Critical Philosophy of Race

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles W. Mills
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Standpoint Theory ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of Race ◽  
Structures Of Feeling ◽  
History Of

This article tries to provide a genealogy for, and a characterization of, “critical philosophy of race,” which has only recently begun to gain formal recognition as a subject within the discipline. After discussing the contested periodization of race and racism, the author turns to the related question of whether they have affected the history of Western philosophy from the classical epoch to modernity. Then he reviews contemporary scholarship in critical philosophy of race, looking at standard divisions of the field: metaphysics (the metaphysics of race); epistemology (social epistemology, standpoint theory, and “whiteness”); aesthetics (race and structures of feeling, racism and anti-racism in works of art); ethics (the moral challenges of slavery, white supremacy, and their ongoing legacy); social and political philosophy (competing analyses of racism as a concept, competing etiologies of racism as a reality, racial domination and racial justice); and existentialism, phenomenology, and pragmatism (the lived experience of race).

scholarly journals A Global Critical Race and Racism Framework: Racial Entanglements and Deep and Malleable Whiteness

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Christian
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
First Century ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
State Economy ◽  
Global Linkages ◽  
History Of ◽  
Core Components

Twenty years after Bonilla-Silva developed the analytic components of a structural race perspective and called for “comparative work on racialization in various societies,” U.S.-centric race theory continues to be mostly rooted in a U.S. focus. What is missing is a framework that explores race and racism as a modern global project that takes shape differently in diverse structural and ideological forms across all geographies but is based in global white supremacy. Drawing from Bonilla-Silva’s national racialized social systems approach, global South scholars, and critical race scholars in the world-systems tradition, the author advances a global critical race and racism framework that highlights two main areas: (1) core components that include the “state,” “economy,” “institutions,” and “discourses” and “representations,” as divided by “racist structure” and “racist ideology” and shaped by the “history” of and current forms of transnational racialization and contemporary “global” linkages, and (2) the production of deep and malleable global whiteness. With this framework, both the permanence and flexibility of racism across the globe can be seen, in all its overt, invisible, and insidious forms, that ultimately sustains global white supremacy in the twenty-first century.

Feminist Philosophy of Social Science

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Crasnow
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Preliminary Investigation ◽  
Standpoint Theory ◽  
Feminist Philosophy ◽  
Feminist Methodology ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Research Questions

This chapter offers a preliminary investigation of some of the ways that feminist philosophers have and might continue to learn from, interact with, and ultimately contribute to discussions about key issues in the social sciences. It begins with a brief history of feminist engagement with the social sciences. In next turns to consideration of two areas in which feminist work has made a difference: methodology and concept critique. Feminist standpoint methodology, as used primarily by feminist sociologists, has been influential in both of these areas. The success of standpoint theory as a feminist methodology has motivated philosophical exploration of its relationship to feminist epistemology. Another area in which feminist approaches have had an impact is feminist critique of concepts. The way the objects of inquiry are conceptualized has an impact on what research questions can be answered. Concepts that are inadequate to capturing the lived experience of women may call for revision or replacement. Standpoint theory has been influential in this area as well. The chapter concludes by considering some questions raised by standpoint theory about the identity of knowers and how intersectionality may serve as an analytical tool to aid in addressing that question.

scholarly journals Racism and the Marginality of African Philosophy in South Africa

Phronimon ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 204-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ndumiso Dladla
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
African Philosophy ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Western Education ◽  
History Of ◽  
Contemporary Context

The following article begins with a brief discussion on the continuity of white supremacy in South Africa, despite wide attempts by the institutions of opinion (public discourse, journalism and academe) to represent the present time as non-racial or post-racial. After a discussion of the contemporary context the focus turns specifically to the relevance of race and racism to philosophy and the implications this has for African philosophy in particular. The article then briefly examines the history of Western education and the practice of philosophy in South Africa from the point of view of African philosophy and its marginality in South Africa. 

scholarly journals White Innocence / White Supremacy

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 515-538
Author(s):  
Judith Gruber
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Racial Categories ◽  
German Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western European ◽  
White Innocence

Abstract This article starts from the observation that current debates about race and racism are often couched in soteriological terms such as guilt and forgiveness, or confession and exoneration, and it argues that this overlap calls for theological analysis. Using the debate about Achille Mbembe’s disinvitation from the German art festival ‘Ruhrtriennale’ 2020 as a case that is typical of a specifically Western European discourse on race, it first sketches a brief genealogy of the modern/colonial history of religio-racialisation and its intersections with Christian tradition, in which racial categories were forged in soteriological discourses, and in which, in turn, soteriological categories were shaped by racist discourses. It proposes that in this process, Christianity, Whiteness and salvation were conflated in a way that has sponsored White supremacy, disguised as innocence. Engaging with performative race theory, the article concludes by making a constructive proposal for a performative theology of race that can account for the profound intersections between racism and soteriology, but also opens trajectories for transforming hegemonic discourses of race and their theological underpinnings.

scholarly journals Why Are All the White Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: Toward Challenging Constructions of a Persecuted White Collective

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 679
Author(s):  
Uma Mazyck Jayakumar ◽  
Annie S. Adamian ◽  
Sara E. Grummert ◽  
Cameron T. Schmidt-Temple ◽  
Andrew T. Arroyo
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Racial Diversity ◽  
College Campuses ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
White People ◽  
Structural Racism

In the context of ongoing antagonism on college campuses, attacks on Critical Race Theory, and widespread backlash against racial justice initiatives, this paper underscores the growing need to recognize co-optation and other counterinsurgent strategies used against racial justice to make room for transformative scholarship. By presenting qualitative interviews from 15 white HBCU students, we illustrate how diversity research, advocacy, and organizing previously used to advocate for racial justice has instead constructed distorted understandings of race and racism and has been used to expand ideologies of whiteness. The findings show what CRT scholars have cautioned about for decades—when left uninterrupted, ahistorical approaches to racial diversity programming and research may lend to the co-optation of justice-focused diversity language and the appropriation of BIPOC strategies of resistance. This not only inhibits and detracts from racial justice work, but can function to expand white supremacy. We relate these narratives to an emerging racial backlash whereby white people attempt to distort understandings of structural racism to claim a “persecuted” status—a delusion that we argue warrants a new ideological frame. We posit this work lays the foundation for advancing equity in one of the most counterinsurgent eras in higher education (Matias & Newlove, 2017).

scholarly journals untitled

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2-3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matana Roberts
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
African Descent ◽  
Intergenerational Trauma ◽  
Open Letter ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Police Violence ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
History Of

Matana Roberts is a saxophonist, composer, and artist. In this open letter—and call to action—she describes the intergenerational trauma that has resulted from the history of white supremacy and police violence against persons of African descent, and reminds us how race and racism are intimately linked to health in myriad ways.

Receptions of the Past: Commemoration, Racism, Desire

Somatechnics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-303
Author(s):  
Michael Connors Jackman
Keyword(s):  
Critical Point ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

This article investigates the ways in which the work of The Body Politic (TBP), the first major lesbian and gay newspaper in Canada, comes to be commemorated in queer publics and how it figures in the memories of those who were involved in producing the paper. In revisiting a critical point in the history of TBP from 1985 when controversy erupted over race and racism within the editorial collective, this discussion considers the role of memory in the reproduction of whiteness and in the rupture of standard narratives about the past. As the controversy continues to haunt contemporary queer activism in Canada, the productive work of memory must be considered an essential aspect of how, when and for what reasons the work of TBP comes to be commemorated. By revisiting the events of 1985 and by sifting through interviews with individuals who contributed to the work of TBP, this article complicates the narrative of TBP as a bluntly racist endeavour whilst questioning the white privilege and racially-charged demands that undergird its commemoration. The work of producing and preserving queer history is a vital means of challenging the intentional and strategic erasure of queer existence, but those who engage in such efforts must remain attentive to the unequal terrain of social relations within which remembering forms its objects.

Subversive Mobilities

Transfers ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Thelle
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Public Action ◽  
History Of ◽  
Urban Conflict

The article approaches mobility through a cultural history of urban conflict. Using a case of “The Copenhagen Trouble,“ a series of riots in the Danish capital around 1900, a space of subversive mobilities is delineated. These turn-of-the-century riots points to a new pattern of mobile gathering, the swarm; to a new aspect of public action, the staging; and to new ways of configuring public space. These different components indicate an urban assemblage of subversion, and a new characterization of the “throwntogetherness“ of the modern public.

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