Abstract
This chapter demonstrates that those philosophies that most influence Constructive Theology—those that emerge out of Kant’s and Hegel’s anthropologies and philosophies of history—are rooted in implicit and sometimes explicit white supremacy, and are thus unsuited for theologies that aim to responsibly address “race” and “whiteness.” It then develops a genealogy of race that understands “whiteness” as a kind of secular soteriology. Finally, it deploys philosophers Falguni A. Sheth and Linda Martín Alcoff as examples of how Philosophy of History can better help theologians understand and address “race” and “whiteness.”
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Notes
- 1.
Robert Bernasconi, “Introduction,” in Race and Racism in Continental Philosophy, ed. Robert Bernasconi with Sybol Cook (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003), 2.
- 2.
Emmanuel Chuckwudi Eze, ed. Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1997), 2.
- 3.
The category of humanity here is in and of itself a category of inclusion and exclusion, conveying personhood and thus creating a self with moral standing, juxtaposed against a natural world that lacks such standing. This has significant implications for issues of environmental racism that are pressing but beyond the scope of this work.
- 4.
Emmanuel Chuckwudi Eze, Achieving Our Humanity: The Idea of the Postracial Future (New York and London: Routledge, 2001), 87.
- 5.
Charles W. Mills, “Kant’s Untermenschen,” in Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, ed. Andrew Valls (Ithica and London: Cornell University Press, 2005), 172.
- 6.
Eze, Race and the Enlightenment, 55.
- 7.
Ibid.
- 8.
Mills, “Kant’s Untermenschen,” 174.
- 9.
C.J. Friedrich, “Introduction to the Dover Edition” of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, INC., 1956), 9.
- 10.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, INC., 1956), 116.
- 11.
Because as “oldest,” the philosophies of “The Oriental World” have no ongoing development, no future, but have rather been superseded by subsequent philosophies. They have only a past, a prehistory, and not a present much less a future.
- 12.
Peter K. J. Park makes this argument in Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy: Racism in the Formation of the Philosophic Canon, 1780-1830 (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2013). There he notes that the very formation of the academic discipline “philosophy” depends on the denigration and exclusion of African and Asian philosophies.
- 13.
Bryan W. Van Norden, Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017).
- 14.
Eze, Race and the Enlightenment, 114.
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
Despite attempts to sanitize his legacy, Heidegger was in fact a Nazi. Really a Nazi. Not just for strategic reasons of professional advancement, thought that would be bad enough, but also ideologically, especially with respect to antisemitism. His “black notebooks” revealed this in ways that should put the matter to bed. There is a growing body of literature arguing—in part because of these “black notebooks”—that antisemitism was not just incidental to Heidegger’s thought, but rather a central feature of it. These include but are not limited to Jean-Luc Nancy, The Banality of Heidegger, trans. Jeff Fort (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017); Donatella Di Cesare, Heidegger and the Jews: The Black Notebooks, trans. Murtha Baca (Cambridge, UK and Medford, MA: Polity Press, 2018); and Adam Knowles, Heidegger’s Fascist Affinities: A Politics of Silence (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019).
- 17.
Eze, Race and the Enlightenment, 55.
- 18.
John D. Caputo, Hermeneutics: Facts and Interpretation in the Age of Information (London: Pelican Books, 2018), 23.
- 19.
I owe at least as great a debt to Stephen G. Ray Jr.’s Do Not Harm: Social Sin and Christian Responsibility (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2003).
- 20.
Naomi Zack, Philosophy of Race: An Introduction (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), ix.
- 21.
Andrew Wymer and Chris Baker, “Drowning in Dirty Water: A Baptismal Theology of Whiteness,” Worship Volume 90 (July 2016), 319-344.
- 22.
Ashley Montagu, Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, 2nd Edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1945).
- 23.
Richard Dyer, White (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 1.
- 24.
Wymer and Baker, “Drowning in Dirty Water,” 321.
- 25.
Quoted in George Yancy, On Race: 34 Conversations in a Time of Crisis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 182.
- 26.
Ibid.
- 27.
Ibid.
- 28.
Wymer and Baker, “Drowning in Dirty Water,” 325-326.
- 29.
Montagu, Man’s Most Dangerous Myth, 8.
- 30.
Ibid, 17.
- 31.
While Montagu does not have a theory of “modernity” as such, he does use the word “modern” to describe “race.”
- 32.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2nd Edition (Cleveland: World Pub. Co., 1958), 158.
- 33.
Ibid, 159.
- 34.
Ibid, 165.
- 35.
Ibid, 161.
- 36.
Ibid, 177.
- 37.
Ronald Segal, The Black Diaspora: Five Centuries of the Black Experience Outside Africa (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995), 3.
- 38.
Geraldine Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 16.
- 39.
Ibid, 15.
- 40.
Ibid.
- 41.
Ibid, 16.
- 42.
Ibid.
- 43.
Ibid.
- 44.
Ibid.
- 45.
The distinction between raza (race) and casta (breed or cast) is both fluid and ambiguous, such that casta can easily be read as both linguistically and functionally as a form of racialization.
- 46.
María Elena Martínez, Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008), 23.
- 47.
Ibid., 28.
- 48.
Benjamin Isaac, “Racism: A Rationalization of Prejudice in Greece and Rome” in The Origins of Racism in the West, ed. Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Benjamin Isaac, and Joseph Ziegler (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 38-39.
- 49.
Ibid., 44.
- 50.
This poses the same problem as unduly fixating on the distinction between casta and raza when discussing the sistema de castas above.
- 51.
Isaac, “Racism,” 33.
- 52.
David E. Stannard, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 269.
- 53.
Ibid., 269-270.
- 54.
Quoted in Yancy, On Race, 193.
- 55.
Hence the category of “ethnic whites,” which reveals that incorporation into whiteness is a provisional process available to some peoples for some amount of time for some political purpose.
- 56.
Yancy, On Race, 193.
- 57.
Ibid., 194.
- 58.
Ibid.
- 59.
Falguni A. Sheth, Toward a Political Philosophy of Race (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2009), 1.
- 60.
Ibid., 3.
- 61.
Ibid.
- 62.
Khalil Gibran Muhammad narrates how the racial ontologizing of “criminal” is at the very heart of the development of the field of criminology and the idea of the “criminal” in The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2010). Sheth’s concern is broader both in that it is more global and in that it is not dependent on the Black/white dichotomy, but they share in common that “criminal” more of a racial symbol than a description of behavior.
- 63.
Ibid., 5.
- 64.
Ibid., 4-5.
- 65.
Ibid., 5.
- 66.
Ibid., 22.
- 67.
Ibid., 23.
- 68.
Ibid.
- 69.
Ibid., 51.
- 70.
Ibid.
- 71.
Ibid.
- 72.
Ibid., 52.
- 73.
Ibid.
- 74.
Ibid.
- 75.
Ibid., 53.
- 76.
Ibid.
- 77.
Ibid., 69.
- 78.
Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concept of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966).
- 79.
Sheth, Toward a Political Philosophy of Race, 68.
- 80.
Ibid.
- 81.
Ibid., 77.
- 82.
Ibid., 77-78.
- 83.
Zack, Philosophy of Race, x.
- 84.
Quoted in Yancy, On Race, 206.
- 85.
Ibid.
- 86.
Ibid., 208.
- 87.
Ibid.
- 88.
Linda Martín Alcoff, Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), viii.
- 89.
Ibid., ix.
- 90.
Ibid., 6.
- 91.
Ibid., 182.
- 92.
Ibid.
- 93.
Ibid., 195.
- 94.
Linda Martín Alcoff, The Future of Whiteness (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2015), 9.
- 95.
Ibid.
- 96.
Ibid., 11.
- 97.
Ibid., 74.
- 98.
Ibid, 78.
- 99.
Ibid.
- 100.
Ibid.
- 101.
Ibid., 79.
- 102.
Ibid., 82-83.
- 103.
Ibid., 83.
- 104.
Ibid., 86-87.
- 105.
Ibid., 87.
- 106.
Ibid., 89.
- 107.
Ibid.
- 108.
Ibid. 161.
- 109.
Ibid., 163.
- 110.
Ibid., 168.
- 111.
Ibid., 188.
- 112.
James W. Perkinson, White Theology: Outing Supremacy in Modernity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
References
Alcoff, Linda Martín. Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Alcoff, Linda Martín. The Future of Whiteness. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2015.
Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2nd Edition. Cleveland: World Pub. Co., 1958.
Bernasconi, Robert. “Introduction,” in Race and Racism in Continental Philosophy, ed. Robert Bernasconi with Sybol Cook. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003.
Caputo, John D. Hermeneutics: Facts and Interpretation in the Age of Information. London: Pelican Books, 2018.
Di Cesare, Donatella. Heidegger and the Jews: The Black Notebooks, trans. Murtha Baca. Cambridge, UK and Medford, MA: Polity Press, 2018.
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concept of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966.
Dyer, Richard. White. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.
Eze, Emmanuel Chuckwudi, ed. Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1997.
Eze, Emmanuel Chuckwudi. Achieving Our Humanity: The Idea of the Postracial Future. New York and London: Routledge, 2001.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, INC., 1956.
Heng, Geraldine. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Isaac, Benjamin. “Racism: A Rationalization of Prejudice in Greece and Rome” in The Origins of Racism in the West. ed. Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Benjamin Isaac, and Joseph Ziegler. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Adam Knowles, Heidegger’s Fascist Affinities: A Politics of Silence (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019).
Martínez, María Elena. Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008.
Mills, Charles W. “Kant’s Untermenschen,” in Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, ed. Andrew Valls. Ithica and London: Cornell University Press, 2005.
Montagu, Ashley. Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, 2nd Edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1945.
Muhammad, Khalil Gibran. The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2010.
Nancy, Jean-Luc. The Banality of Heidegger, trans. Jeff Fort. New York: Fordham University Press, 2017.
Park, Peter K. J. Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy: Racism in the Formation of the Philosophic Canon, 1780-1830. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2013.
Perkinson, James W. White Theology: Outing Supremacy in Modernity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Ray Jr, Stephen G. Do Not Harm: Social Sin and Christian Responsibility. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2003.
Segal, Ronald. The Black Diaspora: Five Centuries of the Black Experience Outside Africa. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995.
Sheth, Falguni A. Toward a Political Philosophy of Race. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2009.
Stannard, David E. American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Van Norden, Bryan W. Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017.
Wymer, Andrew and Chris Baker, “Drowning in Dirty Water: A Baptismal Theology of Whiteness,” Worship Volume 90 (July 2016).
Yancy, George. On Race: 34 Conversations in a Time of Crisis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Zack, Naomi. Philosophy of Race: An Introduction. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
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Baker, C.M. (2022). Constructive Theology and Philosophy of Race, Part I. In: Toward a Counternarrative Theology of Race and Whiteness. Radical Theologies and Philosophies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99343-6_2
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