Philosophy of Race

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Research on the experience of gendered embodiment, on the one hand, and racialized embodiment, on the other hand, has emerged as an important tradition in phenomenology thanks to the works of Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1949) and Frantz Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks (1952) respectively. Beauvoir’s work has been prolonged by pioneering feminist phenomenologists, such as Iris Marion Young and Sandra Bartky, who have investigated both the cultural significance of female bodily functions and the alienating effects (...) of feminine standards of beauty for women. And those inspired by Fanon—for example, George Yancy and Alia Al-Saji—have homed in on the experiences of persons of color confronted by the white gaze or entering white spaces. While each of these lineages has contributed to expanding the discipline of phenomenology, specific descriptions of the bodily experiences of women of color have received comparatively little attention in this field. This chapter aims to fill this gap by exploring the bodily experiences of women of color, thereby making a case for expanding phenomenological work at the intersection of gender and race. (shrink)

In this work, peer-reviewed by a diverse and international team of practicing and licensed attorneys, I deal with the community reentry of young people of African-American origin who have experienced incarceration and are navigating sociophysiological challenges. In particular, I address some of the challenges that these youth have faced —by investigating an array of issues relating to their transitioning from youth correctional facilities back to general society. As a first step, I provide background information. As a second step, I accentuate (...) transitional barriers, while offering systems-level solutions. As a third and final step, I argue in favor of select legal reforms. In writing this peer-reviewed book, I drew on information gathered through evidence-based research, case studies, and anecdotes stemming from my lived experiences working at an advocacy organization and mentoring African-American youth. -/- ✪✪✪✪✪ -/- Dans ce livre, examiné par un comité diversifié et international d’avocat.e.s en exercice et agréés, j’aborde la réinsertion dans la société des jeunes afro-américains ayant vécu l’incarcération et confrontés à des défis sociophysiologiques. En particulier, je traite des défis auxquels ces jeunes individus ont été confrontés, en explorant une gamme de problématiques liées à la transition des établissements correctionnels pour jeunes vers la société en général. Tout d’abord, je présente les informations contextuelles pertinentes. Ensuite, je mets en lumière les obstacles liés à la transition et propose des solutions systémiques pour les surmonter. Enfin, je plaide en faveur de réformes juridiques spécifiques pour faciliter cette réintégration. Dans la rédaction de cette étude évaluée par des pairs, je me suis appuyé sur des données issues de recherches basées sur des preuves, des études de cas, ainsi que des témoignages tirés de mon expérience personnelle au sein d’une organisation dédiée à la défense des intérêts et au mentorat auprès de jeunes d’origine afro-américaine. (shrink)

This article examines colonialism, the regime of whiteness, and feminism; it sketches possible genealogies of theories and practices in order to design an aesthetic of radicality or a radical aesthetic that is insurgent and defiant, based on histories and knowledge. We know that aesthetics is a colonial formation that historically and currently privileges the white European bourgeois who could speculate on the beautiful and the good, while genocidal practices and slave trade were carried out from European soil in other parts (...) of the world. Similarly, the Shoah, the still unthinkable genocide that happened on European soil in the twentieth century and shaped the European present, is still, at its base, covered by rhetorically empty constructions of aesthetic perception, practices, and theories. A radical aesthetics must realign all these categories, not only with a cynical gesture of inversion but to situate them categorically and ethically elsewhere. (shrink)

Taking up a recent critique of Nancy Fraser by Sally Haslanger, this paper defends the primary thesis of Marxist-Feminist unitarytheory that the systematic reproduction of modern forms of racial and gendered oppression is due to their co-articulation with thereproduction of capitalist social relations against three criticisms offered by Haslanger. It develops its defense of Fraser’s articulation of unitary theory by acknowledging a social ontological deficit in that theory insofar as it does not contain a theory of thesocial construction of human (...) kinds and amending this deficit by drawing on revised aspects of Haslanger’s own work. It arguesthat the global reproduction of race and gender as hierarchical social relations is a consequence of the reproduction of capitalism although local gender and race kinds are asymmetrically co-constituted by non-capitalist social practices. (shrink)

I take up the call for a more nuanced engagement with race in bioethics by using Creary’s analytic of bounded justice and argue that it helps illuminate processes of racialization, or racial formation, specifically Blackness, as a dialectical processes of both invisibility and hyper-visibility. This dialectical view of race provides a lens through which the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of genetics and genomics field can reflect on fraught issues such as inclusion in genomic and biomedical research. Countering or (...) interrupting racialization in precision medicine can involve asking how marginalized groups are made invisible or hyper-visible in various aspects of the research process. Incorporating these kinds of questions into biomedical research inclusion efforts could lead to potentially powerful engagements with marginalized groups and could provide the opportunity for stakeholders to engage with the ways that racialization can happen in real-time and might undermine good intentions. (shrink)

RésuméD. C. Matthew propose une critique originale et importante de l'intégration raciale. Son affirmation selon laquelle l'intégration aggravera la dévaluation phénotypique des traits typiquement noirs, menaçant l'estime de soi noire, est persuasive. Pourtant, son argument normatif le plus solide, selon lequel les Noirs devraient rejeter l'intégration puisque les dommages potentiels à leur estime de soi l'emportent sur ses prétendus avantages, est moins convaincant, car il s'appuie sur une analyse coût-bénéfice douteuse. En définitive, étant donné l'incertitude d'un processus aussi complexe qui (...) se déroule dans un avenir spéculatif, je soutiens que nous devrions, dans tous les cas, résister à la tentation d'offrir une analyse coût-bénéfice définitive de l'intégration raciale. (shrink)

RésuméD. C. Matthew apporte une contribution importante au débat en cours entre les intégrationnistes et leurs critiques. Alors que la conclusion de Matthew selon laquelle les noirs ont le devoir de ne pas s'intégrer est trop forte, son compte rendu fournit des raisons supplémentaires pour lesquelles ils peuvent ne pas vouloir s'intégrer. D'autres raisons de résister à l'intégration peuvent être fournies en considérant les contextes d'intégration, en particulier en ce qui concerne le degré de coercition qu'ils impliquent. Je soutiens que (...) la résistance à l'intégration devrait prendre la forme non seulement du refus d'y participer, mais aussi de l'engagement dans une action politique collective pour la poursuite de la justice raciale. (shrink)

Samuel Fleischacker is interested in two questions that are—what he refers to as—a rephrasing of three implications Charles Mills takes away from his encounter with Kant: (1) Is Kant's moral philosophy racist at its core? and (2) Whether it is or not, how should we respond to the fact that Kant displays open racism in some of his writings when we study, teach, or try to make use of his purportedly egalitarian teachings? Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist who wrestled with (...) similar questions regarding the liberatory and inclusive nature of emancipatory documents like the Constitution. In this essay, I want to consider Douglass's changing views on this issue and reasons behind them to think about how he might offer insights into this current debate concerning Kant and race. In doing so, I will consider to what extent Fleischacker adheres to Douglass's guidelines on this matter as he makes his case. I then offer suggestions on how to move forward. (shrink)

How can philosophy expand to be a discipline via which young people from diverse backgrounds feel they can make a direct and positive contribution to their communities? In this chapter I suggest some creative methods by which philosophers can support community-led change. Collaborators and I have been developing the approaches described here through work on issues of racial justice, but they can be applied to campaigns or public debate on any topic. Developing more community-led, socially engaged methods has the potential (...) to make philosophy a more attractive discipline for young people from diverse backgrounds who are keen to use their skills to make a positive difference to their communities. (shrink)

Focusing on Immanuel Kant's lectures on anthropology, the essay endeavors to address long-standing concerns regarding both the relationship between these empirical investigations and Kant's better known universalism, and more pressingly, between Kant's own racism on display in the lectures, and his simultaneous promotion of a universal moral theory that would unhesitatingly condemn such attitudes. -/- Reprinted in: 'Philosophies of Difference: Nature, Racism, and Sexuate Difference' edited by R. Gustafsson, R. Hill, and H. Ngo (Routledge, 2019), pp. 125-144.

Objective Analyze racial differences in comfort with medical research using an alternative to the traditional approach that treats white people as a raceless norm.Methods Quantitative analysis of survey responses (n = 1,570) from Black and white residents of the US to identify relationships between perceptions of research as a right or a risk, and comfort participating in medical research.Results A lower proportion of white respondents reported that medical experimentation occurred without patient consent (p < 0.001) and a higher proportion of (...) white respondents reported that it should be their right to participate in medical research (p = 0.02). Belief in one’s right to participate was significantly predictive of comfort (b = 0.37, p < 0.001). Belief in experimentation without consent was significantly predictive of comfort for white respondents but not for Black respondents in multivariable analysis.Conclusions A rights-based orientation and less concern about the risks of medical research among white respondents demonstrate comparative advantage. Efforts to diversify medical research may perpetuate structural racism if they do not (1) critically engage with whiteness and its role in comfort with participation, and (2) identify and respond specifically to the needs of Black patients. (shrink)

It is of concern that, until now, Western and Southern theories have not been able to provide a full conceptual understanding of the complicity of the elites and states of former colonies outside the West with the political domination they suffer from their Western counterparts. Decolonial thought, by exploring global epistemic designs, can fully explain such political dependency, which, for Aníbal Quijano, results from the local elites’ goal to racially identify with their Western peers (self-humanization), obstructing local nationalization. We explore (...) why the racially dehumanized local elites believe they can humanize themselves. Our claim is that this happens because of modernity’s pretense that everyone can become civilized and, thereby, human, hiding the fact that hu(man)s are only heterosexual men that are simultaneously Western, white and Christian. Only by focusing on the enunciation of Western knowledge, instead of on its enunciated content, can we make that argument. (shrink)

This Open Forum contribution critically interrogates the use of space race rhetoric in current discussions about artificial intelligence (AI). According to this rhetoric, similar to the space race of the twentieth century, AI development is portrayed as a rivalry among superpowers where one country will win and reap major benefits, while others will be left behind. Using this rhetoric to frame AI development tends to prioritize narrow and short-term economic interests over broader and longer-term societal needs. Three particularly problematic aspects (...) of using space race narrative in AI discussions are highlighted: first, perceiving technology development globally as a zero-sum game; second, pressuring governments to regulate less; and third, prioritising high technologies over social issues. This contribution invites to challenge underlying political assumptions of the AI space race discourse and to open up conversations about alternative futures. (shrink)

This article situates the trajectory of the academic life of Seniha Tunakan (1908–2000) within the development of anthropology as a scientific discipline in Turkey and its transnational connections to Europe during the interwar period and up until the second half of the 20th century. Relying on the archives of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, the archive of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes in Germany, and the Prime Ministry's Republican Archives in Turkey, it focuses on the doctoral studies of (...) Seniha Tunakan in Germany and her life as a female PhD researcher in the capital of the Third Reich, as well as her entire research career after her return to Turkey. Through Tunakan's career, the article also provides an analysis of the perpetuation of German race science in the Turkish context, shedding light upon the success of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Anthropologie, menschliche Erblehre und Eugenik (Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics) and its transnational impact. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper examines why there are different thresholds for the offences of stirring up racial hatred and stirring up religious hatred in the UK’s Public Order Act 1986. Concepts of genealogy, intertextuality and problematisation are used to structure a critical discourse analysis that traces different understandings of race, religion, and racial and religious hatred across legal texts. The analysis reveals a rift between assertions within parliament that race is an immutable characteristic, and much more flexible and inclusive judicial understandings (...) of race. This finding challenges justifications for the legislative discrepancy and points to more progressive possibilities. (shrink)

Philosophers of race and other writers in the Black and Latinx intellectual traditions have remarked on what it is like to live under “the racial gaze,” to be shaped and limited by the way whites perceive us. However, little work has been spent developing how the racial gaze functions in whites’, and other racially privileged people’s, moral psychology. I argue in this paper that there is a morally objectionable way of perceiving people of color. This claim builds on an insight (...) from Iris Murdoch that our perception can be morally evaluable and extends it to issues of race. I articulate how racial stereotypes and misvaluing distort one’s perception of people of color and that these distortions are organizing around a dominant conception for race that plays an important role in the oppression of people of color. I believe understanding racist perception lays a foundation for understanding the moral dimensions of interpersonal (as opposed to structural) racism. (shrink)

Recently, there has been growing interest in methodological issues of non-ideal theoretical philosophy. While some explicitly commit to non-ideal theorising, others doubt that there is anything useful about the ideal/non-ideal distinction in theoretical philosophy. The aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, I propose a way of doing non-ideal theoretical philosophy, once we realise how limited certain idealised projects are. Since there is a big overlap between projects that are called non-ideal and applied, the second aim is (...) to distinguish between these categories in order to show that applied theoretical philosophy is only worth pursuing if it operates in a non-ideal framework. I argue that we should be pluralistic about possible non-ideal theories and view the ideal/non-ideal differences as a matter of degree, rather than kind. As an example, I show how my version of non-ideal theory is useful to a concrete debate in philosophy of language. My proposal allows us to identify already existing non-ideal approaches to linguistic meaning and encourages us to further engage in the debate on non-ideal theoretical philosophy. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a global effect. The disproportionate impact on Indigenous peoples and racialized groups has brought ethical challenges to the forefront in research and clinical practice. In Canada, the Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS2), and specifically the principle of justice, emphasizes additional care for individuals “whose circumstances make them vulnerable”, including Indigenous and racialized communities. In the absence of race-based data to measure and inform health research and clinical practice, we run the risk of causing more harm and (...) contributing to ongoing injustices. However, without an accepted framework for collecting, maintaining, and reporting race-based data in Canada, more guidance is needed on how to do this well. Importantly, a framework for collecting race-based data should build on existing guidance from Indigenous and other structurally marginalized communities, the TCPS2, recommendations from the World Health Organization, and involve relevant stakeholders. In this paper, we describe historical examples of unethical studies on Indigenous and racialized groups, discuss the challenges and potential benefits of collecting race-based data, and conclude with objectives for a pan-Canadian framework to inform how race-based data is collected, stored, and accessed in health research. (shrink)

A movement asking to take race out of medicine is growing in the US. While we agree with the necessity to get rid of flawed assumptions about biological race that pervade automatic race correction in medical algorithms, we urge caution about insisting on a blanket eliminativism about race in medicine. If we look at racism as a fundamental cause, in the sense that this notion has been introduced in epidemiological studies by Bruce Link and Jo Phelan, we must conclude that (...) race is indispensable to consider, investigate, and denounce the health effects of multilevel racism, and cannot be eliminated by addressing more specific risk factors in socially responsible epidemiology and clinical medicine. This does not mean that realism about human races is vindicated. While maintaining that there are no human races, we show how it is that a non-referring concept can nonetheless turn out indispensable for explaining real phenomena. (shrink)

Gender equity is an issue long been discussed, in which the group of colored women’s voices gets more attention presently. Based on the established theoretical results on intersectionality and studies on American history of civil rights, this paper looks back on the racial-gender intersection in American feminist movements, at the same time explores its causes and significance, aiming to tease out the tortured process of racial and gender inequalities while trying to provide a reference for the ever-lasting marginal groups’ civil (...) rights movements exercises around the world. Finally, it is demonstrated that the long history of racial-gender intersection provided mass resources of practical cases and theoretical foundation. The conclusion is that colored women being involved in feminist movements preliminary emerged in first-wave feminism, but it was not until the third-wave feminism that the attention and discussion on intersectionality were included. Previous researches, literature from an American history organization and literature from some scholars are used as study materials. (shrink)

Education for Empire: American Schools, Race, and the Paths of Good Citizenship (Stratton, 2016) is much more than a history book about American education. It is a critical work that provides philosophical undertones that challenge our perception about the imperial roles of the U.S. school system. Stratton very clearly and meticulously presents the intricate relationship between history, civics, and geography within school curricula and textbooks. He shows us how these subjects have been manipulated by those in power to promote a (...) hidden agenda. One that instills national pride, American loyalty, and patriotism, and is designed to turn students into supporters of U.S. imperialism and of their racial and class hierarchies. An example of this is Stratton’s own examination of the content of books like, Complete Geography written in 1899. Stratton claims this text was widely used in American public schools and it explicitly states that, “the Caucasian or white race is most intelligent and most powerful of all races.” Education for Empire: American Schools, Race, and the Paths of Good Citizenship helps us understand why it has taken so much time for people of color, like me, to occupy academic spaces and to begin the dismantling of oppressive governmental and pedagogical systems that have intentionally kept us from having a dignified education. (shrink)

Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Ahead of Print.

The social categories to which we belong—Latino, disabled, American, woman— causally influence our lives in deep and unavoidable ways. One might be pulled over by police because one is Latino, or one might receive a COVID vaccine sooner because one is American. Membership in these social categories most often falls outside of our control. This paper argues that membership in social categories constitutes a restriction on human agency, creating a situation of non-ideal agency for many human individuals. -/- However, there (...) are ways to resist the causal influence of social categories, and certain socially marginalized groups can be understood as attempting to do just this. I discuss two instances of social category resistance: gender pronouns and the rights of trans individuals. I suggest that the intentional declaration of gender pronouns (“she/her” or “they/them”) can be understood as an attempt to resist the causal powers of nonconsensual social categorization. Similarly, one among many reasons to support the rights of trans individuals is that their self-declarations of gender identity can be viewed as a reclamation of agency in the face of causal constraints imposed by socially defined and imposed gender categories. This lesson can be generalized to people belonging to a broad range of marginalized groups. (shrink)

An update of one of the indispensable political and social histories of African Americans since World War II.

The ability of videos to serve as evidence of racial injustice is complex and contested. This essay argues that scrutiny of the Black body has come to play a key role in how videos of police violence are mined for evidence, following a long history of racialized surveillance and attributions of threat and superhuman powers to Black bodies. Using videos to combat injustice requires incorporating humanizing narratives and cultivating resistant modes of looking.

In response to recent controversies about racial transitioning, I provide an argument that deceptions about ancestry may sometimes constitute fraud. In order to arrive at this conclusion, I criticize the arguments from analogy made famous by Rebecca Tuvel and Christine Overall. My claim is that we should not think of racial transitioning as similar to gender transitioning, because different identity groups possess different kinds of obstacles to entry. I then provide historical surveys of American racial categories and the various types (...) of passing common in American history, in order to distinguish the potentially fraudulent from the relatively innocent styles of passing. (shrink)

While those who take a "structuralist" approach to racial justice issues are right to call attention to the importance of social practices, laws, etc., they sometimes go too far by suggesting that antiracist efforts ought to focus on changing unjust social systems rather than changing individuals’ minds. We argue that while the “either/or” thinking implied by this framing is intuitive and pervasive, it is misleading and self-undermining. We instead advocate for a “both/and” approach to antiracist moral education that explicitly teaches (...) how social structures influence ideas about race and how ideas about race shape, sustain, and transform social structures. Ideally, antiracist moral education will help people see how social change and moral progress depend on the symbiotic relations between individuals and structures. We articulate a conception of “structure-facing virtue” that exemplifies this hybrid approach to illuminate the pivotal role moral education plays in the fight for racial justice. (shrink)

L’article de Nathalie Heinrich sur les « petits malentendus transatlantiques, paru sur Telos le 9 février, soulève quelques questions qui méritent réflexion. Si les « cultural studies » ont leurs défauts, il faut prendre au sérieux leur réflexion sur le naturel, le construit et l’arbitraire, qui bouscule différentes traditions, d’Aristote à Marx et ouvre sur de nouvelles exigences de justice.

Social ontology focuses on questions about the reality of human categories. The typical examples are gender and race. Common questions about them are: Do they exist? What is their nature? Do they exist in the best possible way? Meanwhile, the philosophy of psychiatry has been discussing the reality of psychopathology, what is the best way to classify mental disorders, and whether it is possible to define them without normative vocabulary. I think there is something not only strange but inadequate about (...) these discussions being held apart. Particularly, I hold that by being held separately these discussions are philosophically incomplete. In this paper, I argue that these debates are parallel in crucial aspects, but more importantly that they can benefit from each other if they start a dialogue. I suggest some paths we can take to start fruitful discussions and offer examples of the kind of outcomes we can expect. However, my main contribution is to sketch a common framework to map current discussions, make comparisons between them, and, more importantly, guide new research. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

I examine how James Baldwin explored white ignorance—as conceived by Charles Mills—in his work. I argue that Baldwin helps us understand Mills’s account of white ignorance more deeply, showing that while only mentioned briefly by Mills, Baldwin provides fruitful insights into the phenomenon. I also consider the resources Baldwin provides to find a way out of white ignorance. My aim is to link these thinkers in ways that have been largely ignored.

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Der Begriff »Race«, aus den universitären Kulturwissenschaften stammend, will unbewusste Rassifizierungsprozesse beschreiben, die wir unweigerlich vornähmen und denen wir zugleich ausgesetzt seien. Der vorliegende Beitrag will diesen Begriff für Psychoanalyse und Psychotherapie fruchtbar machen. Zwei Fallvignetten illustrieren, welche Fallstricke für Psychoanalytiker und Patienten bereit lägen, wenn »Race« in Übertragung und Gegenübertragung verleugnet werden müsse. Tauchen negativ konnotierte »racial« Phantasien auf, könne die Angst, rassistisch zu denken oder zu agieren, zum Stillstand und sogar Scheitern einer Behandlung führen. Da rassifizierte Projektionen nach (...) Ansicht der Autorin unvermeidbar seien, sieht sie die Entstehung des Gefühls einer »racial Melancholia« als Möglichkeit, dem drohenden Stillstand entgegenzuwirken. (shrink)

Equity was—and is—central in the US policy response to COVID-19, given its disproportionate impact on disadvantaged communities of colour. In an unprecedented turn, the majority of US states used place-based disadvantage indices to promote equity in vaccine allocation (eg, through larger vaccine shares for more disadvantaged areas and people of colour).We conducted a nationally representative survey experiment (n=2003) in April 2021 (before all US residents had become vaccine eligible), that examined respondents’ perceptions of the acceptability of disadvantage indices relative to (...) two ways of prioritising racial and ethnic groups more directly, and assessed the role of framing and expert anchors in shaping perceptions.A majority of respondents supported the use of disadvantage indices, and one-fifth opposed any of the three equity-promoting plans. Differences in support and opposition were identified by respondents’ political party affiliation. Providing a numerical anchor (that indicated expert recommendations and states’ actual practices in reserving a proportion of allocations for prioritised groups) led respondents to prefer a lower distribution of reserved vaccine allocations compared with the randomised condition without this anchor, and the effect of the anchor differed across the frames.Our findings support ongoing uses of disadvantage indices in vaccine allocation, and, by extension, in allocating tests, masks or treatments, especially when supply cannot meet demand. The findings can also inform US allocation frameworks in future pandemic planning, and could provide lessons on how to promote equity in clinical and public health outside of the pandemic setting. (shrink)

Experiences whether personal or collective, sometimes evoke a psychological satisfaction of being superior to others. This could be due to inappropriate perception or some prejudice. When misperception takes a systematic and permanent form, it becomes an illusion. Several scientific works imply possible racial cognitive illusions. In this work, I treat honorary whiteness as a diminutive way of referring to some categories of human beings. Honorary whiteness is an ideology based on the belief of being superior to others on the basis (...) of colour. It is the practice of acting white or like European in order to gain some benefits or for some interests. This attitude pervades the political, economic, legal and social life of human beings. Hence, this research initiates the urgency to revisit the discourse on racial superiority and how it informs some cognitive misrepresentations of human biological givens. I examine the above theme with the aim of explaining honorary whiteness, racial cognitive illusion and finally, explore the psychological perspectives in view of proffering innovative solutions on racial cognitive illusion. (shrink)

As a country with a history of settler-colonialism, the land question in South Africa remains one of the critical issues of redress that is highly contested. Furthermore, opinions on the land question tend to be divided along racial lines. This paper uses white ignorance as a theoretical framework to explain these polarised views on the land question in South Africa post-1994. The paper also uses the concept of honorary whiteness/brownness to explain how differences among ‘people of colour’ serve to sustain (...) a hierarchical racial order in which whites remain the ultimate beneficiaries. While research on white ignorance mainly focuses on the socio-psychological and material benefits of white ignorance for whites, this paper argues that those classified as honorary white or ‘brown’ also benefit, albeit minimally, from endorsing willful white ignorance of past and present racial atrocities. (shrink)