Undoing the Mirage of Racism through Philosophy of Race

Preview: No shortage of bigotry and prejudice can be found around the world. But why race to the bottom and compete for a monopoly on tragedy in human mistreatment? The philosophy of race is an intricate piece to the study of language, art, history, and culture and wants to learn about elsewhere and...

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Main Author: Myron Moses Jackson
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Warsaw 2022-12-01
Series:Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture
Online Access:https://eidos.uw.edu.pl/undoing-the-mirage-of-racism-through-philosophy-of-race/
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author Myron Moses Jackson
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description Preview: No shortage of bigotry and prejudice can be found around the world. But why race to the bottom and compete for a monopoly on tragedy in human mistreatment? The philosophy of race is an intricate piece to the study of language, art, history, and culture and wants to learn about elsewhere and distant others. How we go about understanding the issues of identity politics and what solidifies a community’s sense of purpose and mythic consciousness hinges upon our attitudes toward cultures and ethno-racial relations. When it comes to the migrant crises, socio-economic conditions aggravating inequalities, or geo-political conflicts, for example, people’s premonitions about race largely inform how they respond to the demands for social justice. Tracing the trajectory from chattel slavery, the trail of tears, Jim Crow laws and lynchings, the civil rights movements, police brutality and profiling, to Black Lives Matter should we be believers or skeptics of racial progress? Our global ethnoscape and diasporic makeup is vast and complex. Due to this, studying race is emerging from the backwaters of academia and becoming an essential mode of inquiry, especially in African American philosophy and philosophy of culture. Similar to the “linguistic turn,” philosophy is undergoing a “racial turn” of sorts. Philosophy’s transdisciplinary nature is well-suited to examine this ethno-racial complexity, but has not lived up to its potential by failing to take more seriously the social disadvantages endured by underrepresented groups. In many ways, philosophy contributed to the dark history of grounding antiblack racism in biology, anthropology, the social sciences, and speculative metaphysics. Hence, it is vital that all practioners in our profession, especially philosophers of culture, work on behalf of reconciliation and atonement for such sins. Furthermore, confronting questions about racism and social justice will “improve philosophy” as Naomi Zack and others have argued.
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spelling doaj.art-59cc056c9e354d0d88e95aacbde2c3102023-01-24T08:18:05ZengUniversity of WarsawEidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture2544-302X2022-12-01631410.14394/eidos.jpc.2022.0021Undoing the Mirage of Racism through Philosophy of RaceMyron Moses Jackson0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5406-4999Department of Philosophy and Religion, Western Carolina UniversityPreview: No shortage of bigotry and prejudice can be found around the world. But why race to the bottom and compete for a monopoly on tragedy in human mistreatment? The philosophy of race is an intricate piece to the study of language, art, history, and culture and wants to learn about elsewhere and distant others. How we go about understanding the issues of identity politics and what solidifies a community’s sense of purpose and mythic consciousness hinges upon our attitudes toward cultures and ethno-racial relations. When it comes to the migrant crises, socio-economic conditions aggravating inequalities, or geo-political conflicts, for example, people’s premonitions about race largely inform how they respond to the demands for social justice. Tracing the trajectory from chattel slavery, the trail of tears, Jim Crow laws and lynchings, the civil rights movements, police brutality and profiling, to Black Lives Matter should we be believers or skeptics of racial progress? Our global ethnoscape and diasporic makeup is vast and complex. Due to this, studying race is emerging from the backwaters of academia and becoming an essential mode of inquiry, especially in African American philosophy and philosophy of culture. Similar to the “linguistic turn,” philosophy is undergoing a “racial turn” of sorts. Philosophy’s transdisciplinary nature is well-suited to examine this ethno-racial complexity, but has not lived up to its potential by failing to take more seriously the social disadvantages endured by underrepresented groups. In many ways, philosophy contributed to the dark history of grounding antiblack racism in biology, anthropology, the social sciences, and speculative metaphysics. Hence, it is vital that all practioners in our profession, especially philosophers of culture, work on behalf of reconciliation and atonement for such sins. Furthermore, confronting questions about racism and social justice will “improve philosophy” as Naomi Zack and others have argued.https://eidos.uw.edu.pl/undoing-the-mirage-of-racism-through-philosophy-of-race/
spellingShingle Myron Moses Jackson
Undoing the Mirage of Racism through Philosophy of Race
Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture
title Undoing the Mirage of Racism through Philosophy of Race
title_full Undoing the Mirage of Racism through Philosophy of Race
title_fullStr Undoing the Mirage of Racism through Philosophy of Race
title_full_unstemmed Undoing the Mirage of Racism through Philosophy of Race
title_short Undoing the Mirage of Racism through Philosophy of Race
title_sort undoing the mirage of racism through philosophy of race
url https://eidos.uw.edu.pl/undoing-the-mirage-of-racism-through-philosophy-of-race/
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