Chapter 4, The Recomposed Self, More on Vulnerability Summary and Analysis

Blacks are racially vulnerable and this vulnerability has many effects on black politics, clothing styles, and dance. However blacks deny that vulnerability has these effects because they cannot handle racial importance being diminished in any way. Steele then illustrates from his own experience. He denies his shame and other blacks do too. Yet denying shame creates a false reality.

Racial vulnerability often controls how blacks react to their problems. The Civil Rights establishment did not realize, following the Civil Rights Act, that blacks did not really know how to be free. So civil rights victories brought integration shock. Segregation has prevented blacks from this problem.

In response to integration shock, blacks have engaged in "themes of recomposition" or methods of creating black identity. One theme of recomposition is victimization...