At eight years of age Steele illuminates how he discovered that being a “black” child made him different from other kids and placed restrictions as to what he was allowed to do and when he was allowed to do it. Growing up early 1960’s in Chicagoland, Steele encountered a societal trend labeled, “racial order” (1). Racial order marked its place when Steele realized that because of his dark skin he was obligated to …show more content…
Utilizing the turnaround in performance of the popular NBA basketball team, Seattle Supersonics, Steele compares this “explanation of underachievement” to being akin to that of the constrictions women and minority students face and states this to be a “long standing tradition of how to explain the psychology of poor achievement” (45). Daryl Scott, an intellectual historian labels the culprit here to be “psychic damage” (46). Not fully convinced Steele moves to answer two questions: First, was stigma pressure a general phenomenon or did it only effect those of a “special vulnerability”? And second, whether strong black students would be affected by stigma pressure