Black And White Self Esteem

An impassioned examination of the role self-esteem plays in the lives of African Americans contends that American culture fails to promote healthy self-esteem, documents the failures of historical movements, and discusses the benefits of preventative mental health care. Reprint.

The Concept of Self examines the historical basis for the widely misunderstood ideas of how African Americans think of themselves individually, and how they relate to being part of a group that has been subjected to challenges of their very humanity.

'I don't like colored people.' 'He's lazy because he's colored.' Similar attitudes have too many echoes in American society. What distinguishes these particular comments is that they were made by preschool-age children, the former by a five-year-old white, the latter by a four-year-old black. The general public might be amazed to find that statements of this type were made by such young children, yet it is now widely accepted by social scientists that racial attitudes are learned during preschool years.

Self-esteem is an academic and popular phenomenon, vigorously researched and debated, sometimes imbued with magical qualities, other times vilified as the bane of the West's preoccupation with self. Though thousands of articles have been devoted to the topic, and bookshops work to feed the public's appetite for advice on revealing, enhancing and maintaining self-esteem, conflicting claims and findings have placed the field in disarray. In a very real sense, self-esteem is a victim of its own popularity. This book seeks to add clarity to a concept earlier examined by such notable self theorists as Morris Rosenberg but eminently worthy of re-examination and extension. We do this by asking some leading thinkers on self-esteem theory, measurement and application to assess what we know about self-esteem, and link it to important aspects of society and the human experience.

A study of race and authenticity in the photography of the civil rights era and beyond