On Kwame Anthony Appiah's "Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections" (1994), Charles Mills's "But What Are You Really?, The Metaphysics of Race" (1998), and Neven Sesardic's "Race: A Social Destruction of a Biological Concept" (2010). Coleman Hughes rejoins Mark, Seth, and Dylan to differentiate "race" as population genetics uses the term from racial identity. Continue Reading …
Ep. 228: Social Construction of Race (Appiah, Mills) (Citizen Edition)
On Kwame Anthony Appiah's "Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections" (1994), Charles Mills's "But What Are You Really?, The Metaphysics of Race" (1998), and Neven Sesardic's "Race: A Social Destruction of a Biological Concept" (2010). Coleman Hughes rejoins Mark, Seth, and Dylan to differentiate "race" as population genetics uses the term from racial identity. Continue Reading …
Ep. 211: Sartre on Racism and Authenticity (Part Three)
Moving finally on to Jean-Paul Sartre's "Black Orpheus" (1948), where he introduces a book of black poetry by praising its revolutionary spirit as embodied in "negritude." This continues our discussion from Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew (parts one and two), which criticized Jews whose reactions to racism he deemed inauthentic. "Black Orpheus" presents a similar story, but put Continue Reading …
Ep. 211: Sartre on Racism and Authenticity (Part Two)
Continuing on Jean-Paul Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (1946) and "Black Orpheus" (1948). We move into the latter half of the book, which deals with the Jews themselves. Though Sartre stresses that inauthenticity is more common among the majority protestant population of France, the persecuted Jews are not immune, and their persecuted Continue Reading …
Ep. 211: Sartre on Racism and Authenticity (Part One)
On Jean-Paul Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (1946) and "Black Orpheus" (1948). These are the essays that Frantz Fanon (see ep. 210) was most responding to, and they address the same question: How can we best psychologically understand racism and reactions to it? Sartre's chief analytical tool is the accusation of inauthenticity: The Continue Reading …
Ep. 211: Sartre on Racism and Authenticity (Citizen Edition)
On Jean-Paul Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (1946) and "Black Orpheus" (1948). These are the essays that Frantz Fanon (see ep. 210) was most responding to, and they address the same question: How can we best psychologically understand racism and reactions to it? Sartre's chief analytical tool is the accusation of inauthenticity: The Continue Reading …
Ep. 210: Frantz Fanon’s Black Existentialism (Part Two)
Continuing on Black Skin White Masks (1952) with guest Lawrence Ware. We've reached the most influential chapter (five), "The Fact of Blackness" (also translated as "The Lived Experience of the Black Man"), where Fanon describes how negative images of blackness in society fix the identity of black folks, trapping them in perpetual self-consciousness, and how Fanon himself Continue Reading …
Ep. 210: Frantz Fanon’s Black Existentialism (Part One)
On Black Skin White Masks (1952). How does growing up in a racist society mess people up? Fanon was born in the French-colonized Martinique and educated as a psychoanalyst in France where he studied under Merleau-Ponty, among others. The book was proposed (and rejected) as Fanon's dissertation, and claims to be a "clinical study," though it explicitly avoids spelling out its Continue Reading …
Ep. 210: Frantz Fanon’s Black Existentialism (Citizen Edition)
On Black Skin White Masks (1952). How does growing up in a racist society mess people up? Fanon was born in the French-colonized Martinique and educated as a psychoanalyst in France where he studied under Merleau-Ponty, among others. The book was proposed (and rejected) as Fanon's dissertation, and claims to be a "clinical study," though it explicitly avoids spelling out its Continue Reading …
Episode 162: James Baldwin on Race in America (Part Two)
Continuing on I Am Not Your Negro, "Notes of a Native Son" (1955), and The Fire Next Time (1963). We (and Law Ware) discuss Baldwin's critique of the American dream, how to oppose the inhumanity of others without becoming inhuman yourself, and Baldwin's take on religion. Plus, was the the documentary actually good as a film? This continues part 1, or get the unbroken, Continue Reading …
Episode 162: James Baldwin on Race in America (Part One)
On the film I Am Not Your Negro and the essays "Notes of a Native Son" (1955) and The Fire Next Time (1963). Baldwin is a go-to figure at this point in discussions of race; his essays, stories, and speeches provide a key touchstone in discussing how racism has warped our culture. So, how do we translate his testimony into philosophical theory? When he talks about the Continue Reading …
Ep. 162: James Baldwin on Race in America (Citizen Edition)
On the film I Am Not Your Negro and the essays "Notes of a Native Son" (1955) and The Fire Next Time (1963). Baldwin is a go-to figure at this point in discussions of race; his essays, stories, and speeches provide a key touchstone in discussing how racism has warped our culture. So how do we translate his testimony into philosophical theory? When he talks about the Continue Reading …
Episode 161: White Privilege (Peggy McIntosh, Charles Mills, et al) (Part One)
Is the rhetoric of "White Privilege" just the modern way of acknowledging historical and systemic truths of racism, or does it point to a novel way for acknowledging injustice, or does it on the contrary obscure these insights by involving confused claims about group responsibility and guilt? We are rejoined by guest Lawrence Ware to discuss several sources, some less formal Continue Reading …
Ep. 161: White Privilege (Peggy McIntosh, Charles Mills, et al) (Citizen Edition)
Is the rhetoric of "White Privilege" just the modern way of acknowledging historical and systemic truths of racism, or does it point to a novel way for acknowledging injustice, or does it on the contrary obscure these insights by involving confused claims about group responsibility and guilt? We are rejoined by guest Law Ware to discuss several sources, some less formal than Continue Reading …
Episode 139: bell hooks on Racism/Sexism
On Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981) and Black Looks: Race and Representation (1992, Intro, Ch. 3, 11). How do these pernicious forces interact? bell hooks (aka Gloria Watkins) describes black women as having been excluded both from mainstream historical feminism (which was led by white women who didn't want to alienate Southern whites) and black civil rights Continue Reading …
Ep. 139: bell hooks on Racism/Sexism (Citizen Edition)
On Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981) and Black Looks: Race and Representation (1992, Intro, Ch. 3, 11). How do these pernicious forces interact? bell hooks (aka Gloria Watkins) describes black women as having been excluded both from mainstream historical feminism (which was led by white women who didn't want to alienate southern whites) and black civil rights Continue Reading …
The Invisible Man and Existentialism
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is a great American novel. Ellison’s ability to make the reader feel the racism of the time is unsettling. The painful experience of living in a country that views you with disdain—that sees you as a problem—permeates the text. It is also a deeply philosophical novel. Consider the following outline of the novel written by Ellison to his Continue Reading …