The Science of Racism

In this frank, funny and meticulous book, a leading social scientist lays out the striking facts we know about racism, how we have uncovered them, and how we can start to fix them.

'Illuminating, surprising, unnerving, moving . . . and, sadly, utterly necessary for this time in history.' - Sathnam Sanghera, bestselling author of Empireland Polls show that if you ask the average person even the most basic question - 'Does racism still exist?' - half the population will say that it does, while the other half will say that it doesn't. Despite increasingly vocal and polarized opinions on both traditional and social media platforms, as a society we have no more clarity about racism than we did a generation ago.

In the ground-breaking The Science of Racism Professor Keon West cuts through the divisive anecdotes and rhetoric with decades' worth of clear, factual, rigorous, quantitative science, to reveal truths about racism that are shocking and tragic, but also (somehow) funny and entertaining.

He explains how we know, for example, that Black people are up to 50 per cent less likely to be called in to interview than identically qualified White people. He shows how we know the financial cost of selling items online while Black. He reveals the effects of racism on our friendships, relationships, healthcare and justice system. And he exposes the continued prevalence of racism, and the inadequacy of many attempts to address it.

Whatever you've read before, this book will ensure that you never see racism in quite the same way again.

About the Author

Professor Keon West is a social psychologist at the University of London. He earned his doctorate from Oxford University in 2010 as a Rhodes Scholar and has since published more than seventy quantitative papers on prejudice and discrimination in many of the best peer-reviewed social-psychology journals, including Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and Perspectives on Psychological Science. Professor West has written for national and international newspapers and been the host of numerous radio and television shows on the topics of prejudice and discrimination. He is a citizen of three countries and has, over his life, been a resident of four. He is a husband, a father of two boys, a hobby photographer and a huge fan of Star Trek. He has always been Black. He is the co-author of the audiobook Skewed. The Science of Racism is his second book.