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Ep. 228: Social Construction of Race (Appiah, Mills) (Part One)

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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). With guest Coleman Hughes.

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Ep. 228: Social Construction of Race (Appiah, Mills) (Citizen Edition)

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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). With guest Coleman Hughes.

End song: “Tired Skin” by Alejandro Escovedo, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #60.

Episode 211: Sartre on Racism and Authenticity (Part Three)

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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.” Is this a legitimate consciousness-raising exercise or a weird fetishization of blackness?

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End song: “Punch Bag” by Godley & Creme as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #3.

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Episode 211: Sartre on Racism and Authenticity (Part Two)

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Continuing on Jean-Paul Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (1946).

Is there an “authentic” way to respond to persecution? As part of his critique of anti-semitism, Sartre criticized the responses of some Jews to this situation, e.g. denying that the persecution exists, pretending to not be Jewish, or in any way accepting the terms of anti-semitism and setting up one’s life in reaction to it. Sartre instead recommends solidarity and “concrete liberalism,” which we try to figure out.

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Episode 211: Sartre on Racism and Authenticity (Part One)

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On Jean-Paul Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (1946) and “Black Orpheus” (1948).

How can we best understand the psychology of racism? Sartre condemns anti-Semitism as denying the facts of the human condition: the responsibility for fixing problems and not blaming them on a demonized other. But he also criticizes “the democrat” for a humanism that pretends we’re in a post-racial world, calling instead for “concrete liberalism” that treats Jews not as abstract individuals but as real people in an an oppressed situation.

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Episode 211: Sartre on Racism and Authenticity (Citizen Edition)

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On Jean-Paul Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (1946) and “Black Orpheus” (1948).

How can we best understand the psychology of racism and reactions to it? Sartre not only condemns anti-Semitism as denying the facts of the human condition (the responsibility for fixing problems and not blaming them on a demonized other), he also thinks that the victims of oppression can be inauthentic by denying their situation or otherwise being reactive to the racist’s attitude. “Black Orpheus” further explores this idea in characterizing the “negritude” of black poetry and how uncovering one’s negritude leads to solidarity and hence political and psychological change.

End song: “Punch Bag” by Godley & Creme as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #3.

Episode 210: Frantz Fanon’s Black Existentialism (Part Two)

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Continuing on Black Skin White Masks (1952), starting with the influential ch. five, “The Fact of Blackness.” Are the successive coping strategies to racism (including “anti-racist racism” and embrace of negritude) that Fanon describes, necessary steps in a dialectic that should be encouraged, or would it be best to learn from his “mistakes” and jump right to the humanistic end-point? With guest Lawrence Ware.

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End song: “Malaika” by John Etheridge and Vimala Rowe; hear John interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #85.

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Episode 210: Frantz Fanon’s Black Existentialism (Part One)

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On Black Skin White Masks (1952).

How does growing up in a racist society mess people up? Fanon’s “clinical study” includes phenomenology, poetry, and a lot of existentialism, which means that the “let’s embrace negritude in the face of bigotry” solution isn’t ultimately available to him: We’re all radically free, with no race-specific essence, whether positive or negative. With guest Lawrence Ware.

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Episode 210: Frantz Fanon’s Black Existentialism (Citizen Edition)

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On Black Skin White Masks (1952).

How does growing up in a racist society mess people up? Fanon’s “clinical study” includes phenomenology, poetry, and a lot of existentialism, which means that the “let’s embrace negritude in the face of bigotry” solution isn’t ultimately available to him: We’re all radically free, with no race-specific essence, whether positive or negative. With guest Lawrence Ware.

End song: “Malaika” by John Etheridge and Vimala Rowe; hear John interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #85.

Episode 162: James Baldwin on Race in America (Part Two)

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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?

Episode 162: James Baldwin on Race in America (Citizen Edition)

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On the film I Am Not Your Negro and the essays “Notes of a Native Son” (1955) and The Fire Next Time (1963). With guest Law Ware.

Baldwin diagnoses our racism-related psycho-social maladies, but how can we best translate his observations into generally applicable philosophical theory?

End song: “Dawning on Me” by Mark Lint feat. Ken Stringfellow, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music ep. 39.

Episode 161: White Privilege (Peggy McIntosh, Charles Mills, et al) (Part One)

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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?

Readings include articles by Peggy McIntosh, Charles W. Mills, George Yancy, Tim Wise, Lewis R. Gordon, Lawrence Blum, and John McWhorter. With guest Law Ware.

Episode 161: White Privilege (Peggy McIntosh, Charles Mills, et al) (Citizen Edition)

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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 actually obscure these insights with confused claims about group responsibility?

Readings include articles by Peggy McIntosh, Charles W. Mills, George Yancy, Tim Wise, Lewis R. Gordon, Lawrence Blum, and John McWhorter. With guest Law Ware.

End song: “Power” by Narada Michael Walden, as interviewed for Nakedly Examined Music ep. 16.

Episode 139: bell hooks on Racism/Sexism

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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? hooks describes black women as having been excluded from both mainstream historical feminism (led by white women) and black civil rights struggles (permeated with patriarchy), and this “silencing” creates challenges for self-actualization and social justice. The solution: media critique of stereotyped images and personally connecting to a historical narrative of liberation. With guest Myisha Cherry, host of the UnMute Podcast.

End song: “Stories” by Mark Lint and Steve Petrinko (2011).

Episode 139: bell hooks on Racism/Sexism (Citizen Edition)

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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? hooks describes black women as having been excluded from both mainstream historical feminism (led by white women) and black civil rights struggles (permeated with patriarchy), and this “silencing” creates challenges for self-actualization and social justice. The solution: media critique of stereotyped images and personally connecting to a historical narrative of liberation. With guest Myisha Cherry, host of the UnMute Podcast.

End song: “Stories” by Mark Lint and Steve Petrinko (2011).

The Invisible Man and Existentialism

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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 literary agent Continue Reading …

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