Even the Rat Was White Critical Review

Even the Rat Was White Critical Review The title of this book gave only a small glimpse of the material that was going to be presented. Even the Rat Was White by Robert Gurthie (2004) shows the scientific and academic racism throughout the rise of Western Psychology. The author exposes experimenters, biases, inequality of education, and the field as a whole for being unjust. There are numerous discussions regarding experiments designed to rationalize the act of racism and support white supremacy. Most of the information discussed and touched on would not, and typically has not been, taught in your basic introduction to psychology college courses and sometimes even includes the advanced and graduate courses. Agreements Early psychology’s focus on proving white to be the supreme race was embarrassing (Guthrie, 2004). The need to be labeled as the worthier race & conduct countless studies on the matter is ghastly. Although, the studies based on facial structure and differences might not be as harsh as it sounds. If it was truly finding differences between races and not based on finding the worthier race, however, there were typically other motivations behind the studies. There was an exceptional amount of persistence in preserving particular beliefs. White psychologists steadily adhered to the single-minded theory about African Americans as being less than. Even past the point of discretization, practitioners firmly believed that based on the color of one’s skin that they were inferior. There was continuously no evidence to support claims being made, even after countless invalidations, but alas, somewhere persistent in maintaining the claim and the belief. This is still a very relevant topic today. Many people across the world have a bias that once was originally a biased-based science. Disagreements Early off in the book, Guthrie (2004) discusses racial differences. There was no precise way of categorizing people of African American descent other than hearsay information, especially when it came to aspects such as skin bleaching. Although this information was accurate and was how this type of data was collected, it does not leave any room for diversity within the black community. Even if one person had that gene within their bloodline, they were considered to be within that specific category, no matter the origin of which a person came from, which is appalling. The book discussed numerous times where whites were trying to prove the deficiency of black minds. Again, this was something that was repeated within the history of psychology. Around the time of World War I, Army Alpha and Beta intelligence testing were introduced to test the intellectual levels of recruits; black recruits objected to only the Beta testing. According to Guthrie (2004), this was because the sole intention of recruiting black individuals was strict to complete manual labor. Once again, examiners were neglecting power and this turned into a racist, biased experiment. It turned into examining the difference in results between dark and light-skinned black recruits. Historical Materials Racial Stereotypes and Negative Views Racial stereotypes of African Americans were popular at the time. There were many attempts to prove intellectual and cultural betterness between races. De Gobineau attempts to prove that the mixing of inferior and superior blood of interracial couples created the fall of civilization (Guthrie, 2004). This was a view that later caused Nazi Germany poses bias and serve as a race-betterment policy to justify the massacre of the Jewish. Furthermore, Robert Bean conducted experiments that concluded black individuals were inferior based on the size of their cranial (Guthrie, 2004). His findings were inevitably spotless. Franklin P. Mall tried to replicate the experiment to find out that the data was falsified. The data was manipulated to confirm the biases of the experimenter, Robert Bean. Slave owners insisted, without reason, that African Americans were happy to be slaves; that black individuals’ brains were inevitably programmed to be slaves (Guthrie, 2004). In other words, their brains would be frozen if taken out of the south and or not engaging in manual labor. It was religiously thought that the act of serving and slaving was necessary to fulfill God’s role for black people. However, it was visible that all slaves were unfulfilled & unsatisfied with their place as a slave. The Teaching of Psychology Pre-1970 Unfortunately, the way of schooling and teaching within the realm of psychology was few and far between. Additionally, there were hardly any jobs that were open to black psychologists. Subjects taught between black and white colleges during this time were vastly different. For example, in white colleges, psychology students were taught about the difference between IQ scores of races. Meanwhile, in black colleges, psychology students were taught actual science: the similarities between people, regardless of one’s skin color. Professors educated students apart from the mainstream psychologists which created a stigma between races. Unfortunately, the teaching of psychology within black colleges was constantly ignored, non-existent, to the public. Due to the education of black psychologists, many people took a stand including white professors. Oftentimes there were advertisements for psychological education representation and job perspectives, but typically only limited to the white race. Furthermore, training for black psychologists was diminutive. The Committee on Equality of Opportunity in Psychology (APA) outlined eight out of ten respected psychological programs that offered Ph.D.’s (Guthrie, 2004). Contributions of Black Psychologists Although there was an underrepresentation of black individuals within the field, the book credits the numerous individuals that impacted the route of future psychology. Although many of the individuals mentioned were educated on the educational aspect of the field, Guthrie (2004) goes into detail regarding the various other positions in organizations, colleges, and titles that were not related. Charles Henry Thompson aspired to be a psychiatrist and was the first black psychologist to receive a doctoral degree in educational psychology (Guthrie, 2004). However, due to the scarcity of black psychiatrists, he decided to change routes and pursue that path. Instead, he became an instructor of psychological studies at the Virginia Union University and later became the Director of Instruction at a school in Alabama. He continued to pave a path for black instructors by holding various dean positions. Dr. Charles Thompson continued to grow his periodical and serve on numerous committees of education (Guthrie, 2004). Albert Sidney Beckham was a prominent figure in the field of black psychology. He promoted the teaching of psychology in the armed forces and became one of the first AfricanAmerican school psychologists (Guthrie, 2004). He continued to publish and research black adolescence. Some of his research helped families understand their children (Guthrie, 2004). Beckham helped guide racial intelligence in the world. Another prominent figure is Alberta Banner Turner. Before her involvement in psychological studies, she focused on economics. Only until her master’s degree in education did she somewhat get involved in the realm. She focused on child development and educational psychology. Later in her career, after teaching and being department head of Home Economics, she became a clinician for juvenile research. She was involved in various organizations that helped pave the way for cultures such as women, children, and rehabilitation and treatment patients (Guthrie, 2004). Implications of the Book The first part of the book is exposing early psychologists and the history of racism that was occurring. This includes going into detail regarding the history of slavery and the slaveholders. Topics such as racial stereotypes and how each originated are explained by discussing the mentality and biases of experimenters at the time. Furthermore, part one explores the preconceptions that guided proposing questions, studies, and answers. More specifically, how the color of one’s skin prompted scientists to dedicate studies towards corroborating white supremacy. The second part of the book is dedicated to displaying the inadequacy of higher education that African-American students received, especially within the realm of psychology. The inability to receive an equal opportunity and equal education was scarce, if not nonexistent. It also dissects the difficulties of career starts that began with college advertisements to defer black students from applying, due to the lack of career paths offered. Lastly, the second part introduces various early practitioners starting from their upbringing and ending with their contributions to psychology, such as the persons mentioned above. Impact of Historical information on Psychology History as a whole is important because it allows access to show what mistakes have been made and prevent those from happening more than once. Many of the experiments, studies, and ways of practices that have been performed by early psychologists have been horrifying and extremely unethical. However, the knowledge of those mistakes helped not only create laws and regulations for the field of psychology but also created a trackway for development in the field. We are now able to look at previous studies and create an improved version that would be less invasive and educational. The treatment of African Americans during early psychology was inhumane; this is not limited to physical damage, but created stigmas and psychological damage for generations. Birthrights and education were taken away from people that deserved them just as equally as others. Discussion This book was painful to read, but eye-opening. I was not aware of how little I knew about the history of psychology other than the typical practitioners that undergraduate courses are typically designed around: Piaget, Freud, Skinner, Maslow, etc. Generally, there is not much discussion on black psychologists, much like during Black History month schools take one day out of the month, out of the year, to discuss the most generic historians. I believe this is due to the lack of regard and maltreatment that early civilizations had for outside races. In regards to the book, there was not much I agreed with in terms of the morality of the studies that took place. There is in-depth detail about the oppressions and racism within the field of psychology to promote the ideology of white supremacy and black inferiority. This texttbook should be a necessity within the curriculum of undergraduate psychology coursework and not exclusively for graduate-level courses.