Session Will Examine Psychology of Racism

The events of the past year have brought the issue of racism in this country to the forefront of the national dialogue. Much of this dialogue has focused on how racism contributes to disparities in health, wealth, and treatment within the criminal justice system. A less-discussed theme has been the psychology of racism—how individuals directly or indirectly learn biased thoughts, feelings, or actions about people of different races.

At the presidential session “The Psychology of Racism and Nonviolence,” researchers and civil rights activists will discuss factors that contribute to American racism and nonviolent resistance in the quest for equality. The presenters encompass a range of backgrounds and generational history, which should provide a holistic and personal discussion.

The speakers will include Steven Roberts, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Stanford University and the director of the Social Concepts Lab. Roberts’ research focuses on how children and adults perceive themselves, others, and groups of people, with a particular focus on how such perceptions develop and contribute to social bias. Roberts recently co-wrote a comprehensive review paper that explored seven key facets that contribute to American racism, which will be part of his discussion.

Roberts will be joined by fellow psychologist Charles Collyer, Ph.D., a professor emeritus at the University of Rhode Island and co-founder of the URI Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies. Collyer spent more than four decades in Rhode Island researching the history and psychology of nonviolence movements, from ancient India to the present day.

Also speaking at the session will be the Rev. James Lawson, considered one of the architects of the nonviolent demonstrations that came to define the civil rights movement, and Clayborne Carson, Ph.D., a professor of history at Stanford University and the Ronnie Lott Director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute.

In the late 1950s, Lawson began organizing workshops on nonviolence in Nashville, training such activists as John Lewis and Diane Nash, who would go on with others to create the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and lead freedom marches and sit-ins in the 1960s.

As an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles, Carson was involved with civil rights and antiwar protests. He later became a leading civil rights scholar and, in 1985, was asked by Coretta Scott King to edit and publish her late husband’s papers. ■