Introduction
Martin Luther King Jr's March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom occurred on August 28, 1963. He called for an end to racism in the United States. Previously, in his April 16, 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail, he also promoted social justice. He wrote, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." He was a strong believer and practitioner of engaging in nonviolent protest. He taught us, "In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustice exists; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action." His message was one of love, respect, commitment, negotiation, accountability, engagement, and brotherhood/sisterhood. He gave us a functional behavior-based course of action. Few have followed it.
The location in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his speech, “I Have a Dream.”
In Washington D.C., in front of over 250,000 people, he left us with one of his greatest legacies. In what is now known as the I Have a Dream speech, he described the objectives to be accomplished: "freedom and equality arising from the land of slavery and hatred." He urged us to seek the moment when he said and repeated "Now is the time" three times. In his dream, he painted a picture of a unified and integrated United States of America, acting with love, collaboration, and respect. Putnam and Garret in The Upswing (2020) noted, "King's Civil Rights movement was rooted in communitarian values and community building." We, who were present at the time, surely miss that peaceful and constructive behavior.
One of his most direct calls for action states, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Fifty-nine years later we still have that unfulfilled dream. It is past time to make it a reality.
Post “I Have a Dream” Speech
At the time of the MLK speech, John Lewis was the president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. After the speech, Lewis noted, "By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he informed not just people there, but people throughout America and unborn generations." As a factual note, the I Have a Dream speech, along with others with similar themes, has inspired social scientists such as Sweetman and Spears in the Journal of Social and Political Psychology (2013) to propose a typology of social change goals. They noted that typically, a speech like I Have a Dream helps us: 1) conceptualize the social change needed; 2) define the social change goals; 3) pinpoint the individual and collective behavior needed to achieve those social goals; 4) know the obstacles to be encountered, and ways to solve them; and 5) use reward to direct our behavior toward the goal (value). This is a functional action-based directive for behavior change. It is quite relevant today.
Soon after the “I Have a Dream” speech, the 1964 Civil Rights Act became law. The letter of the law was to end discrimination based on race, religion, or national origin. The goal was to bring social justice and equality. Fifty-nine years later we can safely say that laws and social policies do little to change the behavior of people in the social structures that could bring about significant social and cultural changes. We need to implement a functional approach that intentionally guides and shapes our behavior and that of groups leading societal behavior change and the social equality dreamed of by Martin Luther King. We highly recommend reading, A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. edited by James M. Washington (1991). This can help propel us into action to initiate a science (and behavior-based cultural evolutionary process) to finally fulfill King's dream. This is going to take some time to accomplish but we believe it is doable.
Social Justice Research
Our research on social injustice has been arduous and challenging, revealing the complexity of understanding and measuring the cultural and behavioral aspects of racism. Our objective was to establish a robust scientific theory of social justice, with a particular emphasis on the origins and perpetuation of racist behavior within specific cultural contexts. By identifying the fundamental structural elements that establish and maintain the cultural conditions for racist behavior and its impact, we can develop practical and effective interventions. It is important to recognize that discrimination and racist behavior are learned behaviors.
From a behavioral perspective, social structures are the institutions of society. They contain the prevailing cultural contingencies of reinforcement that shape and maintain the behavior of its citizens. Structures in society set the occasion for behavior to occur and arrange the contingencies in place for such behavior. Certain behavior becomes learned and is established for the individual. Examples of social structure include institutions such as government, family, religion, economy, law, education, the workplace, and our residential communities, among others. They are the framework of society. A social system is the parent structure within which these structures are embedded. It is the framework around which society and culture evolve and prevailing behaviors are established. It remains fairly stable with some drift at times, depending on changing contingency arrangements. Culture usually evolves and changes slowly. As we have previously noted, this did not happen in the 1960s. There was a major cultural shift that has continued to evolve into the present. Robert K. Merton, a sociologist at Columbia University, conducted empirical research investigating social structure. He developed the model of “functionalism,” that is, interpreting data by their consequences for larger structures in which they are implicated. Merton provided the seeds and the tools being developed by subsequent social investigators to approach the problem of racism and discrimination objectively.
As noted, changes tend to happen slowly. Social structure determines the general norms (rule governance) that shape the behavior of individuals within their group and the larger social group system. It is these social institutions, composed of acting individuals, that reinforce and maintain the individual behavior involved in either social injustice or social justice. This is the structure of justice that has permeated our culture since the time of slavery, and despite many well-intended efforts, the present structure continues to negatively impact the lives of many. It is critical to question why racist discriminatory behavior continues to exist as it does. We need a more action-oriented approach if we are to effect and achieve prosocial behavior guided towards MLK’s Dream as framed by our founding immigrants: “We hold these truths to be self-evident - that all men are created equal.”
Structural Theory of Racism
Bonilla-Silva (1997) published in the American Sociological Review Rethinking Racism: Toward a Structural Interpretation. He asserted, “I contend that the central problem of the various approaches to the study of racial phenomena is their lack of structural theory of racism.” He was critical of how social scientists have approached the study of racism and proposed a structural theory of racism based on the notion of radicalized social systems. He noted that traditionally, racism has been defined "as a set of ideas or beliefs…those beliefs are regarded as having the potential to lead individuals to develop prejudice, defined as 'negative attitudes towards an entire group of people.'" And finally, "these prejudicial attitudes may induce individuals to real actions or discrimination against racial minorities." He believed that this conceptual framework was the most prevalent in the social sciences at the time. In looking at more recent work in the social sciences, it seems to be well entrenched.
The problem with this approach, as proposed by Bonilla-Silva, is that it is mentalistic. That is, it is “inside” of one's head. It places emphasis on the individual, cannot be operationally defined and measured, and we have no idea how to change it. Bonilla-Silva proposed that the only way out was to develop "a structural conceptualization of racial matters." We’re not quite sure what he means by that. The fact is that we need to look at the variables in the social environment that reinforce, shape, and maintain racist behavior. We need to look at racism as a learned behavior, shaped and maintained by the environment in which it occurs. It usually begins at home and in the community.
Bonilla-Silva proposed a general concept of "racialized social systems." He operationally defined it in terms of "societies in which economic, political, social, and ideological levels are partially structured by the placement of actors in racial categories or races." He contended "the selection of certain human traits to designate a racial group is always socially rather than biologically based." He saw a racialized social system placing people in racial categories that create a type of hierarchy that contributes to definite social relations between the races. He concluded, "The totality of these racialized social relations and practices constitutes the racial structure of a society." He noted that the consequence of a racialized social system is that the opportunities for blacks in general are significantly lower than those of whites.
Bonilla-Silva also informed us that because races receive different social rewards in general, their behavior is usually associated with dissimilar customs, interests, and objectives, and it contributes to the struggle of the races to either transform or maintain a given racial order. He pointed out, "although the races' interests can be detected from their practices, they are not subjective and individual but collective and shaped by the field of real practical alternatives, which is itself rooted in the power struggles between the races." He informed us, "Because racial classification partially organizes and limits an actor's life chances, racial practices of opposition emerge."
In 1999, Bonilla-Silva explained his social constructionism further, "race, like other socially constituted categories, is a human creation and thus exhibits a high degree of malleability and permeability not seen, for instance, in biologically determined categories, although even these change through evolution and interaction with human ecosystem." He pointed out, "races are not 'things' but relations….Racialized actors can only 'be recognized in the realm of social relations and positions.'" Viewed in this light, "races are the effect of racial practices of opposition at the economic, political, social, and ideological levels." These practices then, historically, become "institutionalized." These practices are the ones we need to focus on and change. We need an intentional behavior-based functional approach to effect these changes in the structure of racism. It starts with early childhood education. Teaching and reinforcing in all children the idea that all people are created equal and should be treated as equal no matter how different they are from me. It is an evolutionary behavior change process that is gradual and requires intent, measurement, and frequent correction. Adults, by their prosocial actions, can model, reinforce and promote racial equality.
Behavior-Based Scientific Approach to Shaping Prosocial Justice Behavior
John Staddon, a prominent behavior analyst and professor of psychology, neuroscience, and biology at Duke University was interviewed by J. Peder Zane from the Wall Street Journal for an opinion/commentary (Feb 19, 2021). Staddon was critical of some of Bonilla-Silva's writings, particularly his book Racism Without Racist: Colorblindness Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America (2018). Staddon noted, "If colorblindness, the MLK ideal, is itself racist, we are in an Alice-in-Wonderland world, and racial strife without end."
Staddon warns us that we need to use science-based practices to transform social injustice, pointing out that "the idea that differences in the outcomes between racial and ethnic groups can be explained by a factor that is basically unmeasurable is the opposite of science, which seeks, or should seek, to identify actual causes." He points us in the direction of applying a functional behavior-based science that, when applied, can produce a functional analysis in measurable terms. We can then identify the cultural practices that are the causes of social injustice and target them for change. We can implement valid and reliable behavior change procedures resulting in changes in cultural practices that, when properly measured, result in appropriate interventions when and where needed. We have not followed these guidelines in the past, and that explains why the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has not produced the desired cultural changes that it embraced.
Staddon recently published Science in an Age of Unreason (2020). Enlightening us with wisdom about the role of science and reason in discovering facts. He warns us that science is in trouble and facts have taken a backseat to ideology and political activism masquerades as scholarship. He provides an excellent review and critique of the social sciences noting, "In RES (Race and Ethnic Studies) it is simply assumed that the findings and reasoning of sociologists are determined by their ethnicity and position in society." He argues that most RES sociological work lacks objectivity and empirical evidence and therefore is not able to provide cause-and-effect scientific facts.
Even though Bonilla-Silva's theoretical agenda is structural and its findings cannot be scientifically validated to establish cause and effect, the descriptive data are very relevant to the science of behavior. He defines the environments in which the practices of social injustice are learned, happen, and are facilitated by our institutions. They are human creations we have made, and so we can change them. Racist behavior is learned; it occurs within the context of relationships and human interactions. Therefore, it can be pinpointed for change and can change. Bonilla-Silva has given observational data for developing and implementing functional behavioral technologies and practices that will facilitate social justice. We have the measurement technology to monitor changes and implement corrective actions as dictated by the obtained measures. This agenda is clearly a monumental task and challenge that will require many people and institutions, including the states and federal government, to work together. Change starts with early childhood education. The home environment sets the initial stage for modeling and reinforcing racist behavior or modeling and reinforcing equality.
There are so many theories as to why some people engage in discriminatory/racist behavior that it is difficult to extract from them a set of effective practices to improve race relations. Some of the most common theories proposed include Racial Identity Development, Critical Race, Targeted Universalism, Anti-Racism, and Racial Capitalism, among others, each with its own agenda and methodology. The problem with many of these social science-based theories is that they describe the phenomena observed, each through their own lens, but they are not and cannot be functionally validated by the social sciences methodology. They do not establish a cause-and-effect relationship. Facts and theories are different things. The scientific method is applied to distinguish them. Behavioral facts can be observed and measured and validated practices can be imposed to effect change as intended. Theories are explanations and interpretations of potential facts that have not been validated. A good theory should be testable, coherent, economical, generalizable, and explain known findings.
Applied Behavior Analysis - Discrimination Learning and Prosocial Justice
Functional Assessment: A functional behavioral assessment is a methodical validation process for identifying and measuring problem behavior that leads to the implementation of effective practices to improve or eliminate the targeted behavior. It consists of data gathering to identify the function the behavior is serving for the person who is behaving. The main objective of functional analysis, as performed in the practice of applied behavior analysis, is to identify the contingencies (variables that influence behavior) in the environment that have contributed to the development and maintenance of the observed behavior targeted for change. Racist discrimination is a learned behavior, and as such, it can be targeted for change.
Fact - We Are All Biologically Similar: Smedley and Smedley (2005) published Race as Biology is Fiction, Racism as a Social Problem is Real in the American Psychologist. They addressed the anthropological and historical perspectives on the social construct of race. They evaluated the historical controversy as to whether the difference reflected in human variation and population differences, such as skin color, intelligence, and other features and abilities can be attributed to intrinsic biological variables that can be measured so that we can identify racial groups that in few cases have led to "racist science." We have horrific examples, some historically quite explicit such as those proposed by Hitler, and some less explicit such as those practices reflected in the United States and other countries. Such is the long history of differences in opportunities and unequal treatment based on the color of one's skin. The question Smedley's team proposed was whether racial groups are, in fact, discrete, measurable, and scientifically meaningful. They concluded, "The consensus among most scholars in fields such as evolutionary biology, anthropology, and other disciplines is that racial distinction fails on all three counts - that is, they are not genetically discrete, are not reliably measured, and are not scientifically meaningful."
Fact - The Culture of Racist Behavior is Created by Human Action: The anthropologist Marvin Harris noted in his book Theories of Culture in Postmodern Times (1999), "Humans, as individuals or groups, are not born with propensities for any particular culture, culture traits, or language, only with the capacity to acquire and create culture." Harris added, "human behavior can best be understood in terms of other cultural phenomena, not as products of some variable biogenic reality as yet unproven." The simple scientific facts are that a given culture and racist discriminatory behavior within the culture are created by human action. The scientific approach to making changes needs to focus on identifying the cultural variables and contingencies of reinforcement that shape, maintain, and reward racial discriminatory behavior in some, regardless of skin color.
Fact - Children Are Not Born Racist: Children learn to discriminate on the basis of color as well as other features. Kang and Inzlicht (2011) are social psychologists who showed that young children learn prejudice by instruction and modeling the behavior of others. They learn from what they see and hear from others in their environment. This is the impact of the home environment and early education practices. Jane Elliott was a white Iowa teacher that performed a creative (although unethical) study demonstrating color as a discriminatory feature one day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. She divided her students into two groups based on their eye color and told them that one group was superior to the other. She then treated the superior group better and gave them privileges while discriminating against the other group. The next day, she reversed the roles. Through this exercise, she aimed to teach her students about the harmful effects of discrimination and to help them empathize with those who experience discrimination based on characteristics such as race. In her own words "watched wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating little third graders”. A brief narrative describing her study can be found in The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (Summer, 1995). The point is, racism is a learned social discriminatory behavior.
Fact - We Learn to Discriminate: Learning to discriminate is essential in many cases for our individual survival. For example, when we first learn to cross a street, we need to learn to discriminate whether a car is approaching or not, and if it is, calculate if we have time to cross safely. When you are shopping for shoes, you select the one that feels most comfortable through the process of discrimination. Your choice depends on your personal history of selecting and wearing shoes. It becomes problematic when we learn to discriminate based on differences such as culture, race, physical characteristics, and ethnicity. For example, if we are more likely to be rude or curt to a cashier who is from a different culture than us while treating a cashier from a similar culture kindly and politely (despite both cashiers being friendly and courteous). Behavior always occurs in a certain context. A history of reinforcement consists not only of certain activities resulting in certain consequences but also of those relations occurring over and over in a certain context. Behavior changes as context changes. Learned behavior depends on consequences that follow behavior repeatedly over time and those consequences occur usually in a given context. When a given behavior occurs in a given context, it is because we have learned to discriminate among many similar contexts. Discrimination, in the technical sense, is not only easy. It is inevitable.
Charles Catania is one of the most prolific researchers in discrimination learning. He tells us that discrimination may be effective in some conditions and not others. He gives us an example of our response to a traffic light that depends on whether we are a driver or a pedestrian. Catania (2013), in his book Learning - 5th Edition notes, "We have come a long way from experiments in which B. F. Skinner arranged an environment in which a rat's lever presses produced food when a light was on but not when it was off." The rat came to press the lever more often when the light was on than when it was off. Skinner called the light a discriminative stimulus and called the development of this differential responding discrimination. Catania emphasizes that the term has been retained by the natural science of behavior as one of our technical usages, "but we have rarely related it to discrimination in social behavior, as in the differential treatment of people along dimensions such as race and gender."
Catania teaches us that discrimination has many usages, but all are basically similar. Discriminated responding is neither good nor bad. It is useful to separate social discrimination (based on experienced contingencies), and prejudice (based not on experienced contingencies, but on what you have been told or learned from others). We have previously discussed the difference between contingency-shaped and rule-governed behavior. Discrimination in which the role of one stimulus depends on others to provide its context is known as conditional discrimination. Like any other discrimination, social discrimination may be conditional (learned) in the sense that it may vary depending on context. The fact is that the prevalent cultural contingencies may facilitate and actually reinforce socially discriminatory practices for some people. A home environment that promotes social discrimination through the parent's practices and verbal narratives teaches the young child to socially discriminate, and this discriminatory behavior may become a lifelong practice.
Review
The basic message is that contingency-shaped discrimination is a product of direct exposure to contingencies. Verbally governed discriminations, many of which are prejudices, have been taught. The verbal narrative provided by parents, community leaders, educators, and politicians can significantly influence social discrimination and perpetuate it. Catania warns us, "To the extent that some problematic discrimination arises from actual contingencies, it is unlikely we can eradicate them either by legislation or other means, but we can at least nurture environments where they are replaced by conditional discrimination with which they are incompatible." That will be accomplished by initiating a gradual cultural evolution focusing on guiding the environmental/cultural contingencies to shape the culture to be conducive to reinforcing respect and embracing diversity and equal opportunities for all regardless of race, gender, or national origin.
The standing problem of social injustice and racism has been present for too long. It is deeply ingrained in our culture. While it is true that substantial progress has been made in the recent past, it is essential that we create a cultural environment that is designed to select diversity. From an evolutionary standpoint, variability has a substantial advantage over uniformity, both at the level of the larger group or the individual. Variability increases the options available for selection. Diversity enriches the culture. Equal opportunities create harmony, respect, cooperation, personal growth, collaborative behavior, and wealth, both financial and our well-being. We can reach a sustainable level of WE behavior.
Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End
As Heather McGhee points out in her book, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together (2021), eliminating racial inequality in education, opportunity, and achievement could add trillions of dollars to our GDP. From a purely economic perspective, removing the huge waste in human capital resulting from past discriminatory practices will unleash a large increment in the overall productivity of our economy. That fact alone should give pause to even the most entrenched guardians of past practices.
The bottom line is that, unfortunately, discrimination by skin color, gender, and other socially discriminatory practices are not going to go away any time soon. We will continue to carry that weight. Too many have learned the practices of social discrimination, most since childhood and the contingencies of our culture continue to selectively reinforce discriminatory practices. And it goes on despite protests, canceling the police and culture, innocent killings, new promises, new laws, new public policies, executive orders, and our money continues to be thrown at it with no accountability. These are failed interventions implemented in (seemingly) good faith. The results are nothing that is clearly tangible.
We believe that reform of the educational system will mitigate the ready basis for discrimination based on the association of skin color with academic achievement. When all citizens have equal opportunities to prepare for life, other determinants will begin to govern interpersonal decisions regarding employment, housing, association, and so on. We need to develop and provide effective universal evidence-based early childhood education if we are to give even footing to every child from the start. We need to address the problems with families and parenting. They create the early environment for the development of healthy prosocial behavior and a worldview based on love, respect, trust, reciprocity, and equality.
Music analysts believe that Paul McCartney wrote Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End in 1969 as a catharsis for the impending breakup of the Beatles in April 1970. There are many interpretations of the meaning of the song. Music critic Ian MacDonald interpreted the lyrics as "an acknowledgment by the group that nothing they would do as individual artists would equal what they had achieved together, and they would always carry that weight of their Beatles past." Others see it as "Golden Slumbers mourn those moments where we are looked after as children that we can never get back, before adulthood hits; then we have to carry that weight/a long time." The fact is that we all carry the lessons of our childhood and many carry that weight of racism and social injustice as a giver or receiver for a long time. The weight of racist discriminatory behavior is heavy. As citizens of the United States, we all carry that weight. The most promising approach to ending racist behavior in our country, which is now shaped and maintained by the prevailing contingencies in our culture, is to intentionally guide those prevailing contingencies, so they evolve toward the common good, by increasing the frequency of prosocial behavior in our environment. No quick fixes for that. It is doable, it is complex, it is hard communal work and it will require personal adjustment and a long-term commitment, not a four-year election cycle. Some of us will not live to see the day when all are truly free and love each other in brotherhood and sisterhood.
The Beatles sang to, "And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make." The time is now to love each other and make it grow by weaving our love and acting prosocially towards ending social injustice. It is doable. As MLK told us 60 years ago, "Now is the time!"
Pass it on and see you next week.
Francisco I. Perez, PhD
Henry S. Pennypacker, PhD
Faris R. Kronfli, PhD
Our book Engineering the Upswing - A Blueprint for Reframing Our Culture can be found at Amazon or at the Cambridge Center at behavior.org
UPDATED ON 3/19/23
A Call to Social Justice Action
Thanks for this. I'm interested in the reminder that variability has a substantial advantage over uniformity and the suggestion that we create a cultural environment that is designed to select diversity. I appreciate the idea that we need to start with early childhood education but curious about how that might be done in the home even before any formal early childhood education training? And, of course, eager to learn about successful strategies to design to select diversity for the many years beyond early childhood.
Sometimes I make things too complex. It only takes 30 hours one-on-one with an adult for a young child to learn to read. Basically, American children from families in the top 80% in income can read and those in the bottom 20% can't read. We don't have to wait for the system to change. Tutoring a 4-year-old from a low-income family to read transform that child's life forever.