Kindler, gentler pathologizing: racial asymmetries in The Cultural Matrix

Abstract

ABSTRACTI suggest that despite its conceptual and empirical ambitions, The Cultural Matrix is a book painfully out of touch with the times. Far from avoiding the racist assumptions of sociologists who portrayed African-Americans as socially and culturally deficient for most of the twentieth century, The Cultural Matrix is vulnerable to some of the same anti-black impulses that have animated social analysis since the establishment of the discipline. Specifically, I argue that the Patterson and Fosse engage in what I call ‘kindler, gentler pathologizing' – a way of depicting African-Americans as responsible for their own uplift, while still paying lip service to the structural barriers imposed by racism. Further, I explain the role of racial asymmetries in producing a portrait of black youth that minimizes racism. Finally, I discuss the authors’ arguments in light of the #BlackLivesMatter movement.