Race and Civil Rights

On 25 May 2020, Officer Derek Chauvin asphyxiated George Floyd in Minneapolis — a murder that was captured in a confronting nine-minute bystander video that set off a firestorm of activity on online social networks, in the streets of the United States, and even worldwide. These protests captured the collective rage, dissatisfaction, and resentment personally and vicariously experienced towards the widespread systematic injustice and mistreatment of African Americans by police and vigilantes. The scale of these protests, both online and in (...) the streets, has been estimated to have far exceeded the civil rights marches of the 1960s (Buchanan et al. 2020). Considering the widespread extent of these protests, our research aims to analyse conflictual intergroup moral dynamics in terms of the reactive attitudes expressed by distinct online communities on Twitter. This paper examines the extent to which the Strawsonian (1962) reactive attitudes framework is applicable to the Twitter discourse around the Black Lives Matter protests reignited by the murder of George Floyd. In particular, we argue that the Strawsonian framework is inadequate to understand a range of prevalent attitudes expressed in this discourse — attitudes that we call reactionary as opposed to merely reactive. Reactionary attitudes include counter-indignation on behalf of the accused rather than Strawsonian indignation on behalf of the victim of a moral wrong. We document the expression of such attitudes among the right-wing participants in the online discourse about the Black Lives Matter movement. (shrink)

Constellations, Volume 29, Issue 2, Page 244-258, June 2022.

Drawing upon empirical studies of racial discrimination dating back to the 1940’s, the Movement for Black Lives platform calls for the abolition of capital punishment. Our purpose here is to defend the Movement’s call for death penalty abolition in terms congruent with its claim that the death penalty in the U.S. is a “racist practice” that “devalues Black lives.” We first sketch the jurisprudential history of race and capital punishment in the U.S., wherein courts have occasionally expressed worries about racial (...) injustice but have usually taken such evidence to warrant reform but not outright abolition. We argue that the racial discrimination at issue flows in significant part from implicit biases concerning race, criminality, and violence, which do not fit comfortably within the picture of racial bias advanced by the courts. The case for abolition, we contend, rests on Black Americans as a class (not merely those who interact with the criminal justice system as capital defendants or as murder victims) being subject to such bias and thereby not being accorded equal status under the law. (shrink)

What is the American rule of law? Is it a paradigm case of the strong constitutionalism concept of the rule of law or has it fallen short of its rule of law ambitions? -/- This open access book traces the promise and paradox of the American rule of law in three interwoven ways. -/- It focuses on explicating the ideals of the American rule of law by asking: how do we interpret its history and the goals of its constitutional framers (...) to see the rule of law ambitions its foundational institutions express? -/- It considers those constitutional institutions as inextricable from the problem of race in the United States and the tensions between the rule of law as a protector of property rights and the rule of law as a restrictor on arbitrary power and a guarantor of legal equality. In that context, it explores the distinctive role of Black liberation movements in developing the American rule of law. -/- Finally, it considers the extent to which the American rule of law is compromised at its frontiers, and the extent that those compromises undermine legal protections Americans enjoy in the interior. It asks how America reflects the legal contradictions of capitalism and empire outside its borders, and the impact of those contradictions on its external goals. (shrink)

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about the Ghettos, about wayward youths and Instagram rappers that glorify violence. In this piece, a Warsaw-based philosopher contributes to this discussion by examining the music of the ghetto and the culture of riots. Not in opposition to how bourgeois society usually frames such acts of discontent but rather as a reasonable democratic right that minorities are entitled to.

In 2014, questionable police killings of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice sparked mass protests and put policing at the center of national debate. Mass protests erupted again in 2020 after the brutal police killing of George Floyd. These and other incidents have put a spotlight on a host of issues that threaten the legitimacy of policing—excessive force, racial bias, over-policing of marginalized communities, historic injustices that remain unaddressed, and new technology that increases police powers. This introduction gives an (...) overview of these ethical challenges facing police today and the democratic institutions that oversee them. It then outlines the various interdisciplinary perspectives—from Black studies, criminology, history, law, philosophy, political science, and sociology—collected in the volume. Together, these contributions aim to clarify the question of which ethical principles should guide police, where current practices fall short, and what strategies hold the most promise for addressing these failures. (shrink)

From George Floyd to Breonna Taylor, the brutal deaths of Black citizens at the hands of law enforcement have brought race and policing to the forefront of national debate in the United States. In The Ethics of Policing, Ben Jones and Eduardo Mendieta bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars across the social sciences and humanities to reevaluate the role of the police and the ethical principles that guide their work. With contributors such as Tracey Meares, Michael Walzer, and Franklin (...) Zimring, this volume covers timely topics including race and policing, the use of aggressive tactics and deadly force, police abolitionism, and the use of new technologies like drones, body cameras, and predictive analytics, providing different perspectives on the past, present, and future of policing, with particular attention to discriminatory practices that have historically targeted Black and Brown communities. This volume offers cutting-edge insight into the ethical challenges facing the police and the institutions that oversee them. As high-profile cases of police brutality spark protests around the country, The Ethics of Policing raises questions about the proper role of law enforcement in a democratic society. (shrink)

California has focused on health equity in the state’s COVID-19 reopening plan. The Blueprint for a Safer Economy assigns each of California’s 58 counties into 1 of 4 tiers based on 2 metrics: test positivity rate and adjusted case rate. To advance to the next less-restrictive tier, counties must meet that tier’s test positivity and adjusted case rate thresholds. In addition, counties must have a plan for targeted investments within disadvantaged communities, and counties with more than 106 000 residents must (...) meet an equity metric. California's explicit incorporation of health equity into its reopening plan underscores the interrelated fate of its residents during the COVID-19 pandemic and creates incentives for action. This article evaluates the benefits and challenges of this novel health equity focus, and outlines recommendations for other US states to address disparities in their reopening plans. (shrink)

Using real-life examples, this book asks readers to reflect on how we—as an academic community—think and talk about race and racial identity in twenty-first century America. One of these examples, Rachel Doležal, provides a springboard for an examination of the state of our discourse around changeable racial identity and the potential for “transracialism.” An analysis of how we are theorizing transracial identity (as opposed to an argument for/against it), this study detects some omissions and problems that are becoming evident as (...) we establish transracial theory and suggests ways to further develop our thinking and avoid missteps. Intended for academics and thinkers familiar with conversations about identity and/or race, Rethinking Rachel Doležal and Transracial Theory helps shape the theorization of “transracialism” in its formative stages. -/- Part I: The Current State of (Trans)racial Discourse The first half begins with five puzzle cases, all based on specific historical figures. Each case poses the problem of someone not being readily “black” or “white” (or “mixed”). The chapter asks readers to think about their assumptions and how/why they might classify any of the puzzle cases racially. Then, with those assumptions and classification processes in mind, Part I outlines particular challenges we face—conceptually, linguistically, politically, and theoretically—as we try to adapt the messy practice of race in the U.S. to a new effort to theorize potential transracial identity. The concerns this half addresses include: how Doležal’s case might be understood alongside the identities of other racial nonconformists; what we think “black identity” consists of and how our language and concepts for race need to be clarified; whether ancestry and phenotype should continue to dominate our discourse; the relevance of political orientation and action to racial identity; and the implications of motive and intention for racial identity. Ultimately, Part I argues that we need to improve the way we are thinking and talking about transraciality in the Doležal era. -/- Part II: Pathways for Further Developing (Trans)racial Discourse Where Part I uses the case of Rachel Doležal and other real-life examples to critique the strains of our existing scholarly discourse on the topic of transraciality, Part II offers broader discussion about some of the ideas that are at play and/or need to be more adequately addressed going forward. Part II outlines some of the problems that I anticipate will trip up the discourse going forward and argues that there are particular ways we (as academics) might navigate them responsibly. My intention here is to identify and explore some of the areas we could strengthen or pay more attention to in an effort to help steer our critical exploration of transraciality in productive directions as the conversation progresses in the future. The concerns raised in Part II include: the linguistic and conceptual problems of “passing”; the very real dangers of conservatism dominating our theorization of transracial identity; the complexities of identity in terms of individual and collective identity and how the process of self-identification affects them; the sensitive and controversial issue of transgender theory (as it relates to transracial theory); and the neglected area of ideal/non-ideal philosophy. Ultimately, Part II argues that we need to avoid significant and harmful mistakes as we decide how to go about theorizing transracial identity and articulates responsible ways we can move forward. (shrink)

While the image of the slave as the antithesis of the freeman is central to republican freedom, it is striking to note that slaves themselves have not contributed to how this condition is understood. The result is a one-sided conception of both freedom and slavery, which leaves republicanism unable to provide an equal and robust protection for historically outcast people. I draw on the work of Frederick Douglass – long overlooked as a significant contributor to republican theory – to show (...) one way why this is so. Focusing the American Revolution, the subsequent republican government established new political institutions to maintain the collective interests of the whole population. The political revolution was held in place by processes of public reason that reflected the values and ideas of the people that had rebelled. The black population, however, had not been part of this revolution. After emancipation, black Americans were required to accept terms of citizenship that had already been defined, leaving them socially dominated, subject to the prejudices and biases within the prevailing ideas of public discourse. Douglass argued that republican freedom under law is always dependent on a more fundamental revolution, that he calls a ‘radical revolution in thought’, in which the entire system of social norms and practices are reworked together by members of all constituent social groups – women and men, black and white, rich and poor – so that it reflects a genuinely collaborative achievement. Only then can we begin the republican project of contestatory freedom as independence or non-domination that today’s republicans take for granted. (shrink)

This short article lays the foundation for a theory of migratorial disobedience and explains how pro-border advocates fetishize immigration law.

In the United States, convicted offenders frequently lose the right to vote, at least temporarily. Drawing on the common observation that citizens of color lose democratic rights at disproportionately high rates, this chapter argues that this punishment is problematic in non-ideal societies because of the way in which it diminishes the political power of marginalized groups and threatens to reproduce patterns of domination and subordination, when they occur. This chapter then uses the case of penal disenfranchisement to illustrate how idealized (...) discussions of deterrence, rehabilitation, and retribution often ignore the relationship between punishment and social/political power, and thus systematically obscure morally significant aspects of our broader penal practices. (shrink)

A regulative norm for permissible defense distinguishes the conditions under which we will hold defenders to be innocent of any wrongdoing from those in which we hold them responsible for assault or manslaughter. The norm must strike a fair balance between defenders' security, on the one hand, and other agents’ legitimate claim to live without fear of suffering mistaken defensive harm, on the other. Since agents must make defensive decisions under high pressure and on only partial information, they will sometimes (...) make mistakes. We have reason to want a norm that considers a mistake permissible when it was highly likely on the evidence that defense was proportionate and necessary to avert a threat. However, adopting an evidentialist norm under non-ideal conditions is treacherous business. I briefly survey empirical data suggesting that the type and extent of bias prevalent in the US renders a straightforward evidentialist norm unjust, and thus since the legal practice in the US relies on such a norm, we must explore avenues for reform. Preferably this will take the form of adopting a modified evidential norm, and I explore some promising options. If this proves impossible, however, then we have to accept a strict regulative norm (which does not consider any mistakes permissible), as the sole just alternative. (shrink)

Which types of group-typing amounts to racism? The answer seemingly has to do with deeper physical or cultural traits over which an agent has no deliberate control but which are formative of the agent. In this article, I look to the cultural or ethnic bases of division of humans into races, albeit of a specific type: a basis that sees humanity climbing in a certain, presumably improving, direction. Those ethnicities that appear not to opt for this climb are commonly presumed (...) – if tacitly – inferior. This outlook is so common, particularly in industrial, governmental, economic-developmental, academic and other intellectual and influential, high-profile institutional settings, it is hard to descry. This article aims to bring this racism, referred to as ‘pan-institutional’ because it extends from local to national and international institutions, into fuller light. The article argues that prominent pan-institutions, including government, academia and industry, work together to propagate this racism, even while these institutions aver they are spreading benevolence to less fortunate cultures, in the cause of cultural, economic and social globalization. In this way, these pan-institutions follow precisely in step with earlier colonialism and missionarism. The article ethically assesses this covert racist pan-institutional movement, reveals the quandaries that many indigenous cultures, especially foragers, face as this movement encroaches on them, and analyses how it is best understood as a refurbishing of colonialism in the name of benevolence. The argument ends by describing how such benevolent globalization builds upon misanthropy and it analyses the moral implications and why this most covert and widespread movement is, like more visible and standard racisms, wrong-headed, unethical, fatal, misanthropist and perhaps self-hating. (shrink)

The comparative utility argument holds that the descendants of African slaves in America are not owed any compensation because they have not been harmed by slavery. Rather, slavery in America was beneficial to the descendants of slaves because they are now able to live in a country that is considerably richer today than any of the African countries from which slaves were taken. In this paper, I show that the comparative utility argument is a red herring with no bearing whatsoever (...) on the question of slave reparations because it conflates two separate wrongs: slavery and forced immigration. The fact that the descendants of slaves now live in America is a consequence of the latter, but not the former. As such, it has no bearing on the legitimacy reparations for slavery. (shrink)

Statistical evidence is crucial throughout disparate impact’s three-stage analysis: during (1) the plaintiff’s prima facie demonstration of a policy’s disparate impact; (2) the defendant’s job-related business necessity defense of the discriminatory policy; and (3) the plaintiff’s demonstration of an alternative policy without the same discriminatory impact. The circuit courts are split on a vital question about the “practical significance” of statistics at Stage 1: Are “small” impacts legally insignificant? For example, is an employment policy that causes a one percent disparate (...) impact an appropriate policy for redress through disparate impact litigation? This circuit split calls for a comprehensive analysis of practical significance testing across disparate impact’s stages. Importantly, courts and commentators use “practical significance” ambiguously between two aspects of practical significance: the magnitude of an effect and confidence in statistical evidence. For example, at Stage 1 courts might ask whether statistical evidence supports a disparate impact (a confidence inquiry) and whether such an impact is large enough to be legally relevant (a magnitude inquiry). Disparate impact’s texts, purposes, and controlling interpretations are consistent with confidence inquires at all three stages, but not magnitude inquiries. Specifically, magnitude inquiries are inappropriate at Stages 1 and 3—there is no discriminatory impact or reduction too small or subtle for the purposes of the disparate impact analysis. Magnitude inquiries are appropriate at Stage 2, when an employer defends a discriminatory policy on the basis of its job-related business necessity. (shrink)

There is widespread agreement among both supporters and opponents that affirmative action either must not violate any principle of equal opportunity or procedural justice, or if it does, it may do so only given current extenuating circumstances. Many believe that affirmative action is morally problematic, only justified to the extent that it brings us closer to the time when we will no longer need it. In other words, those that support affirmative action believe it is acceptable in nonideal theory, but (...) not ideal theory. This paper argues that affirmative action is entirely compatible with equal opportunity and procedural justice and would be even in an ideal world. I defend a new analysis of Rawlsian procedural justice according to which it is permissible to interfere in the outcomes of procedures, and thus I show that affirmative action is not morally problematic in the way that many have supposed. (shrink)

Mass incarceration has become a flashpoint in a number of recent political and public policy debates. Consensus about how to balance the just punishment of offenders with the humanitarian goal of providing inmates with genuine opportunities for reconciliation, rehabilitation, and reintegration into society is lacking. Unfortunately, a dualistic “us-versus-them” narrative surrounding these issues has become entrenched, occluding fruitful dialogue and obscuring our ability to see the detrimental effects that our nation’s punitive turn has created. In this essay, we affirm the (...) insights of Wacquant, Clear, and other sociologists and introduce a theological narrative of solidarity and vulnerability that undermines the “us-versus-them” dichotomy and opens up a path for cultivating a “we” community. (shrink)

Kathryn Gines's book details Hannah Arendt 's racial and conceptual biases against Black people in the US and post-colonial Africa. Gines makes original and significant contributions to feminist philosophy by applying various feminist and anticolonial strategies, including standpoint theory and multidirectionality, to Arendt 's political essays and concepts. Feminist critiques of Arendt in general and racial critiques of "Reflections on Little Rock" in particular are not new; however, Hannah Arendt and the Negro Question offers a novel and comprehensive racial critique (...) of Arendt 's major writings. Gines offers a "sustained analysis of Arendt 's treatment of the Black experience in the United States", as well as racial violence within the contexts of the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions, and French and British imperialism and colonialism. In this review I will offer an overview of the book as a whole, before evaluating the extent of Gines's critique as it pertains to Arendt 's misguided judgments and her theory of judgment. (shrink)

What does it mean when calls to reconciliation come from dominant social groups? Whom do these calls address? What effects do they have? I take up these questions through a case study of the public discourse on “reasonable accommodation” in Québec. When the Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences concluded its tour of the regions and cities of Québec and, in the spring of 2008, the commissioners (philosopher Charles Taylor and sociologist Gérard Bouchard) issued their report on (...) the state of ethnocultural relations, their titular emphasis was on reconciliation. Their report, "Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation," urged the francophone Québécois majority and immigrant or immigrant-descended cultural and religious minorities in Québec – the two groups between whom the conflict was staged in the discourse of “reasonable accommodation” – each to take its respective responsibility to rebuild Québec interculturalism in the aftermath of its public “crisis.” My case study indicates that when performed by the dominant group, calls to reconciliation can function in a complicated way to reproduce, rather than to transform, existing relations of power. Specifically, in the context of a nation-building project of a white settler society they may bolster, rather than undermine, the social bases of power that characterize such societies. To demonstrate how the discourse of “reasonable accommodation” dissimulates as to its material effects, I invoke Sara Ahmed’s concept of “nonperformativity.”. (shrink)

In summary, Hellman’s book is well worth reading. It is powerful, well-written, and interesting and explains much of the prominent case law on discrimination. Her theory, however, is false because her explanation of wrongful discrimination fails to track a wrong-making feature. Her theory does not focus on a right-infringement in or unfair treatment of the person whom is discriminated against. It also does not focus on an incorrect attitude in the person who discriminates. These intuitively seem to exhaust the reasons (...) that make an act wrong because it wrongs someone. Her account of wrongful discrimination fails to identify the correct wrong-making feature. (shrink)

This paper shows that the problem of treating people as equals in a world marked by deep-seated and, often, recalcitrant inequalities has implications for the way we approach the provision of security and justice. On the one hand, it means that racial profiling will generally be unjustified even when it might promote collective interests in security, on the other, it means that we should strive to create racially mixed juries, even in cases where defendant and alleged-victim are of the same (...) race. The paper examines a recent report on race and jury trials in the United Kingdom and concludes that, despite the author's claims that all-white juries are fair, the data shows the complex ways in which racial differences are translated into unjustified and arbitrary inequalities. Hence, it concludes, racially mixed juries are desirable, and sometimes necessary for justice, though probably not sufficient. (shrink)

Despite the recent rise in articles by American philosophers willing to deal with race, the sophistication of American philosophy's conceptualizations of American racism continues to lag behind other liberal arts fields committed to similar endeavors. Whereas other fields like American studies, history, sociology, and Black studies have found the foundational works of Black scholars essential to "truly" understanding the complexities of racism, American philosophy-driven by the refusal of white philosophers to acknowledge and incorporate the foundational works of Black scholars at (...) the turn of the century, as well as the relevant insights of contemporary race theorists-remains in a very real sense underdeveloped .. (shrink)

It has been said that pragmatism's "merely instrumental" truths fail to motivate radical change whereas absolute ideals make excellent guiding and driving forces for justice. However, in Radical Equations: Math Literacy and Civil Rights, Robert Moses speaks of the radical success of pragmatic principles, used in the Civil Rights Movement, that are continued today in the Algebra Project. This paper applies Dewey's claims about education and community to Moses's own arguments as a means of depicting the role that pragmatic ideals (...) play in achieving radical social change. (shrink)

Numerous studies indicate that racial minorities are both more likely to be executed for murder and that those who murder them are less likely to be executed than if they murder whites. Death penalty opponents have long attempted to use these studies to argue for a moratorium on capital punishment. Whatever the merits of such arguments, they overlook the fact that such discrimination alters the costs of murder; racial discrimination imposes higher costs on minorities for murdering through tougher sentences, and (...) it imposes lower costs on whites for murdering minorities by dispensing weaker sentences. These cost differentials constitute an injustice not simply to actual minority defendants in capital cases, nor simply to the actual minority victims of murder, but to all members of minority communities. I here offer two arguments for a moratorium on capital punishment: The first draws upon evidence of racial discrimination against minority defendants in capital cases, and claims that such discrimination modifies the costs of murder in such a way that minority individuals do not enjoy equal status under the law. The second draws upon the evidence regarding racial discrimination in relation to the race of victims, and claims that such discrimination modifies the costs of murder in such a way that minority individuals do not enjoy the equal protection of the law. Thus, by not assigning equal costs to murder, the American criminal justice system fails to provide racial minorities the equality under the law and discounts the value of their lives and liberties. A moratorium is the least unjust response to such a social injustice. I also reply to the criticism that a moratorium prevents us from executing deserving murderers. (shrink)

On first blush the Jim Crow Era may seem an odd place to locate anything meaningful about democratic, equal citizenship and the promise of the fourteenth amendment. This article argues to the contrary. The period of Jim Crow, in its negation of democratic citizenship, in fact reveals import aspects about the nature of democratic citizenship. This occurred in two ways. First, whites who implemented white supremacy implicitly understood that freedom and citizenship manifest themselves in a multiplicity of spheres, which is (...) why white supremacists sought to subordinate blacks not just politically but across all social spheres. Second, the resistance to comprehensive subordination revealed the multiplicity of the spirit of freedom and equality in actions and arguments African Americans. African Americans created spaces of democratic citizenship within the dominant culture of subordination. This article suggests that, in studying both the implementation of white supremacy and the resistance to it, we can learn more about how equal and democratic citizenship can be affirmed and implemented rather than negated, and also about the role of law as a tool for both subordination and resistance. (shrink)

The history of race in the nineteenth-century United States is often told as a story of black and white in the South, and white and Indian in the West, with little attention to the intersection between black and Indian. This article explores the history of nineteenth-century America's little races - racially ambiguous communities of African, Indian, and European origin up and down the Eastern seaboard. These communities came under increasing pressure in the years leading up to the Civil War and (...) in its aftermath to fall on one side or the other of a black-white color line. Drawing on trial records of cases litigating the racial identity of the Melungeons of Tennessee, the Croatans/Lumbee of North Carolina, and the Narragansett of Rhode Island, this article looks at the differing paths these three groups took in the face of Jim Crow: the Melungeons claiming whiteness; the Croatans/Lumbee asserting Indian identity and rejecting association with blacks; the Narragansett asserting Indian identity without rejecting their African origins. Members of these communities found that they could achieve full citizenship in the U.S. polity only to the extent that they abandoned their self-governance and distanced themselves from people of African descent. (shrink)

The primary objective of this thesis is to advocate for Black Nationalism's full inclusion in the academic field of political philosophy. By bringing the thinkers in the Black Nationalist tradition into this discourse, the field of philosophy stands to gain important insight into the prejudices and unexamined assumptions that plague academia. I will flesh out the nature of these assumptions using the works of Black Nationalists like Angela Davis, George Jackson and Joy James. This will show that reading Black Nationalists (...) as social theorists enables philosophers to unveil sources of knowledge about political economies by looking at the history of imperialism in a comprehensive manner. The second section is devoted to an examination of how the Black Panther Party's relationship to the state reveals the role of white violence in maintaining racial hierarchies. That the Black Panthers were targeted so systematically by the state indicates that they were perceived to be a threat to the white power structure, which gives us insight into how challenging state terror is a revolutionary act in intellectual and concrete ways. I show that the mainstream academic discourse on racism in American society assigns higher credibility to white philosophers even when Black thinkers have been producing relevant scholarship for centuries on the subject in question. The third section examines the philosophy of the Enlightenment in terms of how it relates to the domestic colonization of African Americans and to the abuse of people of color around the globe by European and American imperialists. The purpose of this section is to show how scholars' confidence in white canonized philosophers predisposes them to overlook Enlightenment philosophy's structurally racist approach to political societies. The fourth section provides a detailed overview of the key principles in Anti-Colonial and Critical Race Theory as they intersect with Black Nationalism. Important issues addressed in this section include the role of prisons in keeping African Americans in a state of neo-slavery. In order to situate Black Nationalist thought within a broader intellectual history, I will discuss how Black Nationalism represents the culmination of radical American and Anti-Colonial political theory. (shrink)