Glenn C. Loury is a distinguished economic theorist. His many scholarly articles include contributions to the
fields of welfare economics, game theory, industrial organization, natural resource economics, and the economics
of income distribution. He is also a prominent social critic and public intellectual.
Review
"A fresh, challenging analysis of the racial inequality endured by African-Americans. Loury first presented
these arguments as the W. E. B. DuBois Lectures at Harvard in April 2000. One of his principal observations is
that those who consider racial issues should replace the concept of racial discrimination with thatof "racial
stigma." People are stigmatized, he says, when they are viewed by others not as individuals but as members
of a race. He believes that American blacks have patently suffered the most from stigmatization and identifies
slavery as the chief cause...There's no question that this is a significant, even crucial text gravid with vital
ideas."
--Kirkus Reviews
"In this highly persuasive analysis of race stigma in U.S. society, Loury...argues that it is not simply racial
discrimination (which is "about how people are treated") that keeps African-Americans from achieving
their goals, but rather the more complex reality of "racial stigma"--"which is about who, at the
deepest cognitive level, they are understood to be"...[Loury] grapples eloquently and vigorously with such
concrete examples as affirmative action, arguments about racial IQ differences and racial profiling...Loury's arguments
are provocative and productive."
--Publishers Weekly
"In [The Anatomy of Racial Inequality] Loury makes a striking departure from the self-help themes of his earlier
work, defending affirmative action and denouncing "colorblindedness" as a euphemism for indifference
to the fate of black Americans. [The book] offers a bracing philosophical defense of his new views. Returning to
an argument he first presented in his dissertation, Loury argues that blacks are no longer held back by "discrimination
in contract"--discrimination in the job market--but rather by "discrimination in contact," informal
and entirely legal patterns of socializing and networking that tend to exclude blacks and thereby perpetuate racial
inequality. At the root of this unofficial discrimination, he says is "stigma," a subtle yet pervasive
form of antiblack bias."
--Adam Shatz, New York Times Magazine
"In this fascinating and original book, Loury is both a renowned economist and the director of the Institute
on Race and Social Division at Boston University. In this fascinating and original book, he combines those two
qualifications to examine why, a century and a half after the abolition of slavery and 50 years past the beginning
of the U.S. civil rights movement, there are still such inequalities between whites and African Americans. The
result is a thoughtful, interdisciplinary book that argues that it isn't racial discrimination but racial stigma
("which is about who, at the deepest level, they are understood to be") that sustains the inequality."
--Globe and Mail [Toronto]
"[Glenn Loury] explores and explains the continuing struggle to achieve racial parity and social progress.
His examination of racial stereotypes are particularly arresting, especially when one considers how many blacks--much
to their detriment--not only accept negative images of themselves but seem to be living out and rationalizing them
as well...Mr. Loury is a balanced interpreter of American society, so he predictably criticizes both liberals and
conservatives for their "simplistic" approaches to resolving racial misunderstandings that all too often
contribute to the creation of unnecessary conflicts between the races...[This book is] thought-provoking and insightful
and the author's musings on a variety of sensitive subjects certainly merits our attention."
--Edward C. Smith, Washington Times
"In The Anatomy of Racial Inequality, Loury assails "race-blindedness" as often (if inadvertently)
indifferent to the cause of racial justice. In his view, the degradation of slavery in America translated into
an enduring "stigma" that has marginalized the majority of Blacks and negatively affects their life chances.
Evidence of this phenomena is to be seen in the vast numbers of African Americans languishing in the nation's prisons...Loury
has written a concise and, at times, provocative analysis of the American racial conundrum--one in which he exercises
that most central of intellectual virtues: the capacity to change one's mind."
--William Jelani Cobb, The Crisis
"Books that make readers truly uncomfortable, that hold up a mirror to our hearts and minds and reflect something
horrible and true, are rare. The Anatomy of Racial Inequality by Glenn C. Loury is such a work. A provocative dissection
of contemporary white/black relations, it belies the notion that mainstream Americans no longer harbor ugly racial
beliefs...His book is a wake-up call for everyone who frames the modern history of race as a happy tale of progress."
--J. Peder Zane, Raleigh News and Observer
"Glenn Loury's new book, The Anatomy of Racial Inequality, paints in chilling detail the distance between
Martin Luther King's dream and the reality of present-day America...In page after page of statistics gathered over
a period of decades, Loury reveals the true nature of subjugation by race in the United States...[A] scrupulous
account."
--Anthony Walton, Harper's
"Intellectually rigorous and deeply thoughtful...The Anatomy of Racial Inequality as much as anything, might
be considered Loury's declaration of independence, his fully articulated position as a neoliberal...Loury's book
deals with racial stigma quite directly, but in its political and philosophical aspects as a cause of black disadvantage...The
Anatomy of Racial Inequality is an incisive, erudite book by a major thinker."
--Gerald Early, New York Times Book Review
"Coolly, clearly, and relentlessly, Glenn Loury traces the devastating effects of racial stigmatization
on relations between blacks and whites in America. He uses the analytic tools of economics deftly without for a
moment falling into pomp or mystification. No one has better stated the case against presuming that liberal states
and free markets will of themselves dissolve unjust inequalities."
--Charles Tilly, Professor of Sociology and Political Science, Columbia University
Harvard University Press Web Site, September, 2003
Summary
Speaking wisely and provocatively about the political economy of race, Glenn Loury has become one of our most
prominent black intellectuals--and, because of his challenges to the orthodoxies of both left and right, one of
the most controversial. A major statement of a position developed over the past decade, this book both epitomizes
and explains Loury's understanding of the depressed conditions of so much of black society today--and the origins,
consequences, and implications for the future of these conditions.
Using an economist's approach, Loury describes a vicious cycle of tainted social information that has resulted
in a self-replicating pattern of racial stereotypes that rationalize and sustain discrimination. His analysis shows
how the restrictions placed on black development by stereotypical and stigmatizing racial thinking deny a whole
segment of the population the possibility of self-actualization that American society reveres--something that many
contend would be undermined by remedies such as affirmative action. On the contrary, this book persuasively argues
that the promise of fairness and individual freedom and dignity will remain unfulfilled without some forms of intervention
based on race.
Brilliant in its account of how racial classifications are created and perpetuated, and how they resonate through
the social, psychological, spiritual, and economic life of the nation, this compelling and passionate book gives
us a new way of seeing--and, perhaps, seeing beyond--the damning categorization of race in America.
