Are We Born Racist? New Insights from Neuroscience and Positive Psychology

In this slender multidisciplinary analysis, scientists, novelists, and religious leaders examine the roots of racial prejudice and possible antidotes. Princeton psychology professor Susan T. Fiske pre-sents neuroscience findings that in repeated studies, when white test subjects look at photographs of black people, their amygdalae—the seat of the fear response system in the brain—lights up, suggesting that bias is unconscious and deep-seated. But biology is not destiny, nor is bias ineradicable, as following essays attest. Contributors address how schools, businesses, and police departments can counter an inborn tendency to distrust that which is different. And the book's third section celebrates racial and ethnic diversity as a source of vitality. Rebecca Walker addresses being biracial, and others meditate on raising bicultural and biracial children or being part of an interracial couple. The concluding essay by Archbishop Desmond Tutu relates how the truth and reconciliation process helped heal South Africa's deep racial fissures. While topics are explored too briefly to be of scholarly interest, their brevity will be an advantage to readers looking for a snapshot of contemporary research into and activism around ending racism. (Aug.)