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When all you have is a hammer: how social justice distorts what we know about racial disparities

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Abstract

The sociological literature on race operates under the progressive ideological assumption that systemic racism is the predominant cause of racial disparities. This assumption has become “paradigmatic,” sha** the selection of research questions and the interpretation of research results. Consequently, the literature offers a rather narrow “Overton window” concerning what we, as sociologists, know about: (1) the causes of racial disparities, (2) the accuracy and motivation behind the public’s views on race-related issues, and (3) race-related policy preferences. A paradigm shift is needed to improve our understanding of racial disparities and devise more effective ways to address them. To achieve this end, sociologists should broaden their perspectives beyond attributing all racial disparities to systemic racism and consider additional hypotheses. From a policy perspective, to reduce racial disparities we should reconsider addressing social class and related factors early in life.

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Notes

  1. Other very influential critical race theory scholars such at Patricia Hill Collins and Kimberle Crenshaw do not have verified Google Scholar profiles, though they have individual books or articles that have been cited thousands of times.

  2. Though seldom acknowledged by sociologists today, colorblindness was central in the fight against racial inequality after the end of slavery and during the subsequent racist backlash that occurred in the South (Hughes, 2024). Colorblindness was also featured prominently in the rhetoric of the Civil Rights movement. As Hughes has argued (2024: 47), colorblindness “was not invented by conservatives or by racists. Rather, it was invented by the most radical anti-racist activists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and then abandoned by the so-called anti-racists of our era.”

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  1. Department of Sociology, Penn State University, 211 Oswald Tower, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    John Iceland & Eric Silver

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Iceland, J., Silver, E. When all you have is a hammer: how social justice distorts what we know about racial disparities. Theor Soc (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-024-09568-1

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