Renowned US economics professor Glenn Loury talks racial inequality at the LSE - Zara Qureshi reports

On the 31st of May, renowned economics professor at Brown University, USA, Glenn Loury, gave a talk for the first time at the London School of Economics (LSE). 

Known for his commentary about race relations in the US, Loury’s lecture, ‘Why Does Racial Inequality Persist?’, explored the importance of social networks and life outcomes, with a particular focus on education.

The lecture was chaired by Professor of Economics and Political Science at the LSE Sir Tim Besley.

The lecture’s main point was to urge people to start looking at racial inequality as the product of complex interactions between a system of different groups of people, rather than looking at cultural differences within groups as insular entities. 

Loury said:

“My second point is that the marks in question, the symbols signifying racial difference, are treated with important connotations that can adversely affect a person’s opportunity to develop his or her skills,

“Blackness has meanings associated with it that are stigmatised, and the stigma inclines people to a presumption against the merit of persons bearing the mark.” 

Attendee and master’s student Jonathan Brooks said:

“Glenn Loury had some complex yet reasonable points on interracial relationships and how they impact inequality that should be further explored.”

Present at the lecture were also the founder of The Equiano Project and GB news presenter, Inaya Folarin Iman, and celebrity fashion stylist and cultural commentator, Ayishat Akanbi. 

Loury gained immediate popularity, alongside friend and colleague, Professor of linguistics John McWhorter, during lockdown for hosting YouTube discussions on his channel, BloggingHeadsTV, about race related subjects. 

Loury’s previous work that gained popularity during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests includes his analysis of two opposing narratives on race relations in the US: the Development Narrative versus the Bias Narrative.

In a nutshell, Loury argues there are two narratives that shape racial politics in the US; the Bias Narrative focuses on how systems may be set up against people to disadvantage them, whereas the Development Narrative looks at the way development (i.e. family stucture, behaviour and education) lead to the same disadvantaged outcomes. 

In an essay for Quillette, Loury writes:

“I am not a big fan of this systemic racism narrative. It is imprecise and those invoking it are begging the question. I want to know exactly what structures, what dynamic processes, they mean, and I want to know exactly how race figures into that story. The people employing that narrative do not tell me this. History, I would argue, is complicated. Racial disparities have multiple causes that interact with one another, ranging from culture, politics, and economic incentives to historical accident, environmental factors and, yes, the acts of some individuals who may be racists, as well as systems of law and policy that are disadvantaging to some racial groups without having so been intended.”

Loury was the first black tenured professor of economics at Harvard University at the young age of 33. 
To watch a recording of the event, visit: https://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2022/05/202205311730OT/morishima .