Seeing Race 99or personality—each a lens through which human neurobiology may be
understood.
It is clear that orthodox psychology of sensation and perception not
only falls short of CRP as described above, but actually stands in conflict
with CRP. Adams et al. (2013) maintain that a CRP “emphasizes a self-
critical, identity-conscious, reflexive form of inquiry that illuminates the
operation of racial power and ideology in theory, application, and method”
(p. 790). The neurobiology of perception is self-less in that it takes self and
racism to be consequences of neurobiology; identity-less in that identities
lived or perceived are understood as combinations of various and discrete
independent variables; and unreflexive because the neurobiological method
of inquiry and the metaphysical framework upon which it is based are
understood to exist independently of the process of inquiry.
In sum, the assessment of Adams and Salter (2011; 2013) that CRP has
not yet come applies to the orthodox practice and instruction of the
psychology of sensation and perception. Moreover, these may even
contribute to the problem of racism.
AN ALTERNATIVE PATH TO PERCEPTION
Fortunately, a psychology of perception that is adequate to CRP would
not have to start from scratch. Psychologies of perception that emphasize
subjectivity, using descriptions of concrete experience as data, already
exist such as those of Spinelli (2005) and Whitehead (2017)—neither of
which, it should be noted, address their potential for CRP. These
alternatives adopt a phenomenological orientation. Rather than adopt what
Nagel (1986) calls a detached and impersonal view from nowhere,
phenomenology recognizes that all perception is necessarily personal and
meaningful, and this is because we play a role in this process.
Kant has argued that the Universal Stuff are noumena—always just
outside the read of our complete perceptual access. You and I can only
ever perceive a given object or person from a particular vantage point, or
as it appears (phai) to you and I at a particular moment. We do not