation is multi-layered and convincingandmdash;about the basis of racial individualismandrsquo;s appeal, about the decidedly uneven compromises it exacted, and about the long-term consequences of postwar liberalismandrsquo;s constrained vision of racial reform.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;In this highly original book, Gordon provides a rich historical account of how, in the years after World War II, American culture came to understand racism as a product of personal prejudice rather than social structure. She shows how this sudden turnaround in conventional wisdom arose from a convergence of factorsandmdash;including the rise of survey research, which provided a scientific way to measure attitudes; the attraction of this method for both researchers and research funders, as providing a less political and more andlsquo;objectiveandrsquo; way to analyze race; and the usefulness of this approach for advocates of school desegregation, who saw that if prejudice was the problem then education was the answer.andrdquo;
Synopsis
At first glance, the Ford Foundation and the black power movement would make an unlikely partnership. After the Second World War, the renowned Foundation was the largest philanthropic organization in the United States and was dedicated to projects of liberal reform. Black power ideology, which promoted self-determination over color-blind assimilation, was often characterized as radical and divisive. But Foundation president McGeorge Bundy chose to engage rather than confront black power's challenge to racial liberalism through an ambitious, long-term strategy to foster the social development of racial minorities. The Ford Foundation not only bankrolled but originated many of the black power era's hallmark legacies: community control of public schools, ghetto-based economic development initiatives, and race-specific arts and cultural organizations.
In Top Down, Karen Ferguson explores the consequences of this counterintuitive and unequal relationship between the liberal establishment and black activists and their ideas. In essence, the white liberal effort to reforge a national consensus on race had the effect of remaking racial liberalism from the top down--a domestication of black power ideology that still flourishes in current racial politics. Ultimately, this new racial liberalism would help foster a black leadership class--including Barack Obama--while accommodating the intractable inequality that first drew the Ford Foundation to address the race problem.
About the Author
Leah N. Gordon is assistant professor of education and (by courtesy) of history at Stanford University.