88 Patrick M. Whitehead
evaluating evidence and arguments claiming whether or not racism is still a
problem. More specifically, we consider whether psychology is even
capable of addressing such problems. In this chapter, I evaluate the
orthodox presentation of the psychology of perception from the vantage
point of Critical Race Theory (CRT). This is accomplished by examining a
recent study on race-based biases in perceptual judgment (Wilson,
Hugenberg, & Hule, 2017). Next, CRT is applied to an orthodox
introduction of psychology chapter on the psychology of perception
(Griggs, 2017). Both fall short.
CRITICAL RACE THEORY AND PSYCHOLOGY
CRT is an interdisciplinary approach that aims to examine and re-
examine trends in academic, scientific, legal, and social discourses. More
specifically, CRT scholars focus on racial power relations and the degree
to which inequalities are reinforced by the orthodox practice of these
disciplines. For the purposes of the above discussion, CRT would require
an examination not only of the ways in which racism is experienced and
reinforced in the United States, but also the degree to which the orthodox
psychology of perception is equipped to understand it.
In order to develop a psychology that is adequate to the dictates of
CRT, psychologists Glenn Adams and Phia Salter (2011) argue that
psychological science must “reveal and dismantle disciplinary conventions
that constitute racial power” (p. 1361). They provide three clues about
what this might look like, and six theoretical orientations within
psychological practice that they have found are amenable to a Critical Race
Psychology. It is worth mentioning that the positivistic orientation which
describes orthodox psychological science is not listed among the six.
Consequently, their assessment is that orthodox psychological science is
insufficiently critical.
In order to demonstrate how orthodox psychological science falls short
of being adequate to CRT, the present chapter uses one of the clues
supplied by Adams et al. (2011) to examine (1) an article on a study of