Taking Others Seriously as Anti-Racism in Philosophy

This is a first installment for a series on anti-racism in philosophy, written by guest authors. 

This entry is written by Alexus McLeod, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Asian/Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut. 

In the wake of recent events, there has been lots of discussion on how white people can support, show solidarity with, and be good allies to black people. I very much appreciate the sincere outpouring of support from white people across the country and within academia and our field of philosophy in particular. Many white philosophers, I find, legitimately abhor actions like those of the Minneapolis Police officers who killed George Floyd and other such actions.  But, as I will briefly argue here, while this is a good start, it is not enough. True anti-racism goes deeper than this. Implicitly racist ideas are more than only the outright and obvious activity of brutal police. They can also be revealed in our outlooks on our own field, and our perpetuation of racist disciplinary norms, even when we may not realize the racist nature of those norms. It is certainly good and important to criticize brutal police actions and the kind of obvious racism we see almost daily now in viral videos. But let’s also turn the gaze on the structure of our own discipline.

Diversity in our material

To be anti-racist, I contend, is to respect others for what they are, not for their ability to be more like you. It’s a matter of respecting and trying to understand things that might be different than you, intellectually, racially, or otherwise. Clinging to one way of thinking or being leads easily to the dismissal of other ways—and this is what much of the racism displayed in the US amounts to.  Disparagement of black and other non-white people always comes in the form of the rejection of their uniqueness and the simultaneous insistence on it. “If only they could be as we are,” white America holds, “things would go better for them.” The USA has a long history of this kind of thinking—from the project of attempting to “civilize” Native American communities in the “Indian Schools” of the 19^th century, to the attempts of 21^st century white people to police the cultural aesthetic of black people—cut off your dreadlocks, don’t wear your pants low, etc, and you’ll fit into “our” society. This is all a lie, of course—we can never sufficiently be like you are, no matter how badly some may want to. Because while we might adopt all the actions and trappings of white people, while we might cut our hair as you want us to, speak and wear our clothes the way you want us to, think the way you want us to, the fact remains that because we look different, we have different histories, and have different ancestors, we are always treated as different.

Institutions and systems in the USA play important racist roles we are not always aware of. These systems have been designed to protect and ultimately to advance the interests of white people specifically. The very nation itself was designed with these interests in mind. We cannot ignore this history—a history whose resonance continues to inform the ways we structure and operate our current institutions, despite our rejection of racism. We can’t forget that institutional norms can themselves be racist even when individual members of institutions may not be, and that the perpetuation of these norms originally intended with an exclusivist racial agenda still serves this agenda when used today.

Philosophy is not immune to this. We as philosophers have to look hard at our own disciplinary norms, and think about how they themselves might perpetuate racism.  And we cannot overlook the role that a certain conception of philosophy (or canon more generally) has played in supporting the edifice of white supremacy (see Peter Park’s essential book Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy for much more on this). While we may think that we oppose such a system of white supremacy, we find it embedded in our very philosophical culture we have departments of philosophy teaching historical figures in the “Western” tradition from Plato to Kant to Frege, with the absence of figures and traditions from the rest of the world.  The scholar or student working on African/Africana, Asian, or Indigenous American Philosophy should not find departments of philosophy hostile or unwelcoming places to be. Yet we often do. And despite the best intentions of many philosophers, as long as we take white, European history to be the core and the canon of our discipline, what we are telling non-white people is that you do not matter, that your history and thought, no matter what it is like, does not qualify as philosophy. For philosophy to be a truly anti-racist space, this needs to change.

Spaces of comfort and discomfort

Black people in America find particular spaces uncomfortable to occupy. Some such spaces are downright dangerous, as in the case of police interactions, and sometimes they’re simply depressing, undermining, and demotivating, as being in spaces where you feel not only underrepresented, but neglected and devalued.  It should come as no surprise that few black people tend to move in such spaces.

Philosophy can, unfortunately, often be one of those spaces, because of not only the lack of representation in terms of our numbers, but also in terms of the subjects, traditions, and ideas taken seriously there. Diversifying philosophy and showing that one values black and other non-white people is not just a matter of trying to bring in more such people to do philosophy in the way it has long been conceived in the Western academy. Indeed, we will find it increasingly difficult to do this, because black people and other people of color feel uncomfortable in certain spaces not simply (or even) because we are minorities there, but rather because we feel like these spaces are not made for us, not intended for us. We feel like interlopers in a white space. If you feel you belong and that a space is made at least in part for you, you can feel comfortable in a space even when you may be the only one of your kind there. I would find it just as alienating to be a member of a department with numerous faculty of color but where exclusively European traditions are studied as I would to be a member of “a department in which non-European traditions are studied but without other faculty of color.

Calling for diversity is not a call to end the kind of work philosophers have done in the past. We don’t want to take over or remold what you do—we just want to be a part.  This will inevitably change things to some extent, but these are changes that are needed. No one wants anyone to stop working on or teaching Plato, Kant, Hume, or Russell. We just want you to stop exclusively working on them, and to introduce and respect a broader range of thought, including that of non-white people. When a department brings in a second Kant specialist, for example, rather than having a single person who works on the traditions of Africa and the African diaspora, it implicitly makes the claim that one single white man in one period was at least two times more intellectually important than an entire people throughout its complete history. And that, whether you intend it to be so or not, is simply racist.

Right now, cities throughout the USA are in flames because of the racial violence and brutality of the police against black and other non-white people. One of the main problems with the institution of law enforcement in American society, just as many institutions in this country, is that it was originally constructed for the benefit and the protection of white people, largely as against the threat of non-white, particularly black, people, who are perceived as the ever-present danger to the white person. These historical roots of the institution endure in its norms, even though these norms may have lost their explicitly racist tenor. 

The reason people are protesting is not only because of the brutality of this system, but because it appears to serve largely to protect white people and the status quo of class and race disparity, protecting the white and privileged against the black and ostensibly dangerous. It aims to keep us in chains, keep us impoverished, keep us afraid. And by unquestioningly accepting the norms of the systems this country has inherited, it also perpetuates the racism built into those norms. Sometimes the problem is not our own explicit attitudes—the problem is the racist institutions and norms we have failed to address, to change, or even to discard if necessary. To be anti-racist in philosophy, we must reconsider the nature of our field—not only who belongs, but what belongs. If/when we finally broaden our conception of philosophy to include non-Western, non-white people and traditions, giving them equal footing with the white European philosophy we’ve long seen as the “core” or “canon”, then black and other non-white people will feel like philosophy is our native space as well, rather than an exclusively white space that we can only ever be visitors to.

Comments

[yup]

thanks for this.

Can we talk about making philosophy Q & As more comfortable for PoC and others? Would norms for better behavior help prevent those more empowered talking over others or re-explaining their points for them?

Some modest proposals:

In large audiences, ban follow-ups.

In large audiences, use an app to randomize question order.

Consider a card system like that used in Bellingham's summer conference (I've never been but know of the system), to ensure everyone can talk.

Ban 'questions' that are just comments. Every question must be a real question.

Prioritize PoC on the queue (many moderators I know already prioritize grads, junior scholars, and women, but we need to make sure race is in that mix).

Place a hard limit on the time spent on each question -- e.g., 2 minutes.

Other suggestions?