The Racialized Brain - by Rengin Firat (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Race is a fundamental reality of life. It shapes our experiences and interactions whether we are conscious of it or not. But does this mean that humans are wired for racism from birth? Is racial bias inevitable? This sharp-sighted book offers nuanced answers to such impactful questions by unfolding the ways the human brain learns and enables the racial patterning of our societies.

Taking advantage of her interdisciplinary expertise in both sociology and the neurosciences, Rengin Firat offers a compelling explanation of how the two-way process between society and the brain shapes racial perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. She shows that we do not have an in-built 'race center' in our brain. Racial categorization is a learned capacity, interpreted by our brains through the lens of structural racism and the legacies of slavery and global colonialism.

Importantly, this means that racial bias is not unavoidable or fixed. Our brains are malleable. And so Firat uncovers ways to rewire our brains to unlearn racism and also to reduce the physiological harms it causes to individuals. This 'inside-out' and 'outside-in' approach, merging sociological and neuroscientific understandings, provides a complete story of the racial life of our brains.

Review Quotes

The Racialized Brain compellingly shows how racial bias is learned, not innate, shaped by structural racism and colonial legacies. Firat highlights neurosociology's power to reveal how race and racism are socially constructed and embodied, deepening our understanding of inequality."
Bridget Goosby, The University of Texas at Austin, and Lifetime Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

"Rengin Firat's book is a unique contribution and very much needed in neuroscience, the psy-sciences, and sociology today. Readable and with many real-world examples, she helps readers grasp the importance of neuroscience's relationship with sociology (and vice versa) on one of the most - if not the most - controversial topics in neuroscience as a whole: the question of race."
Oliver Rollins, MIT and author of Conviction: The Making and Unmaking of the Violent Brain

About the Author

Rengin Firat is Professor of Leadership and Change at Antioch University, and a former Senior Neuroscientist at the Korn Ferry Institute.