Tukufu Zuberi - White Logic, White Methods

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Tukufu Zuberi

The best available methods of sociological research are at present so liable to inaccuracies that the careful student discloses the results of individual research with diffidence; he knows that they are liable to error from the seemingly ineradicable faults of the statistical method, to even greater error from the methods of general observation, and, above all, he must ever tremble lest some personal bias, some moral conviction or some unconscious trend of thought due to previous training, has to a degree distorted the picture in his view. Convictions on all great matters of human interest one must have to a greater or less degree, and they will enter to some extent into the most cold-blooded scientific research as a disturbing factor.

W. E. B. Du Bois, The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899)

In most respects, social science today is unrecognizably different from what it was in the years when W. E. B. Du Bois wrote his classic book The Philadelphia Negro. The social sciences have developed a whole series of methods of observation and analysis, and on the basis of these developments, have proceeded to describe the social world with a degree of confidence and consensus that only a few optimists could have expected in Du Boiss time. Many more social scientists are engaged in research, and the resources available for social research have also greatly increased from the thousands to the billions. The political conformity and development of convincing methods have led to the marriage of social research with social policy to an extent that was not possible in Du Boiss time, especially for a social scientist who was also an African American. The passage of years and positive turn of events have not, however, reduced the relevance of W. E. B. Du Boiss concerns with sociological methods.

Nevertheless, some readers will ask us, Why did you folks write a book on White logic and methods? They will likely be incensed and demand to know why we have titled our book White Logic, White Methods. The methodologically inclined will say, Methods are objective research tools beyond race, gender, and class. They will argue that social science methodology, like genetics, can be applied impartially regardless of the racial background of the individual conducting the investigation. Before we address these burning questions and points of view, we need to explain our motivations for editing a book such as this one. Thus, we begin this book in a very personal way with two vignettes from our own experiences in academia. We do so because we believe that our experiences showcase how White logic and White methods work in practice and how they blind (or severely limit) many social scientists from truly appreciating the significance of race (or, properly speaking, racial stratification). This book, accordingly, is not just the product of our sociological practice; it also grows out of our concerns with how the White racial logic influences the life chances of all racial subjects (Goldberg 1997, 1049) and the sociological imagination. This book is also personal in so far as we, like other sociologists of color, have felt the impact of racial stratification in our own flesh throughout our entire livesinside and outside of academia. Thus, we regard this as our first collaborative effort to attack White supremacy in contemporary research on race as well as in the methods most sociologists employ to examine, according to the logic that parades as objectivity, the so-called race effect. In this book, we will challenge the artificial distinction between analysis and analysts, individuals doing research and the world of scholarly knowledge, methods, and theory, a fiction of modern social analysis (Agger 2002).

In what follows, we do three things. First, we provide vignettes from our experiences in our respective sociological domains that show how White logic and White methods have affected us. Second, we conceptualize White logic and White methods and explain the problems they pose for sociology and its practitioners. Lastly, we conclude this introductory chapter with a brief description of each of the chapters in the book and explain what each brings to the methodological table.