Lecture 12: BLM Flashcards
(9 cards)
Liberalism and #BLM
Core Liberal Principle: All people must be treated with equal concern and respect.
Rawls’ View: Race is irrelevant for justice since principles are chosen behind a veil of ignorance, ensuring fairness.
Key Idea: Liberalism emphasizes all lives matter rather than focusing on black lives specifically.
Philosophical Challenges to Liberalism and Race
Question 1: Is race just an ascriptive condition?
Problem: If society cannot be colorblind, race cannot be simply overlooked. It remains a defining, enduring issue.
Key Point: Liberalism’s focus on equality might ignore the reality of racial discrimination.
Flashcard 2: Racism as Ideology and Liberal Neutrality
Question 2: What if racism is seen as an ideology, embedded in society’s language?
Consequences: If racism is socially constructed, liberal neutrality may unintentionally legitimize domination by failing to address the structural nature of racial inequality.
Key Insight: Neutrality can perpetuate existing power imbalances, rather than challenging them.
Race, Culture, and Justice
Kymlicka’s View: Race matters only if connected to culture, which is what holds value in justice discussions.
Miller’s Liberal Nationalism: Prioritizes cultural identity over racial identity.
Conclusion: While #BLM is politically and socially significant, traditional liberalism downplays race in philosophical terms, framing police brutality as a symptom of non-ideal social conditions.
Civilization vs. Barbarism in Ancient Political Thought
Key Idea: Ancient thinkers like Plato and Aristotle divided humanity into civilized (Greek) and barbarian (uncivilized) categories.
Plato’s Republic: Socrates argued it was just for Greeks to enslave barbarians, as barbarians were considered outside the realm of justice.
Aristotle’s Politics: He defended slavery, claiming that Asiatics and barbarians were predisposed to despotism and thus unfit for freedom, as they were naturally servile.
Frantz Fanon on Colonialism and Race
Key Idea: Fanon explores the psychological and social effects of colonialism and racial oppression.
Background: Born in French Martinique, Fanon was a psychiatrist and philosopher who examined the intersection of biology and sociology in colonialism.
Central Argument: Colonial oppression creates a “double process” of economic inequality and the internalization of inferiority.
Quote: “The black man’s alienation is not an individual question… Society, unlike biochemical processes, cannot escape human influences” (Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, 1952).
Conclusion: True disalienation for oppressed peoples requires societal and structural transformation, not just individual change.
The Modern Bifurcation: Enlightenment and Colonialism
Key Idea: The ancient division between “civilized” and “barbarian” peoples reemerges in modern political thought, often used to justify colonialism.
Rousseau’s Social Contract (1762): Argued that some nations were not mature enough for freedom and needed time to develop before they could be governed by laws.
John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty (1859): Supported despotism over “barbarian” peoples, claiming that only “civilized” peoples could govern themselves through liberty.
These ideas were often used to justify colonialism by positioning non-European peoples as unable to rule themselves.
Baldwin’s Critique of White Innocence
Key Idea: Baldwin argues that the true problem lies not only in the history of violence but in the ideology of “white innocence,” where white people deny the ongoing impact of past racial injustices.
Central Argument: The crime is not just the history of racism but that the perpetrators (and their descendants) remain unaware of the damage they continue to inflict, believing that past wrongs have been atoned for.
Quote: “It is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime” (The Fire Next Time, 1963).
White Innocence: This belief leads to a denial of the ongoing effects of racism, thinking that slavery is over and society has moved beyond the sins of the past.
Impact: Baldwin challenges the idea that racial progress has been made if the system of inequality continues to be ignored.
Fanon’s Moral Conclusion on Colonialism
Key Idea: Fanon argues that colonialism causes deep psychological harm, leading to an inferiority complex and identity destruction in the colonized.
Central Argument: The colonized person’s psyche is shaped by an imposed cultural hierarchy that values the colonizer’s culture over their own. This results in the colonized person striving to become “whiter” by renouncing their own identity.
Quote: “Every colonized people… finds itself face to face with the language of the civilizing nation… He becomes whiter as he renounces his blackness, his jungle” (Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, 1952).
Solutions:
Psychological transformation: Breaking free from the complexes imposed by colonialism.
Violence: A radical restructuring of the world to challenge colonial divisions.
Quote: “It implies a restructuring of the world” (Fanon, 1952).
Baldwin’s Concept of White Innocence and the Burden of Acceptance
Key Idea: Baldwin critiques the concept of white innocence, arguing that it places the burden of reconciliation on black people, forcing them to accept white people despite the racial harm they have caused.
Central Argument: The real challenge for black people is not trying to be accepted by whites, but accepting them with love, even though they remain unaware of their historical complicity in racial injustice.
Quote: “The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love.” (The Fire Next Time, 1963).
Solution: To resolve this, both races must confront the reality of race and racism, understanding it fully in order to free both blacks from oppression and whites from their ideology of innocence.
Impact: Baldwin suggests that true liberation for both races involves mutual recognition, understanding, and facing the history of racial injustice head-on.
Quote: “The price of the liberation of the white people is the liberation of the blacks” (The Fire Next Time, 1963).
