From Philosophy of Race to Antiracist Politics: On Rorty's Approach to Race and Racism

A premodern philosophy of race and racism in Thomas Aquinas resolves some seeming oppositions between the three most current theories of race. Thomas’s generational account of race is primary. It affirms the racial naturalist view that there are biological differences between people, and some of which stem from a characteristic genotype and geography. Thomas’s individual account of race is secondary but nevertheless a necessary clarification of the generational account. It affirms the racial skeptic view that these racial characteristic properties are individual properties, not essential or specific properties, and as such cannot lead to a definite, essential being that is a ‘race.’ Thomas’s intersubjective account of race is tertiary, insofar as it presumes the generational and individual accounts, and yet crucially explains a peculiar social reality. It affirms the racial constructionist view that the intention by which we understand the notion of race is a socially constituted object, a mind-dependent reality informed by experience.

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Critical Philosophy of Race

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199668779.013.15 ◽

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).

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Important Resources--Books: "Defining Difference Race and Racism in the History of Psychology"

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e491172006-049 ◽

2005 ◽

Keyword(s):

History Of Psychology ◽

Race And Racism ◽

History Of

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Critical Incidents in Counseling Courses: Issues of Race and Racism

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e521962007-001 ◽

2006 ◽

Author(s):

Saba Rasheed Ali ◽

Julie R. Ancis

Keyword(s):

Critical Incidents ◽

Race And Racism

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White Perspectives on Race and Racism: A Qualitative Study

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e710222007-001 ◽

2007 ◽

Author(s):

Laura Smith ◽

Madonna G. Constantine ◽

Chelsea B. Dize ◽

Sheila V. Graham

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Study ◽

Race And Racism

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"Race" and Racism

10.1057/9780230609198 ◽

2007 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Richard J. Perry

Keyword(s):

Race And Racism

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Receptions of the Past: Commemoration, Racism, Desire

Somatechnics ◽

10.3366/soma.2017.0223 ◽

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.

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