Psychological Tools for Reckoning with Our Past and Driving Social Change
August 8, 2022
Social psychologist Chugh (The Person You Mean to Be) offers a frank yet ingratiating guide to “embracing the paradox” that America is “a country of egalitarian ideals founded on slavery.” Noting that George Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis police officer has pushed many Americans to search for a fuller, more accurate version of the country’s history, Chugh interweaves lessons on structural racism and settler colonialism; discussions about binary bias, system justification theory, and other social psychology concepts, along with personal anecdotes of her own efforts—as the daughter of Indian immigrants—to “unlearn” the myths of American greatness. She also draws helpful comparisons to other countries, noting, for example, that Germany teaches citizens beginning in childhood to confront the horror of the Holocaust, while Texas and other states politicize school curriculum, resulting in significant gaps of knowledge. Throughout, Chugh cites the work of Black writers and scholars including Ta-Nehisi Coates and Nikole Hannah-Jones, and offers practical advice focused on acknowledging “ugly” truths with nondefensive reactions; she cites Anderson Cooper’s response to learning that his ancestor was a slave holder who was killed by one of the people he enslaved as an example of this. Marked by its authenticity and sense of encouragement, this is a welcome look at how the average person can help fulfill America’s promise.
September 1, 2022
An Indian American social psychologist develops a set of psychological tools that can be used to effectively confront the darkest, most violent sides of our shared history. As a young parent, author Chugh eagerly read her children the Little House on the Prairie series, relishing its depiction of a "quintessential American family" on the frontier. Years later, she realized that these supposedly educational stories actually "whitewashed" essential aspects of American history, most notably the genocide of Native Americans. The author is now committed to leading her family on a journey of "unlearning" false historical narratives, something she notes that many Black and Indigenous communities have already done. Rather than focusing on the history itself, though--which Chugh admits she doesn't have the credentials to adequately teach--the author describes a series of psychological methods that can allow us to unlearn and redress the whitewashed myths of the past. These include reaffirming personal values to combat and refocus feelings of guilt and shame, fostering our ability to empathize with marginalized groups by consciously taking steps to reduce psychological distance, and combatting "hindsight bias" by reminding ourselves to imagine alternate versions of the past as well as the possibilities for the future. The author clearly explains how each concept can be used for individual growth and posits how they could be implemented in schools to create systemic change. Chugh's underlying goal of bolstering American patriotism is frustrating because it reflects an ideological commitment to the legitimacy of borders that sometimes contradicts the purportedly progressive politics. Overall, though, the author's sincerity, clarity of thought, and subject matter expertise render the text a refreshingly unique approach to a challenging issue. "How and what we remember is not intended to shame us, but to protect us from our own home team bias," she writes. "If we fail to remember what happened then, we fail to see what is happening now." A vulnerable, compassionate, and pragmatic psychological guide to facing the darkest corners of America's past.
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