Constructive Theology and Philosophy of Race, Part II

Baker, Christopher M.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-99343-6_3

Christopher M. Baker⁵

Part of the book series: Radical Theologies and Philosophies ((RADT))

230 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter examines “whiteness” as an epistemological formation, a mode of knowing, unknowing, and mis-knowing that crafts a historical, political, racial narrative that reinforces its own power. It then, in order to demonstrate how resources from Philosophy of Race better help theologians responsibly address “race” and whiteness,” it uses George Yancy to render “whiteness” visible, Charles W. Mills to critically examine “whiteness” as a kind of bad faith epistemological ignorance, and Emmanuel Chuckwudi Eze to begin to construct an alternative epistemology.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic

EUR 32.99 /Month

Get 10 units per month
Download Article/Chapter or Ebook
1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
Cancel anytime

Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter: EUR 29.95; Price includes VAT (France)

eBook: EUR 96.29; Price includes VAT (France)

Softcover Book: EUR 126.59; Price includes VAT (France)

Hardcover Book: EUR 126.59; Price includes VAT (France)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
George Yancy, Black Bodies, White Gazes: The Continuing Significance of Race (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008), 3.
2.
Ibid.
3.
Yancy develops a notion of whiteness as “ambush,” in which the “embedded white self” catches the white person by surprise, causing them to act “whitely,” to out and act out of their whiteness. A kind of subconscious performance of whiteness where whiteness is performative. Yancy, Black Bodies, White Gazes, 229.
4.
Ibid., 2.
5.
Ibid., 4.
6.
Ibid., 9.
7.
Ibid., 10.
8.
Setting aside the intent/impact dichotomy, intent in and of itself can be a dicey category, as it is by no means clear that people are aware of their intentions or that they intend what they think they intend. Appeals to “intent” tend to be appeals to a constructed post hoc narrative rather than one’s actual state of mind in the moment.
9.
Yancy, Black Bodies, White Gazes, 11.
10.
Ibid.
11.
Ibid.
12.
Lewis R. Gordon, Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1999).
13.
Yancy, Black Bodies, White Gazes, 34.
14.
Ibid.
15.
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1980).
16.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2019/jul/30/trump-claims-least-racist-person-in-the-world (accessed December 4, 2019).
17.
Yancy, Black Bodies, White Gazes, 75.
18.
Ibid., 76.
19.
Ibid., 77.
20.
Ibid.
21.
Ibid.
22.
Ralph Ellison, Shadow and Act (New York: Vintage International, 1995), xxi.
23.
Yancy, Black Bodies, White Gazes, 112.
24.
Ibid.
25.
George Yancy, Look, a White!: Philosophical Essays on Whiteness (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012), 4.
26.
Ibid.
27.
Ibid., 5.
28.
Ibid., 6.
29.
Ibid., 7.
30.
Ibid.
31.
Ibid., 10.
32.
George Yancy, Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly About Race in America (Lanham, Boulder, New York, and London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), 29.
33.
Yancy, Look, a White!, 152.
34.
Ibid.
35.
Ibid., 153.
36.
Ibid., 157.
37.
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and Racial Inequality in the United States, 3rd ed. (Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2010).
38.
Yancy, Look, a White! 157.
39.
Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana, “Introduction,” in Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, ed. Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007), 1–2.
40.
Charles W. Mills, The Racial Contract (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997), 3.
41.
Ibid.
42.
Ibid., 5.
43.
Ibid.
44.
Ibid., 1.
45.
Ibid., 1–2.
46.
Ibid., 2.
47.
Ibid., 17.
48.
Ibid.
49.
Ibid., 18.
50.
Charles W. Mills, “White Ignorance” in Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, ed. Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007), 16.
51.
Mills, The Racial Contract, 18.
52.
Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1952), 51–54, 163–167.
53.
Gordon, Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism, 8.
54.
Ibid., 45.
55.
Ibid.
56.
Ron Suskind, “Faith, Certainty, and the Presidency of George W. Bush,” New York Times, October 17, 2004, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-and-the-presidency-of-george-w-bush.html (accessed November 22, 2019).
57.
Charles W. Mills, Black Rights / White Wrongs: A Critique of Racial Liberalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), xiii.
58.
Ibid.
59.
Ibid.
60.
Ibid., xv.
61.
Ibid.
62.
Ibid., 29.
63.
Ibid., 39.
64.
Ibid., 37.
65.
Ibid., 201.
66.
Ibid., 202.
67.
Ibid., 203.
68.
Ibid., 203–204.
69.
Ibid., 204.
70.
See, for instance, Harlan L. Dalton, “The Clouded Prism: Minority Critique of the Critical Legal Studies Movement” in Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, ed. Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas (New York: The New Press, 1995), 80–84. There Dalton affirms the deconstruction of “rights” discourse in Critical Legal Studies while arguing for a praxis-oriented approach that still makes use of “rights” to help clients.
71.
Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993), 2–6.
72.
Mills, Black Rights / White Wrongs, 206.
73.
Ibid., 207.
74.
Ibid.
75.
Alan David Freeman, “Legitimizing Racial Discrimination through Antidiscrimination Law: A Critical Review of Supreme Court Doctrine,” in Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, ed. Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas (New York: The New Press, 1995), 29–46.
76.
Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557 (2009).
77.
Mills, Black Rights / White Wrongs, 207.
78.
Ibid., 208.
79.
Ibid., 203.
80.
Ibid.
81.
Charles W. Mills best articulates the consequences of the marginalization of Black philosophers in “Philosophy Raced, Philosophy Erased” in Reframing the Practice of Philosophy: Bodies of Color, Bodies of Knowledge, ed. George Yancy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2012), 45–70.
82.
Antonio R. Damasio, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (New York: Avon Books, Inc., 1994).
83.
Emmanuel Chuckwudi Eze, ed. Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1997), 4.
84.
Ibid., 5.
85.
Emmanuel Chuckwudi Eze, Achieving Our Humanity: The Idea of the Postracial Future (New York and London: Routledge, 2001), 66.
86.
Eze, Race and the Enlightenment, 33.
87.
Eze, Achieving Our Humanity, 1.
88.
Ibid., 4.
89.
Emmanuel Chuckwudi Eze, On Reason: Rationality in a World of Cultural Conflict and Racism (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008), 2–3.
90.
Ibid., 8.
91.
Ibid., 9.
92.
Ibid.
93.
Ibid.
94.
Ibid., 10.
95.
A story told in Plato’s dialogue, Theaetetus.
96.
Eze, On Reason, 11.
97.
Ibid.
98.
Ibid., 183.
99.
Eze, Achieving Our Humanity, 222.
100.
Ibid., 223.
101.
Peter Amato attempted to demonstrate what this might look like in his essay “On Vernacular Reason: Gadamer and Eze in Conversation,” in The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy, ed. Adeshina Afolayan and Toyin Falola (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) 303–313. I think a dialogue between Eze and William James, however, would be more productive.

References

Amato, Peter. “On Vernacular Reason: Gadamer and Eze in Conversation,” in The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy, ed. Adeshina Afolayan and Toyin Falola. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
Google Scholar
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and Racial Inequality in the United States, 3rd ed. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2010.
Google Scholar
Dalton, Harlan L. “The Clouded Prism: Minority Critique of the Critical Legal Studies Movement,” in Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, ed. Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas. New York: The New Press, 1995.
Google Scholar
Damasio, Antonio R. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York: Avon Books, Inc., 1994.
Google Scholar
Ellison, Ralph. Shadow and Act. New York: Vintage International, 1995.
Google Scholar
Eze, Emmanuel Chuckwudi. Achieving Our Humanity: The Idea of the Postracial Future. New York and London: Routledge, 2001.
Google Scholar
———. On Reason: Rationality in a World of Cultural Conflict and Racism. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008.
Google Scholar
———, ed. Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1997.
Google Scholar
Freeman, Alan David. “Legitimizing Racial Discrimination through Antidiscrimination Law: A Critical Review of Supreme Court Doctrine,” in Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, ed. Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas. New York: The New Press, 1995.
Google Scholar
Gordon, Lewis R. Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 1999.
Google Scholar
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Google Scholar
Mills, Charles W. “Philosophy Raced, Philosophy Erased.” In Reframing the Practice of Philosophy: Bodies of Color, Bodies of Knowledge, ed. George Yancy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2012.
Google Scholar
———. “White Ignorance.” In Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, ed. Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
Google Scholar
———. Black Rights / White Wrongs: A Critique of Racial Liberalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Google Scholar
———. “Kant’s Untermenschen.” In Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, ed. Andrew Valls, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005.
Google Scholar
———. The Racial Contract. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997.
Google Scholar
Sullivan, Shannon and Nancy Tuana. “Introduction,” in Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, ed. Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
Google Scholar
Suskind, Ron. “Faith, Certainty, and the Presidency of George W. Bush,” New York Times, October 17, 2004, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-and-the-presidency-of-george-w-bush.html (accessed November 22, 2019).
Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1952.
Google Scholar
Williams, Delores S. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993.
Google Scholar
Yancy, George. Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly About Race in America. Lanham, Boulder, New York, and London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
Google Scholar
———. Black Bodies, White Gazes: The Continuing Significance of Race. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008.
Google Scholar
———. Look, a White!: Philosophical Essays on Whiteness. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012.
Google Scholar

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL, USA
Christopher M. Baker

Authors

Christopher M. Baker
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christopher M. Baker .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Baker, C.M. (2022). Constructive Theology and Philosophy of Race, Part II. 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_3

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99343-6_3
Published: 11 May 2022
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-99342-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-99343-6
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics