Beyond the Matrix of Race: Psychologies of Race and Ethnicity

Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us....You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television....It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo....—The Matrix (1999)

….the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil and gifted with second-sight in this American world—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world.—W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903)

The construct of race can be adaptive and healthy but can also lead to human misery through deception about our (hierarchical) relationship to each other. Racially organized hierarchies, such as The Matrix or DuBois’ veil metaphor, interfere with our ability to clearly perceive our relationships to each other as racial/ethnic beings. In this lecture, we will examine the social construction of the matrix of race, social class, and ethnicity within a historical perspective and how these constructs implicitly and explicitly inform psychological inquiry. We will examine the development of racial/ethnic identity in childhood and adolescence, as well as gendered and sexual aspects of race/ethnicity. In the spring, we will move toward a broader understanding of psychological aspects of prejudice, ethnic conflict, and immigration and how these themes are expressed within the United States and abroad.