In the United States today, much interpersonal racism is driven by corrupt forms of self-preservation. Drawing from Jean- Jacques Rousseau, I refer to this as self-love racism. The byproduct of socially-induced racial anxieties and perceived threats to one’s physical or social wellbeing, self-love racism is the protective attachment to the racialized dimensions of one’s social status, wealth, privilege, and/or identity. Examples include police officer related shootings of unarmed Black Americans, anti-immigrant sentiment, and the resurgence of unabashed white (...) supremacy. This form of racism is defined less by the introduction of racism into the world and more on the perpetuation of racially unjust socioeconomic and political structures. My theory, therefore, works at the intersection of the interpersonal and structural by offering an account of moral complacency in racist social structures. My goal is to reorient the directionality of philosophical work on racism by questioning the sense of innocence at the core of white ways-of-being. (shrink)

This paper argues that racism should not only be conceived as a moral concept whose main aim is to condemn severe wrongs in the domain of race. The paper advances a complementary interpretation of racism as an explanatory concept--one that plays a key role in explaining race-based social problems afflicting members of subordinate racialized groups. As an explanatory concept, the term 'racism' is used to diagnose and highlight the causes of race-related social problems. The project of diagnosing (...) race-based social problems contributes to the pragmatic anti-racist end of developing better political and policy strategies for solving these social problems. The paper defends this interpretation of racism as an explanatory concept through a critical engagement with Urquidez's moral-philosophical account of racism. (shrink)

Personal racism used to be widely considered a kind of cognitive defect, with racists being people with biased, irrational racial attitudes. This kind of epistemic “racism-in-the-head” view has fallen largely out of favor in recent decades. Few philosophers have defended it, with many turning toward moral or socio-political rival accounts. This paper offers a robust defense of the epistemic view. It advances a new, broader version, claiming: Personal racism is determined solely by the number and significance of (...) one's biasing attitudes about racial groups. This bias centered view of racism avoids key problems with previous epistemic views. It also improves upon dominant moral and socio-political views in accounting for a broader range of racist attitudes. (shrink)

If racism is a matter of possessing racist beliefs, then it would seem that its cure involves purging one’s mind of all racist beliefs. But the truth is more complicated, and does not permit such a straightforward strategy. Racist beliefs are resistant to subjective repudiation, and even those that are so repudiated are resistant to lasting expulsion from one’s belief system. Moreover, those that remain available for use in cognition can shape thought and behavior even in the event that (...) one has recognized their falsehood. Yet if one is intent upon combating the racism within one’s mind, one is not without effective cognitive countermeasures that can render one’s racist beliefs ineffectual. (shrink)

In the United States there have been brilliant examples of anti-racist struggle-black soldiers in the Civil War, coal miners of Alabama, and especially the anti-racist working-class struggles led by the Communist Party. Yet racism persists: Jim Crow replaced racial slavery, and mass incarceration has replaced Jim Crow. Why? Paul Gomberg argues that racism is functional for capitalism, supplying low-wage, vulnerable labor and driving down conditions for all workers. How can anti-racists put an end to racist society? Gomberg argues (...) for race-centered Marxism: anti-racism must lead working-class struggle, but racism will end only in a communist society that creates opportunity for all. -/- In paperback on Bloomsbury and Amazon. Open access at Bloomsbury Collections. To download the book click on the ↓ symbol near (not at) the top of the page. (shrink)

“Racism” has become, but was not always, the most common term used to condemn behavior and attitudes in the racial domain of life. Yet it no longer has a fully shared meaning in ordinary language (in English, and perhaps in some other languages). Some see racial wrongs such as racial insensitivity, racial ignorance, racial discrimination, or racial disrespect as forms of racism, while others see them as forms of racial wrongfulness that differ from racism. A person saying (...) they have experienced racism should normally be believed, but this does not mean the person always understands the full character of what has happened to them. “Systemic racism” is a useful idea that protects against an overfocus on the individual dimension of racism. But systemic racism often still involves individual complicity and other individually wrongful behavior. “Implicit bias” involves prejudices of which the subject is not aware. Responsibility for such attitudes is a complicated issue, but persons can be responsible for not trying to root out unconscious prejudices of which others make they aware. “Racism is prejudice plus power” is a common definition of racism, but is problematic. It tends to overlook the ways people of color sometimes have power to hurt others, even including whites. Nevertheless the definition is useful in pointing to a moral asymmetry in most (though not all) manifestations of racism, that racism against people of color is generally more morally serious and wrongful than anti-white racism of the same form; for example, while an anti-white racial slur, like “honky,” is wrong and hurtful, it is not as much as the “n-word” used for Blacks. (shrink)

I argue that racism is essentially a civic character trait: to be a racist is to have a character that rationally reflects racial supremacist sociopolitical values. As with moral vice accounts of racism, character is my account’s primary evaluative focus: character is directly evaluated as racist, and all other racist things are racist insofar as, and because, they cause, are caused by, express or are otherwise suitably related to racist character. Yet as with political accounts of racism, (...) sociopolitical considerations provide my account’s primary evaluative standard: satisfying the sociopolitical standard of racial supremacy is what makes racist character racist. (shrink)

In this critical response, I clarify my critique of the commonly held assumption that racism contradicts Kant’s pure moral philosophy. I explain why Kant’s belated criticisms of some practices of slavery should not be interpreted as a rejection of colonial slavery as an institution. I end with a reflection on the relation between Kant’s philosophy and anti-racism.

Kant scholars have paid relatively little attention to his raciology. They assume that his racism, as personal prejudice, can be disentangled from his core philosophy. They also assume that racism contradicts his moral theory. In this book, philosopher Huaping Lu-Adler challenges both assumptions. She shows how Kant's raciology--divided into racialism and racism--is integral to his philosophical system. She also rejects the individualistic approach to Kant and racism. Instead, she uses the notion of racism as ideological (...) formation to demonstrate how Kant, from his social location both as a prominent scholar and as a lifelong educator, participated in the formation of modern racist ideology. As a scholar, Kant developed a ground-breaking scientific theory of race from the standpoint of a philosophical investigator of nature or Naturforscher. As an educator, he transmitted denigrating depictions of the racialized others and imbued those descriptions with normative relevance. In both roles, he left behind, as one of his legacies, a worldview that excluded non-whites from such goods as recognitional respect and candidacy for cultural and moral achievements. Scholars who research and teach Kant's philosophy therefore have an unshakable burden to take part in the ongoing antiracist struggles, through their teaching practices as well as their scholarship. And they must do so with a pragmatic attention to nonideal social realities and a deliberate orientation toward substantial racial justice, equality, and inclusion. Lu-Adler pushes the discourse about Kant and racism well beyond the old debates about whether he was racist or whether his racism contaminates his philosophy. By foregrounding the lasting legacies of Kant's raciology, her work calls for a profound reorientation of Kant scholarship. (shrink)

Lewis Gordon presents the first detailed existential phenomenological investigation of antiblack racism as a form of Sartrean bad faith. Bad faith, the attitude in which human beings attempt to evade freedom and responsibility, is treated as a constant possibility of human existence. Antiblack racism, the attitude and practice that involve the construction of black people as fundamentally inferior and subhuman, is examined as an effort to evade the responsibilities of a human and humane world. Gordon argues that the (...) concept of bad faith militates against any human science that is built upon a theory of human nature and as such offers an analysis of antiblack racism that stands as a challenge to our ordinary assumptions of what it means to be human. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant viewed himself as the first person to have properly defined the concept of a human ‘race’. He distinguished four human ‘races’ and ranked the.

What makes #BlackLivesMatter unique is the implication that it isn’t only some black lives that matter, that is, not only the most commonly referenced male lives. Rather, the hashtag suggests that all black lives matter, including queer, trans, disabled, and female. This movement includes all those black lives who have been marginalized within the black liberation tradition, as well as in greater society. The movement highlights the ways in which black people have been traditionally deprived of dignity and human rights. (...) State racism and state violence are sustained together. The law creates a “subrace” out of those whom white society fears and holds in contempt. This leaves not only black Americans but all citizens vulnerable. A way to fight this form of racism is not only to create a solidarity among the oppressed members of the subrace but to create a solidarity with all members, in “vulnerable solidarity.”. (shrink)

Racism has been the subject of considerable attention in recent years, and although many varieties of it have been identified and discussed, most of the discussions take insufficient account of the differences between the racial, ethnic, and national elements that play roles in it. Nonetheless, the talk of racism against members of ethnic and national groups is quite common and gives rise to misunderstandings and confusions about what racism is and the various forms it can take when (...) these differences are not explored. In this article, I explore racism in the contexts of race, ethnicity, and nationality in order to determine whether it makes sense in those contexts and, if it does, the differences and similarities between them. I argue that understandings of racism that pay insufficient attention to the differences that characterize racism arising from considerations of race, ethnicity, and nationality stand on the way of its eradication and prevention. I further argue that conceptions of race, ethnicity, and nationality that attempt to integrate them into mixed notions can make matters worse. (shrink)

This piece was originally titled "Racism, Chauvinism and Prejudice in the History of Philosophy" but was later retitled "How Western Philosophy Became Racist" by the publisher.

Xenophobia is conceptually distinct from racism. Xenophobia is also distinct from nativism. Furthermore, theories of racism are largely ensconced in nationalized narratives of racism, often influenced by the black-white binary, which obscures xenophobia and shelters it from normative critiques. This paper addresses these claims, arguing for the first and last, and outlining the second. Just as philosophers have recently analyzed the concept of racism, clarifying it and pinpointing why it’s immoral and the extent of its moral (...) harm, so we will analyze xenophobia and offer a pluralist account of xenophobia, with important implications for racism. This analysis is guided by the discussion of racism in recent moral philosophy, social ontology, and research in the psychology of racism and implicit attitudes. (shrink)

This paper examines the fortunes of non-European philosophies in histories of philosophy written by European and American philosophers from the 17th century to the present day. It charts the shift from inclusive histories of philosophy, which included non-European philosophies, to exclusive histories of philosophy, which excluded and/or marginalized non-European philosophies, at the end of the 18th century. This shift was motivated by racial Eurocentrism, which cast a long shadow over histories of philosophy written during the 19th and 20th centuries. The (...) paper also considers recent attempts to produce a more inclusive history of philosophy. By examining the history of the inclusion and exclusion of non-European philosophies in histories of philosophy, this paper seeks to challenge the assumption that philosophy began and has been practised exclusively by European or western thinkers. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant was possibly both the most influential racist and the most influential moral philosopher of modern, Western thought. So far, authors have either interpreted Kant as an “inconsistent egalitarian” or as a “consistent inegalitarian.” On the former view, Kant failed to draw the necessary conclusions about persons from his own moral philosophy; on the latter view, Kant did not consider non‐White people as persons at all. However, both standard interpretations face significant textual difficulties; instead, I argue that Kant's moral (...) egalitarianism is so thin as to remain almost entirely useless as an antidote to racism. (shrink)

An increasingly common view is that ‘racism’ can be defined as prejudice plus power. However, this view is ambiguous between two interpretations. The first proposes a descriptive definition, claiming that a prejudice plus power account of ‘racism’ best accounts for our ordinary usage of the term. The second proposes a revisionary definition, claiming that we should adopt a new account of ‘racism’ because doing so will bring pragmatic benefit. In this paper, I argue that the prejudice plus (...) power view is unsatisfying on either interpretation. (shrink)

To biologise racism is to treat racism as a neurological phenomenon susceptible to biochemical intervention. In 'Race on the Brain: What Implicit Bias Gets Wrong About the Struggle for Racial Injustice', Kahn (2018) critiques cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists for framing racism in a way that tends to biologise racism, which he argues draws attention and resources away from non-individualistic solutions to racial inequality. In this paper I argue the psychological sciences can accommodate several of Kahn’s criticisms (...) by adopting a situated approach to cognition, where we take environmental features as integral to the cognitive processes that manifest racial bias. (shrink)

The 2016 US Election and its aftermath have renewed anti-racist activism on the American left. This article takes a close look at familiar philosophical analyses of racism and argues that they have two shortcomings: (1) they do not offer proper guidance in combating racism, and (2) they do not adequately represent the historical relationship between race and racism. A different view of racism, one that adopts a genealogical, as opposed to analytical, approach is laid out. And (...) it is argued that this view is better able to account for what racism is and to guide the anti-racist response called for by current events. (shrink)

In this paper, I advocate for the integration of systemic racism as a central topic in the education of information technology (IT) students, particularly within Cyberethics curricula. Systemic racism consists of deeply rooted policies, practices, and cultural norms that sustain racial inequality and discrimination regardless of individual intent. It extends beyond personal prejudice to encompass the institutional and structural disadvantages imposed on marginalized racial and ethnic groups. As technology becomes more embedded in everyday life, addressing systemic racism (...) in IT education is essential for developing ethical, socially responsible practitioners. Including these discussions encourages critical thinking among students and helps them understand the broader societal impacts of their work. I propose that college-level Cyberethics courses be revised to incorporate four interrelated key areas that contribute to the perpetuation of racism in information technology: algorithmic bias, the digital divide, digital deficiency, and exclusionary design. Each of these factors reflects how inequality can be unintentionally encoded and sustained through technical systems. If systemic racism is not critically examined in IT education, the cycle between discriminatory technologies and existing racial inequalities will become self-reinforcing. This feedback loop risks making inequality more pervasive and more deeply embedded in both digital and social systems, making future efforts to dismantle these structures significantly more difficult. Minoritized communities will continue to face exclusion and harm unless we take proactive steps to change how we teach and think about ethics in technology. (shrink)

The article "Our Education System Breeds Racism" by Moses Modisane critically examines how the South African education system perpetuates racial and socioeconomic inequalities. It explores the historical roots of racism in education, particularly how apartheid-era policies created systemic disparities that persist in post-apartheid South Africa. The article argues that racism manifests at personal, institutional, and systemic levels within schools, reinforced by curriculum design, social class distinctions, and differential access to quality education. Modisane highlights the role of private (...) schools and the Independent Examination Board (IEB) in maintaining racial and economic exclusivity. He advocates for an Afrocentric curriculum that addresses African realities and rejects the Eurocentric educational model that fosters inequality. Drawing on critical pedagogy, he critiques the memorization-based learning approach and calls for more vocational schools to accommodate diverse talents. The article concludes that dismantling racism in education requires structural reforms, economic equity, and a shift away from profit-driven exclusionary practices. (shrink)

In this essay, I want to explore one of the most ironic episodes in the history of propaganda, the attempt by various federal agencies to moderate American WWII anti-Japanese propaganda films. My texts will be four films, two produced by the military, and two by Hollywood: December 7th (1943), directed by Gregg Toland and revised by John Ford; Air Force (1943), directed Howard Hawks; Know Your Enemy: Japan (1945), directed by Frank Capra; and Betrayal for the East (1945), directed by (...) William Berke. As all of these films are readily available on YouTube, I will be brief in my description of them. Instead, I will focus on how they served to intensify racial hatred of Japanese in general and Japanese-Americans in particular, and how the federal government tried to control that propaganda—but was limited by its own policies regarding Japanese-Americans. (shrink)

Kant is famous for his universalist moral theory, which emphasizes human dignity, equality, and autonomy. Yet he also defended sexist and (until late in his life) racist views. In this essay, I address the question of how current readers of Kant should deal with Kant’s sexism and racism. I first provide a brief description of Kant’s views on sexual and racial hierarchies, and of the way they intersect. I then turn to the question of whether we should set aside (...) Kant’s sexism and racism or ‘translate’ his egalitarian principles into inegalitarian ones. I argue for a third position, namely, that we should highlight the tensions that pervade Kant’s theory. In the final section, I argue that the use of inclusive language and female pronouns in recent discussions of Kant’s moral and political philosophy carries significant risks. I end by articulating several preconditions for fruitfully using Kant’s moral principles to criticize sexism and racism. (shrink)

This is the second of a multi-part article on the racism in Anthony Appiah’s work. This short article will focus on his normalisation of racism in a specific instance in a specific work 'Colour Conscious' (Appiah & Guttman, 1996).

An account of the specific ill of Native American mascots—that is, the particular racism of using Native Americans as mascots, as distinct from other racist portrayals of Native Americans—requires a fuller account of the function of mascots as such than has previously been offered. By analyzing the history of mascots in the United States, this article argues that mascots function as symbols that draw into an artificial unity 1) a variety of teams existing over a period of time and (...) thereby 2) a community of individuals who are thus able to use that team as their own symbolic locus of unification. This unification of teams and their concomitant communities is accomplished by appeal to a symbol that facilitates a particular fantasy of collective identity. The usage of Native American mascots is racist not only because it involves stereotypical portrayals of Native Americans, but (more specifically) because it treats Native persons simply as a means to symbolic unification—and not, importantly, as members of the community they thus serve. In other words, in these cases mascots work as unifying signifiers precisely by being the purely instrumental facilitator of a group's collective fantasy of itself. (shrink)

I address the objection that the concept of racism has become overly inflated. Critics of the conceptual inflation of “racism” argue that theories of institutional racism engage in untoward conceptual inflation insofar as they undermine our moral understanding of racial phenomena, hinder our ability to explain the causes of racial inequality, and even undercut struggles for racial justice. I develop an original account of institutional racism and show that it is immune to all three versions of (...) the conceptual inflation challenge. (shrink)

The Psychosis of Race offers a unique and detailed account of the psychoanalytic significance of race, and the ongoing impact of racism in contemporary society. Moving beyond the well-trodden assertion that race is a social construction, and working against demands that simply call for more representational equality, The Psychosis of Race explores how the delusions, anxieties, and paranoia that frame our race relations can afford new insights into how we see, think, and understand race's pervasive appeal. With examples drawn (...) from politics and popular culture--such as Candyman, Get Out, and the music of Kendrick Lamar--critical attention is given to introducing as well as explicating on several key concepts from Lacanian psychoanalysis and the study of psychosis, including foreclosure, phallus, the Name-of-the-Father, sinthome, and the objet petit a. By elaborating a cultural mode to psychosis and its understanding, an original and critical exposition of the effects of racialization, as well as our ability to discern the very limits of our capacity to think through, or even beyond, the idea of race, is provided. The Psychosis of Race speaks to an emerging area in the study of psychoanalysis and race, and will appeal to scholars and academics across the fields of psychology, sociology, cultural studies, media studies, and the arts and humanities. (shrink)

Insert abstract text here. This paper examines discrimination in the United States in 2025 as a structurally normalized mode of governance rather than a residual failure of liberal democracy. It argues that contemporary hierarchies of race, religion, gender, class, age, and identity are increasingly produced through formally neutral legal regimes, administrative practices, and security logics that preserve the appearance of equality while generating substantive harm. Drawing on international human rights law, comparative political ethics, and global philosophical scholarship, the analysis situates (...) the United States within a widening international critique concerning its treatment of its own population. The paper foregrounds external perspectives—United Nations treaty bodies, special rapporteurs, regional human rights institutions, and non-U.S. scholars—to examine how racism, Islamophobia, immigration enforcement, gendered governance, and cultural marginalization are interpreted beyond the American moral frame. Particular attention is given to the racialized use of immigration enforcement, the persistence of racial terror and impunity in the southern United States, and the symbolic politics surrounding Puerto Rico and Latino representation, revealing how colonial residues and cultural hierarchy continue to structure inclusion and exclusion. The overturning of Roe v. Wade is analyzed as a critical inflection point, signaling the re-localization of bodily autonomy and the fragility of substantive rights under conditions of moral federalism. This development is treated not as an isolated legal event but as a precursor to broader contests over bodily sovereignty, gender regulation, and state authority. The paper further examines classism, ageism, and economic stratification as intersecting mechanisms of disposability, extending prior analyses of structural neglect into the terrain of discrimination. Finally, the paper addresses internal fractures within contemporary rights movements, including emerging separations between gay and transgender advocacy, framing these divisions as both governance dilemmas and ethical questions of pluralism rather than as disputes over legitimacy or identity. Drawing on secular moral philosophy and diverse religious ethical traditions, the paper argues that forced moral convergence can undermine democratic pluralism while simultaneously weakening collective resistance to structural injustice. By situating U.S. discrimination within international legal norms and moral theory, this paper contends that contemporary American inequality reflects not merely social division but an ethical misalignment between democratic ideals and institutional practice. Discrimination in 2025 is shown to function less as overt exclusion than as managed hierarchy—legible to global observers, normalized domestically, and increasingly resistant to redress through formal law alone. (shrink)

Some people of colour feel shame in response to racist incidents. This phenomenon seems puzzling since, plausibly, they have nothing to feel shame about. This puzzle arises because we assume that targets of racism feel shame about their race. However, I propose that when an individual is racialised as non-White in a racist incident, shame is sometimes prompted, not by a negative self-assessment of her race, but by her inability to choose when her stigmatised race is made salient. I (...) argue that this can make sense of some shame responses to racism. My account also helps to highlight some of the emotional and cognitive costs of racism that have their root in shame as well as a new form of hermeneutical injustice and distinctive communicative harms, contributing to a fuller picture of what is objectionable about racism. (shrink)

The three target articles constitute a powerful and persuasive call for actively anti-racist bioethics and biomedicine. All three articles reject race as a biological category. Nevertheless, they share a common commitment to racial classification. At one point, Ruqaiijah Yearby writes that “social race, like biological race, is an illusion created to establish racial hierarchy,” but mostly she writes about “races” as though they were not an illusion, but a reality. In this commentary I critique the racial realism of the target (...) articles. I argue that the biomedical fight against racism is best served by a form of anti-realist reconstructionism about race, which says that there are no races, only racialized groups—groups misunderstood to be races. Note that I do not defend the color blindness that Clarence H. Braddock (2020) persuasively rejects. Because of the role of skin color in racialization and racism, color blindness is a misguided goal. One can reject color blindness, though, without accepting racial realism... (shrink)

There is an expansion of empirical research that at its core is an attempt to quantify the "feely" aspects of living in raced (and other stigmatized) bodies. This research is offered as part concession, part insistence on the reality of the "special" circumstances of living in raced bodies. While this move has the potential of making headway in debates about the character of racism and the unique nature of the harms of contemporary racism--through an analysis of stereotype threat (...) research, microaggression research, and the reception of both discourses--I will argue that this scientization of the phenomenology of race and racism also stalls progress on the most significant challenges for the current conversation about race and racism: how to listen and how to be heard. (shrink)

Two widespread strategies of resisting racism are the following. The first one is to deny the existence of races and thus block even the possibility of racist claims. The second one is to grant that races exist but insist that racial differences do not imply value differences. The aim of this paper is to outline a strategy of resisting racism that is weaker than the first but stronger than the second strategy: even if we accept that races exist, (...) we can still deny that there are projectible racial differences. And this is enough to block the possibility of racist claims without appealing to the slippery topic of value differences. I use some considerations from philosophy of biology in order to argue for this claim. (shrink)

The paper explores how boundaries affect the search for identity in the context of racism and colonialism. Colonized individuals often experience a sense of alienation and inferiority caused by the limitations imposed by colonial power structures, leading to a quest for personal identity. However, the binary division between the colonizer and colonized affects everyone involved, making searching for personal identity more complex and reinforcing systemic racism. The first section of the article examines how race, a socially constructed concept, (...) plays a crucial role in defining the difference between oneself and others, impossing structures of othering based on Fanonian analysis. The second section discusses whether it is possible to avoid or overcome racism and racial oppression, shedding light on the inherent nature of othering, racism, and latent violence. (shrink)

The term ‘reflexivity’ continues to maintain an interpretive hegemony in discussions on modernity and the Self. As a form of praxis, applications of reflexivity frequently rely upon an acknowledged awareness of one’s self-conscious attitudes, dispositions, behaviors and motives. This paper will take aim at such contentions, exploring the extent to which examples of racism rely upon a level of reflexivity, best encapsulated in Žižek’s ‘reflexive racism’. Specifically, it is highlighted how examples of non- racism/anti-racism assert the (...) formal promotion of a monadic subject, solely adept at ‘uncovering’ and ‘relinquishing’ their racism (disavowal); and, an equally unhelpful social constructionism, which depoliticizes racism by relocating and relativizing it to a particular socio-historical context (deferment). In outlining this response, specific attention is given to Lacan’s subject of enunciation and subject of the enunciated, from which it is concluded that it is in the obfuscation of one’s ‘position of enunciation’ that examples of reflexive racism reside. (shrink)

This chapter explores the concept of "public order" as a biopolitical dispositif that structures and legitimizes state interventions in gender, kinship, and reproduction across Western legal systems. Drawing on Foucault’s and Agamben’s theories of power, Pérez Navarro examines how public order functions not only as a moral framework but as a mechanism for the microphysical distribution of sovereign power, reinforcing racial, gendered, and sexual norms. The chapter highlights how institutions such as monogamous marriage and civil registration become tools of exclusion, (...) particularly affecting queer, trans, non-monogamous, and racialized subjects, whose life projects are treated as threats to national coherence. By tracing the colonial and Islamophobic genealogy of public order, the author reveals its ongoing role in maintaining Western sexual exceptionalism and homonationalist politics. The chapter concludes by reclaiming "friendship"—as theorized by Foucault—not as a private refuge but as a site of political resistance, capable of disrupting the heteronormative, racialized order inscribed in legal and social norms. Friendship, thus, becomes a figure of “public disorder” that challenges the state’s monopolization of legitimate relationality. (shrink)

Policy-making must always pay attention to race. That is the central claim of this chapter. Regardless of whether some particular policy debate is ostensibly “racial”, policy-makers must attend to questions of race, because race is a ubiquitous, but frequently unnoticed, feature of our world. I examine the type of philosophical question about race that I think philosophers and policy-makers would do well to examine and consider how the question “What is race?” is pertinent to policy debate. Examples will be drawn (...) from Australia, the United States, and Britain to illustrate these abstract arguments. (shrink)

I defend impact-based accounts of institutional racism against the criticism that they are over-inclusive. If having a negative impact on non-whites suffices to make an institution racist, too many institutions (including institutions whose affirmative action policies inadvertently harm its intended beneficiaries) would count as racist. To address this challenge, I consider a further necessary condition for these institutions to count as racist—they must stand in a particular relation to racist ideology. I argue that, on the impact-based model, institutions are (...) racist if they have a negative racial impact AND this impact is legitimized by racist ideology. Racist ideologies limit social criticism of and collective action against institutions that have a negative racial impact, and in so doing, lend stability to systems of racial domination. (shrink)

This article addresses the suggestion that people who inquire into Conspiracy Theories are doing something morally repugnant. Namely, they are supporting right-wing racism and/or anti-Semitism, wittingly or not. This view has been articulated most extensively by the philosopher Quassim Cassam, who describes Conspiracy Theories as having several features that render them unlikely to be true. Rather than being genuine attempts to tell the truth, Cassam argues, the fundamental function of Conspiracy Theories is to advance an ideological or political agenda. (...) Cassam stresses the association of Conspiracy Theories with right-wing, racist and anti-Semitic agendas. He proposes responding to Conspiracy Theories by exposing their “real function” and thereby embarrassing potential supporters, causing them to refrain from “flirting with” such theories. I maintain that his proposal is ill-advised, as his argument is tenuous, at best, at every step. And, further, his proposal encourages a prima facie inappropriate way of treating people, and it would likely backfire. (shrink)

This paper examines Pierre Hadot’s philosophy as a way of life in the context of race. I argue that a “way of life” approach to philosophy renders intelligible how anti-racist confrontation of racist ideas and institutionalized white complicity is a properly philosophical way of life requiring regulated reflection on habits – particularly, habits of whiteness. I first rehearse some of Hadot’s analysis of the “way of life” orientation in philosophy, in which philosophical wisdom is understood as cultivated by actions which (...) result in the creation of wise habits. I analyze a phenomenological claim about the nature of habit implied by the “way of life” approach, namely, that habits can be both the cause and the effect of action. This point is central to the “way of life” philosophy, I claim, in that it makes possible the intelligent redirection of habits, in which wise habits are more the effect than simply the cause of action. Lastly, I illustrate the “way of life” approach in the context of anti-racism by turning to Linda Martín Alcoff’s whiteness anti-eliminativism, which outlines a morally defensible transformation of the habits of whiteness. I argue that anti-racism provides an intelligible context for modern day forms of what Hadot calls “spiritual exercises” insofar as the “way of life” philosophy is embodied in the practice of whites seeing themselves seeing as white and seeing themselves being seen as white. (shrink)

This essay explores the intersection of racism, racial embodiment theory and the recent hostility aimed at immigrants and foreigners in the United States, especially the targeting of people of Latin American descent and Latino/as. Anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner sentiment is racist. It is the embodiment of racial privilege for those who wield it and the materiality of racial difference for those it is used against. This manifestation of racial privilege and difference rests upon a redrawing of the color line that (...) is meant towards preserving exclusive categories of political membership. The charge of racism, however, is elided by the fact that this hostility takes the form of a specious embracement of law and lawfulness. “Illegal” in this sense not only captures the actions of those who enter the United States through clandestine or informal means, but, in light of the history of immigration and citizen- ship law, the term operates as a racial trope that designates non-white status, thus marginalizing and alienating certain immigrants from ongoing nation-formation processes. I explain the source for anti-immigrant hostility in the United States, which I take to be connected to the longevity of white normativity as the basis for American identity. I then critically assess how the idea of national belonging is crucial to the perpetuation of white-ways-of-being, especially when citizenship has historically been a venue for the embodiment of racial and even colonial privilege. I conclude by posing several questions about the nature of racial identities and racism that suggest new avenues for further research on racial embodiment in a “postracial” era. pp. 65–90. (shrink)

Leonard Harris’ ‘racism as necro-being’ thesis, its theoretical contours, and actuarial methodology is a brilliant philosophical account of racism which posits the phenomenon as a polymorphic agent of death that confers upon its victims the status of the living dead. Though Harris’ thesis relies on arguments against attempts to understand racism as a logos or logic, there exists an explanatory account of racism which is nevertheless complimentary with his actuarial approach: the racism as war thesis. (...) Indeed, there is a deep conceptual harmony between the racism as necro-being and racism as war thesis (despite their structural asymmetry) regarding: (a) the plasticity of racism’s expression and (b) the centering of war, militarism, and death as its absolute indicators. Harris’ overall philosophical aim – to depict racism as a killing machine – is ultimately strengthened when yoked to an explanative account of the basic mechanisms that underly the pattern to be depicted, which the racism as war thesis can supply. On this basis, this essay will argue for a synthesis of these two theses. (shrink)

This article’s (Part1 of a series) main focus is on a logical analysis of Appiah’s main argument that Alexander Crummell was a racist. However to show that the implicit fraudulent scholarship involved in nature of the argument is specifically racist we need to put his claimed logical argument in the context of other claims that Appiah makes in order to show that there is a pattern of fraudulent scholarship with a specifically anti African anti- Afro American animus. A ‘prelude ‘ (...) will cover these points and then ‘Appiah’s logical analysis of racism’ will look closely at the logic of his claims. Here the issue is that a logical review simply asks if the premises can justify the conclusion and if each step of an argument can follow the earlier in a formally sound manner. Such an analysis abstracts from the issue of whether the steps are reasonable or factually correct. (shrink)

George Yancy's Backlash is a book about American racism. It is the story of what often happens when blacks dare to challenge whiteness on its hubris, or on its appallingly obvious hypocrisy. It is the story of the anger and violence that often arises in the white American in the aftermath of such a challenge, generating in him or her a need to humiliate and destroy the source of the diminished (and fragile) white sense of self. Racism is (...) not personal, Backlash evidences. It is a manifestation of a deeply racist society. Backlash succeeds as a powerful phenomenological account of what racism (still) looks (and feels) like in The Land of the Free. (shrink)

This article stems from my presentation at the 2020 Symposium of the Kripke Center for the Study of Religion and Society, whose theme was "Religion and the New Politics." The article is written for an interdisciplinary audience. Drawing on resources from the philosophical tradition of phenomenology and putting them into dialogue with an important theme in Christian theology, I argue that there is a distinctly non-discursive, embodied form of racism that should be recognized and addressed by the new politics. (...) Because this form of racism occurs not at the familiar level of discourse (word), but in the often unconscious habitualities of the lived body (flesh), it resists common antiracist strategies, and seems to be outside the purview of responsibility and of willful, rational change (the logos). I situate these underlying issues with regard to the traditional opposition between mind and body, and then offer a reinterpretation of them by way of some key phenomenological concepts: intentionality, the lived body, the critique of scientism, motivation, and empathy. I conclude that embodied racism is something which is open to an extended conception of rationality that includes the lived body, and for which we are responsible. I then suggest some antiracist political strategies that put these theoretical considerations to use through attention to embodied spaces and practices. (shrink)

Recently, an increasing number of scholars have been showing interest in old-fashioned racism again. While recent studies on old-fashioned racism apparently increase our knowledge of this psychological theory of racism, the studies actually shed light on a different type of racism, namely offensive racism. The aim of this text is to argue that psychological theories of racism, like old-fashioned racism and modern racism, depend on societies’ social norms. I will show that questionnaires (...) are highly sensitive to social norms, and if there is change in social norms, the original measurement object alters. The theory of old-fashioned racism implicitly assumes agents that follow (or conform to) the social norm to behave prejudiced. Today, however, this social norm does not exist in Western societies. If agents express the same prejudices today, they indicate their willingness to breach the social norm to behave unprejudiced. Thereby, classic old-fashioned racism measures reflect a new kind of racism today. (shrink)

The richness of the term “unsettling” has made it readily employable for phenomenological accounts of racism in philosophy of race literature; yet, the term has been left largely under-theorized. Here, I argue that unsettling encounters can be said to occur when the unfamiliar other has come into contact with the boundary of one’s existential home. For many white people, interracial interactions produce an (often unwarranted) feeling of physical danger, but as I hope to show, this habitual (mis)perception of such (...) encounters is not merely a conditioned response; it also functions to subvert situations that might unsettle white identifies partially constituted by phenomenological demarcations of space along racial lines. Drawing on empirical literature and recent developments in critical phenomenology, I suggest that by exercising habitual, racist gestures and perceptions, white people (mis)perceive ontological threats to their worldview—e.g., a bookish Black student or a masculine gay man—as ontically threatening so as to avoid the kind of work and existential anguish that altering one’s normative expectations would require. (shrink)