racism

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The “Practical Inertia” of Racism in Philosophy

“Through practical inertia, we end up duplicating what we’ve been handed down by our chauvinistic and often racist intellectual forebears, even if we have no intention to be racist.” (more…)

Edinburgh’s Philosophers on the Renaming of Hume Tower

Seven philosophers at the University of Edinburgh have written individual responses to the university’s interim decision to rename Hume Tower. (more…)

Should We Continue to Honor Hume With Buildings and Statues? (updated)

(UPDATE: This post, originally published in July, has been moved to the top of the page and updated with the news that the University of Edinburgh has decided to rename Hume Tower. See here.) (more…)

Lower-Level Course Materials on Race, Racism, and Protests

Philosophy professors who will be teaching courses like “Contemporary Moral Problems” this fall may be interested in adding a unit on race, racism, protests, and related issues that have been at the forefront of the public’s attention recently. (more…)

Controversy at Philosophical Psychology Leads to Editor’s Resignation

In December 2019, the journal Philosophical Psychology published an article calling for scholars to take more seriously genetics-based approaches to research on race and intelligence. Yesterday, an editor of the journal announced his resignation. What happened? (more…)

MAP Issues Statement on Anti-Black Racism and Philosophy

Minorities and Philosophy (MAP), a global graduate student-led network of organizations that aim to “remove barriers to participation in philosophy for members of marginalized groups,” has issued a statement in light of the recent wave of anti-racism protests. (more…)

Statues, Monuments, & Philosophy

Recent protests against racism have included or prompted the removal of statues and monuments honoring historical figures associated with racist actions and views around the United States and elsewhere around the world. (more…)

Protesting the Murder of George Floyd

Protests against the institutionalized racist violence against blacks in the United States, most recently exemplified by the recent murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, took place in cities around the country this weekend. (more…)

Benatar Responds to Student’s Accusations and the Reporting about Them (updated)

In March, 2016, a student at the University of Cape Town publicly announced that she was facing a disciplinary proceeding at her school because she called her philosophy professor a racist. I reported on the story here. (more…)

Countenancing Segregation Based on Imaginary Science (guest post)

“Papers like this should be left ignored, and certainly not mistaken for brave declarations of inconvenient truths.” (more…)

Scholars Object to Publication of Paper Defending Race Science

Scholars are objecting to the decision of the editors of the journal, Philosophical Psychology, to publish an article that calls for “free inquiry” into possible inherited genetic bases of group differences on IQ tests. (more…)

UGA “Vigorously Exploring All Available Legal Options” It Can Take Against Philosophy Grad Student

A University of Georgia (UGA) alumnus’s expression of bafflement at his alma mater’s failure to condemn remarks made by a philosophy graduate student at the school and his call for other alumni to withhold donations has apparently prompted the university to consider action against the graduate student. (more…)

Philosopher Victim of Anti-Semitic Attack and Police Brutality

Yitzhak Melamed, professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, was the victim of an anti-Semitic attack on the streets of Bonn, and then was beaten by German police who mistook him for the assailant. To add insult to injury, the German police are now apparently lying about what happened. (more…)

Helpful Remarks Regarding Implicit Bias

Some common criticisms of implicit bias are mistaken, argue John Doris (Washington Univ., St. Louis), Laura Niemi (Duke), and Keith Payne (UNC Chapel Hill) in a recent column at Scientific American. (more…)

A Way Western Philosophy Is Racist

Mainstream philosophy in the so-called West is narrow-minded, unimaginative, and even xenophobic. I know I am leveling a serious charge. But how else can we explain the fact that the rich philosophical traditions of China, India, Africa, and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas are completely ignored by almost all philosophy departments in both Europe and the Engl..

A Statement of Support for Tommy Curry

In response to the news that Tommy Curry, professor of philosophy at Texas A & M University, has been receiving racist hate mail and death threats owing to a mispresentation of his words by pundit Rod Dreher, and that the president of his university, Michael K. Young, publicly reiterated this misrepresentation, graduate students from across his university have autho..

Philosophy Professor Receiving Death Threats (updated with transcript, letter from colleagues)

Tommy Curry, professor of philosophy at Texas A & M University, has been receiving racist hate mail and death threats in the wake of an opinion piece at a conservative website that frames remarks of his in a misleading way—and among those apparently misled, it now appears, is Texas A & M president Michael K. Young. (more…)

“On The Brink of Collapse”: The Philosophical Society of South Africa

The Philosophical Society of South Africa (PSSA), a professional association of philosophers “representing the interests of the academic philosophical community in Southern Africa,” is “on the brink of collapse over allegations of racism,” according to the Mail & Guardian. At its annual meeting last month, the organization’s president, Vasti Roodt (Stellenbosch), an..

Reconsidering Implicit Bias

At the time of this post, bibliographic philosophy database PhilPapers has 1,975,719 entries. Of these, only 74 works seem to be about “implicit bias”—subconscious bias concerning, for example, race, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexuality. One might think, then, that the idea of implicit bias hasn’t been of much importance in philosophy. Yet, while there is n..

Cosmopolitan Racism, Trump, and Philosophy (guest post by Bharath Vallabha)

The following is a guest post * from Bharath Vallabha, former assistant professor of philosophy at Bryn Mawr College.

“Trump is actually much more aligned with the dominant norms of academic philosophy in America than with the KKK”

(more…)

Police Shootings of Blacks in the U.S.; What Can Philosophers Do or Say in Response?

News from the past week:

Student Faces Tribunal for Calling Philosophy Professor “Racist”

Busi Mkhumbuzi, an undergraduate at the University of Cape Town (UCT), reports that she has been “summoned by the Student Tribunal” (part of the university’s apparatus for addressing offenses committed by students) for spreading “racist and defamatory remarks” about UCT philosophy professor David Benatar. Mkhumbuzi says she has called Benatar “racist, ableist and se..

The Ethics of Honoring

The recent wave of student protests in the United States have focused on a range of issues related to the status and treatment of racial minorities and other vulnerable parties on campus. One issue that has come up on several occasions are the ways in which universities have decided to honor various historical figures—for example, by naming buildings after them, o..

Missouri Philosophy Issues Statement on Controversy over Racist Incidents (two updates)

The University of Missouri’s governing board is holding a meeting this morning to decide how to respond to calls by students and others for its president, Tim Wolfe, to resign. The calls for Wolfe’s resignation follow a number of racist incidents at the university over the past few months and are a response to the perceived lack of a satisfactory response to these i..

Microaggressions and Academic Freedom

Any characterization of the United States as “a melting pot,” for example, is classified in widely used training materials as a microaggression signaling a refusal to acknowledge the role that race plays in American society. The same goes for saying “Everyone can succeed in this society if they work hard enough” or “I believe the most qualified person should get the..