Expert: S. Africa surpasses U.S. in racial equality

Praising South Africa as a nation that built democracy out of the shadows of tyranny, University of Delaware Psychology professor James Jones suggested that the United States could stand to learn something from South Africa.

Racial inequality in the United States and social justice in South Africa were the topics of yesterday's lecture in Houston Hall.

Jones discussed South Africa's recovery and transition from apartheid to multiracial democracy, expressing his belief that the United States could look to South Africa as an example of triumph over prejudice and racism.

Jones presented the approximately 70-person audience with statistics indicative of the strained social climate in the United States.

"The United States ranks sixth in the world in overall well-being, which includes literacy, health" and gross domestic product, Jones said. "If blacks were a country, they would be 32nd and Hispanics would be 34th." Jones went on to say that, without blacks or Latinos, the United States would rank No. 1 in the world for overall well-being.

Jones suggested that racism remains a problem in the United States because, while there are constitutional protections for individual people, racism is directed at entire groups.

"How do you solve a problem for a group if there are only individual-based remedies?" he asked.

Jones then presented evidence that racism is an intrinsic part of human nature, perhaps even hardwired into the human brain.

He cited scientific evidence that suggests that a human's amygdala -- the almond-shaped mass in the brain responsible for reflexive behavior such as defensiveness and fear -- is activated when a person looks at a member of a different ethnic group.

This phenomenon may contribute to dark-skinned black people being sentenced to death at a much higher rate than light-skinned black people in murder cases involving a white victim, he added.

"Race becomes salient when there is a black and white dynamic in a murder situation," Jones said. "It's chilling to think that how you look has such a profound effect" on how you are treated by the legal system.

He referred to this phenomenon as "the look of death."

On the other hand, in South Africa, racial conflicts are much less frequent.

Jones showed the audience a photograph of a billboard in South Africa portraying a black woman with her daughter and a white man with his son underneath the words, "There's more holding us together than keeping us apart."

Jones also highlighted the extensive South African Bill of Rights and the new constitution as highly inclusive of the African nation's multiethnic population.

"Something that was the most salient to me was the idea that South Africa had an opportunity to create a new constitution for themselves," Graduate School of Education student Elizabeth Hayward said. "They gave up apartheid for ideas that would be wonderful placed in our Constitution."

The presentation was the GSE's annual Constance E. Clayton Lecture.

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