Michael Scott, being "collar-blind"
I thought it was interesting that Appiah based his argument
on DuBois and then did not himself enter into the implications of the big
mic-drop moment. DuBois came to believe
that race did not exist biologically but his sociohistorical concept depended
on the ideas of biological connection that he attempted to reject. Race does not exist biologically, and what we
put on race culturally depends on assumptions of biology and race does not
exist biologically, and forever and ever amen.
The biggest issue that I had reading Appiah was trying to
figure out what he wanted us to do with the information he provided. I often have the same struggle when reading
feminist theory, when theorists point out these massive, life-changing problems
and then just stop their argument. What the hell am I supposed to do with the
fact that you can prove to me that race doesn’t exist and we’ve constructed a
world in which this flurb we call race shapes our culture and many day-to-day
interactions?
At the end of class we discussed the limitations of Appiah’s
understanding of realness. Just because
race does not exist biologically, it does not mean that the experience of race
is not real. We’re playing a game based
on flurbs, but we’re still playing the game.
We’re all in it. The privilege
that is attached to whiteness is real, even though we now understand that
whiteness is a biological falsity and that in order to claim that we are white
and black in the first place we have to entangle ourselves in a discussion that
is based on completely arbitrary distinctions between a series of insignificant
and unrelated morphological and genetic differences.
I guess my question is: how do we present Appiah’s argument
and also acknowledge the impact that race has had and continues to have in our
lives? As someone pointed out in class,
saying things like “I don’t see race” makes a person sound like they’re racist,
largely because what it implies is that a person does not acknowledge the very
real differences between the way that white people and black people are
treated. It makes me think of Michael
Scott, and it seems that while Appiah’s intention is obviously not to deny the
impact of race, or flurbs, even as a false concept, it does become problematic
if it doesn’t come with some kind of asterisk.
Then again, how do we provide the asterisk without reinforcing the relevance of the false concept?
What’re y’all’s thoughts?
Sarah, I think you just outlined the problem perfectly. It is interesting to read our readings and then try to apply them to the present. While reading, it's easy to get caught up in the argument and even agree to some extent but when you stop reading and have to think of what to do with what you've just learned in reality, it is confusing. Appiah offers us what he says race isn't and makes some claims, but like you said, he doesn't offer guidance of what to do with it. I think this is maybe in part because nobody really knows what to do because the reality of our world is that what we term "race" does in fact exist. In order to make progress, we must acknowledge the way things are even if we don't think they are how they ought to be. However, making this transition is a tricky one especially because to this day, there are so many varying opinions. I realize I did not answer your question at all but I honestly have no idea what the solution is and I think that's a problem a lot of us are trying to deal with.
ReplyDeleteAppiah's conclusions seemed earth-shattering to me at first, but in retrospect they seem more like a necessary perspective shift on the topic of race. By pointing out the flurbiness of race and race distinctions, Appiah does little more than re-categorize race in the group of ideas that it rightly should lie next to, i.e. love, justice, et cetera. You are correct in pointing out that there is no mic-drop moment; that seems to be exactly contrary to the type of philosophical work that Appiah was doing. Also, I don't believe that providing the asterisk in one case means that it needs to exist alongside the word forever, for we don't provide love or justice with asterisks, we simply treat them as the intangible concepts that they are.
ReplyDeleteI agree that we are all participating in a game based on flubs, but figuring out how to end the game is something that I believe will take a lot longer than our lifetime. This game is so ingrained into our life and society that it would be weird not having it. Yes there are privileges that come with being white and they are unfair, but how do we change that? This game based on something that is arbitrary and insignificant is a game that we have to learn to cheat and end it. Even though we want to say race doesn't exist, the matter of the fact it that it does and we have to acknowledge that it does so we can ultimately change the game completely.
ReplyDeleteI think to advance Appiah's argument it must first be acknowledged that race is real because society has made it so. The denigration of non-white races is directly related to civilization's unwillingness to end this game. The reason for this is that many powerful countries benefit from the privileges of propagating racism and therefore dividing potential threats. For this reason, Dubois's argument for the conservation of races helps to counterbalance this bias and combined with Appiah's argument against race can aid in the deconstruction of this artificial game.
ReplyDelete