Who Is Impartial?

For 30 years, a white sociologist at a California university specialized in race relations, undaunted by racists' taunts that he was a "radical," a "nigger lover" and a "Communist." Today, he is seriously considering quitting his field altogether because of demoralizing attacks, not from his old critics but from militant black students. "It is too much of a hassle," he says, "to try to be an impartial behavorial scientist when the sole criterion for knowledge, understanding or credibility is the color of your skin."

All over the U.S., white sociologists who once prided themselves on being unprejudiced and basically sympathetic to the blacks they studied have found their motivation and competence challenged by militants who claim that only a black can understand the black experience. The antagonism toward these white sociologists has also spread through the black ghettos, making it difficult for them to continue their research. During the past six months, their plight has been studied by Wilson Record, a white sociologist at Portland State University in Oregon. He interviewed 140 of the estimated 750 white sociologists specializing in race and ethnic relations at U.S. campuses and found that nearly a fourth have abandoned the field of race relations.

Those who stayed "almost invariably develop a range of defensive tactics," Record writes in a preliminary report for articles to be published next year. Some minimized their difficulties by shifting their emphasis to other races. One sociologist in New Mexico, for example, now devotes much of his course to color differentiation in early Japan. Others tried--and frequently failed--to identify more closely with black students, while still others practiced self-censorship. "Unattractive traits of black culture, society and institutions were simply not explored," Record reports. "If introduced, they were rather hastily interpreted as the invariable results of white prejudice, bigotry and evil. This may or may not have been good sociology, but, as it turned out in a number of instances, it wasn't a suitable basis for relating to either whites or blacks in the classroom."

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