There is very little I like about the sociology we produce in the U.S. In our frenzy to become "objective" social scientists, we have sacrificed our sociological imagination at the altar of methodological correctness. Thus, not surprisingly, American-made sociology tends to be boring (how many of you wait anxiously for your American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, and Social Forces issues or — and be honest — read a good portion of the articles in these flagship journals?), uninspiring, apolitical, badly written, and hardly relevant.
To these trends in American sociology, there have always been exceptions. And arguably no exception in the last twenty years has been more significant than that of Joe R. Feagin. Almost everything he has written is interesting, inspiring, political, and relevant even if not always necessarily methodologically correct. Following on his longstanding scholarly tradition (he has published 45 books!), Feagin's new book with Karyn D. McKinney, The Many Costs of Racism, is a passionate, well-written, scholarly treatment of a terribly important [End Page 1240] subject that has not received yet the attention it deserves: the psychological and health impact of racism on its targets. (I would be remiss if I did not mention the pioneering work in this area, generously cited throughout this book, of my former colleagues at Michigan David R. Williams, James A. Jackson, and Robert J. Taylor.)
Feagin and McKinney's book begins with a quote from a black entrepreneur in response to the question "What is it like to be a black person in white Americas today?" Her answer is shocking: "One step from suicide! What I am saying is — the psychological warfare games that we have to play every day just to survive." But as we read this book, we realize that her answer is not irrational or sensational but representative of how the respondents in this study feel about being black in white America.
Blacks interviewed for this study, all middle-class and presumably successful, complain about how blatant, covert, and subtle discrimination in the workplace and elsewhere affects all facets of their lives: their physical and mental health, their family life, and their involvement in community affairs. In the essential chapter 1, the authors frame the discrimination experienced by their respondents as not peculiar but part of systematic racism. More significantly, the authors describe whites' denial of racial inequality and of the reality of discrimination and provide a very lucid argument about why such denials occur.
In chapters 2 and 3, the authors address the psychological and physical health consequences of contemporary racism on blacks. On the psychological front, respondents expressed how angry they feel about how they are treated in the workplace by their white peers (e.g., from being called names such as "buckwheat," "Aunt Jemima," or "nigger" to being passed over for promotions that are usually given to white coworkers with significantly less experience). A retired professor described his level of rage toward discrimination on a scale from one to ten as "Ten!" and added "I think that now I would strike out to the point of killing, and not thinking anything about it. I really wouldn't care." This respondent's answer exemplifies an idea the authors convey throughout the book: the cumulative impact of discrimination. Incident after incident, small and big, pile up in blacks' bodies and souls, creating a negative multiplier effect. Besides anger, respondents related symptoms or ailments such as depression, fatigue, sleeplessness, stress, headaches, hypertension, and stomach problems to their experiences of discrimination.
Chapter 4 documents the many ways in which discrimination affects blacks' family life. Parents complained that stress produced by discrimination experienced at work negatively affects their family relations. As a black mother vividly put it, "the anger sometimes builds up, and you're not even aware that it's there — so the moment your spouse, or your child, if there is anything that may seem like it was belittling or demeaning, you're responding to them with a level of anger, even, that is really inappropriate for the situation." Other respondents complained that the pressure at work drains them mentally to [End Page 1241] the point that when they go home they are unable to deal with their children or partners in an effective and loving way. (Note to minority readers: chapters 2, 3, and 4 are upsetting. They made me relive many of my own bouts with discrimination and affected me physically — I had a knot in my stomach for a day!)
Chapters 5 ands 6 are central, as they discuss the repertoire of coping strategies blacks use to handle discrimination. The authors conclude this book with a review of the multiple ways in which racism plays out in the health-care system.
Although this book has limitations — the sample on which it is based is small albeit large by qualitative standards, we learn little about the impact of discrimination on poor and working-class blacks, there is no discussion on the "many costs of racism" to other minority groups — it deserves to be widely read. Feagin and McKinney have produced a classic that can be confidently assigned in both graduate and undergraduate courses. And because I think that more should be done in this area, I hope that a smart program officer in a foundation contacts these authors and asks them to direct a large, systematic, national study on the many costs of racism in America with the goal of producing a Myrdalian tome on the subject.
