Table Of ContentSOCIAL CRISIS
AND
SOCIAL DEMORALIZATION
The Dynamics of Status
in American Race Relations
RONALD A. KUYKENDALL
Arissa Media Group • Portland, Oregon
SOCIAL CRISIS AND SOCIAL DEMORALIZATION:
The Dynamics of Status in American Race Relations
Copyright © 2005 by Ronald A. Kuykendall
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First Edition, 2005.
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International Standard Book Number: 0-9742884-3-8
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Edited by Ariana Huemer
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To the loving memory of my mother and father
Edith Viola Young Kuykendall and Harold Kuykendall, Sr.
To my wife
Janelle Moore Kuykendall
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
Deficiency Theories 2
Bias Theories 3
Structural Theories 4
An Alternative Explanation 6
CHAPTER ONE
The Dynamics of Status in
American Race Relations 9
Social Status 10
Social Adversity 26
Social Crisis 41
Social Demoralization 47
Summary 57
CHAPTER TWO
Race Relations and the Meaning
of American Nationhood 63
CHAPTER THREE
Political Class Struggle and the Race Problem 75
CHAPTER FOUR
From Revolutionary Potential to Revolution 89
CONCLUSION 109
APPENDIX 111
REFERENCES 115
Social Crisis and Social Demoralization
Introduction
T
he issue of race relations, that is, racial antagonism, racial
antipathy, and racial inequality is a persistent problem
within the United States. The race problem is disturbing
because of the contradictory and conflicting ethical,
moral, and irrational predicaments produced by situations of race relations.
Several divergent explanations have arisen for the problem of race relations.
These explanations disproportionately focus on African Americans and
the deviant or pathological aspects of that group. Considerable attention
has been given to a particular subpopulation of the African American
citizenry described as the “underclass”: an unassimilated, socially and
economically disadvantaged subculture with all the classic attributes of
dysfunctionality. However, to speak of an underclass, although it may
provide some objective reference to social position, is purely artificial and
imaginary. The concept only makes sense to those conceiving of it. Such
a class cannot be objectively differentiated, as it has neither members nor
organization. What this term actually refers to is status: how others think
of and treat individuals, as well as how those persons see themselves in the
eyes of others. Consequently, behavior is towards persons and not towards
class. Because the explanations are really attempts at explaining the
dysfunctionality of individuals within the African American population,
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Social Crisis and Social Demoralization
race becomes the significant variable.
The debate has frequently revolved around whether race relations
are determined by race or by class with a racial bias. On the race side
two different perspectives emerge: (1) the dysfunctionality within the
African American population is an effect of inherent factors or traits that
are deficient or abnormal; (2) the dysfunctionality within the African
American population is an effect of racial antipathy, and hence prejudice
and discrimination are the source of inequality and the resultant social and
economic problems.
On the class side, the focus is on stratification within American
society and within the African American population. The stratification
is a consequence of economic factors that have dislocated or left behind
a significant segment of the African American population, exacerbating
dysfunctionality. The lack of socio-economic resources, rather than
specific racial prejudice and discrimination, is the culprit that has caught
this segment of the African American population unprepared to take
advantage of economic changes.
The most widely held explanations about racial inequality and
racial discrimination fall into three broad categories: deficiency theories,
bias theories, and structural theories. This categorization is taken from the
work of sociologist Mario Barrera (1979), and each will be considered here
in turn.
Deficiency Theories
The contention of deficiency theories is that racial inequality
and the concomitant social pathologies associated with African American
behavior are located in either biological or cultural deficiencies. Therefore,
the problem is an inherent inadequacy within African Americans.
Biological explanations, which assert that intellectual differences
(read as intellectual deficiencies) are due to biological inheritance, have
relied on IQ test scores. Although this category of explanation is held
in scientific disrepute, it continues to stir considerable interest and even
assert some degree influence (Gordon 1987; Hernstein 1971; Hernstein
and Murray 1994; Jensen 1969, 1973; Wilson 1978).
Psychiatrist Frances Cress Welsing (1991) presents an inverse
biological deficiency theory in which she asserts,
[T]he quality of whiteness is indeed a genetic inadequacy
or a relative genetic deficiency state, based upon the genetic
inability to produce skin pigments of melanin (which is
responsible for all skin color). The vast majority of the
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Social Crisis and Social Demoralization
world’s people are not so afflicted, which suggests that color
is normal for human beings and color absence acts always as
a genetic recessive to the dominant genetic factor of color-
production. Color always “annihilates” (phenotypically and
genetically speaking) the non-color, white. Black people
possess the greatest color potential, with brown, red and
yellow peoples possessing lesser quantities respectively”
(4).
In Welsing’s theory the psychological response of Europeans to their
color inferiority is a defensive and uncontrollable hostility and aggression
towards people of color. Combined with white demographic disadvantage,
whites’ genetic inferiority leads to psychological defense mechanisms such
as repression, reaction formation, projection, and displacement. Thus,
racism and white supremacy are psychological responses, both conscious
and subconscious, to this sense of genetic inadequacy faced by whites.
Cultural explanations locate racial inequality and African
American social pathologies within abnormal or deviant cultural traits
such as weak family structure, language handicaps, lack of work discipline,
present rather than future orientations, dependency, and lack of success
orientation. They emphasize cultural deficiencies as being responsible for
the development of attitudes and values that limit opportunities or prevent
escape from poverty. This “tangle of pathology” sets in motion a vicious
circle resulting in drug addiction, crime, low educational achievement,
and economic problems that reinforces the weak family structure and
perpetuates abnormal and deviant cultural traits. Thus, it is not racism or
genetics but African American cultural adaptations that are responsible for
inequality and social pathologies (Auletta 1982; Banefield 1970; D’Souza
1995; Moynihan 1965; Murray 1984).
Bias Theories
Bias theories focus on prejudice and discrimination as the source
of inequality and the resultant social problems. Central to this analysis
is the idea that discrimination is due to racial prejudice. Thus, racism
stands out as the overriding factor responsible for not only inequality but
also psychosocial problems that inhibit and thwart social and economic
advancement (Bell 1992; Clark 1972; Grier and Cobb 1968; Hacker 1992;
Myrdal 1944; West 1994).
One such approach that fits within the bias theory model centers
on “symbolic racism.” This approach makes the argument that racism
involves anti-black feelings combined with a perceived violation of
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