Topic:	Race
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Guest:	Kwame Anthony Appiah, Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor Of Philosophy and the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University
What is it?	Is race a discredited pseudo-scientific category?? Or a real dimension of difference among humans? Or a socially constructed reality? What difference does it make?

About the Guest

Among Anthony Appiah's books are Assertion and Conditionals (1985), For Truth in Semantics (1986), In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture (1992), and, with Amy Gutmann, Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race (1996); Thinking It Through: An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy will appear from Oxford University Press in 2003.

"Color Conscious is an extremely welcome addition to the discourse on race. In different but complementary ways, Appiah and Gutmann articulate with precision and subtlety those intricate issues of race that confound us all."--Toni Morrison, author of Jazz, Beloved, Song of Solomon, and other literary works.

"[Color Conscious] brings together two sets of conversations, one about justice and fundamental fairness, the other about racial identity. Anthony Appiah and Amy Gutmann, two 'passionate democrats,' lower the decibel level and raise by several units of decency and infinite degrees of intelligence the caliber of public discourse on race. Assisted by Harvard professor David Wilkins' wonderful introduction, these formidable scholars each remind us that principles of justice and ideas about race are interdependent and must speak to the actual conditions in which we live."--Lani Guinier.

Listening Notes

What are human races? There are no deep, salient differences in people based on “racial” differences. Even if races aren't biologically real, could they be socially real, that is, socially constructed? Do racial categories map onto multi-racial children? John introduces Kwame Anthony Appiah, professor at Princeton. Appiah claims that racial categories are empty biological categories. Do people still use racial categories to try to track biological phenomena? Medical studies try to get statistics from different racial groups. Does a higher level of stress hormone in African-Americans mean that African-American is a biological category?

Should we do away with racial identifications? Appiah thinks that racial identities are important for the wellbeing of many people and that these identities should not be dropped. Are racial categories just shallow instead of tracking some deep, important properties? Can we replace race with ethnicity? In America, European ethnic groups tend to be divided in a fine-grained way while groups from other parts of the world are lumped together. Even if racial categories are not biologically real, why can't Ken say, “I am not a black man”?

If races are not meaningful categories, then should we have color-blind policies? Appiah thinks that this does not follow. He thinks that a society that cares about equality should pass laws to help or protect the people that have been discriminated against. Is it more appropriate for black person to empathize with the suffering of slaves than for a white person? The ancients, such as Plato, did not think about race. It is a modern notion.

• Amy Standen the Roving Philosophical Reporter (Seek to 04:50): Amy Standen interviews two people that claim heritage from multiple races about their experiences with racial identification.

• Ian Shoales the Sixty Second Philosopher (Seek to 36:55): Ian Shoales gives a rapid-fire biography of W.E.B. DuBois.

• Conundrum (Seek to 48:22): Andy from San Francisco calls to ask whether he should give money to a homeless people on the street corner. Do you want to help them? Do you want satisfaction for giving them money? Do you want to empathize with him?

Additional Resources

• Routledge Online Encyclopedia: entry on theories of race.  (subscription required)

• Critical Race Theory article published in The Washington Monthly.

• Race: A Philosophical Introduction, by Paul C. Taylor

• Academic research done on race and what it is

• Literature on race and race relations

• Race and politics

• Scientific America: Does Race Exist?

• Everything You Need to Know, from PBS

• The Wikipedia entry on races

• A website from the Human Genome Project on race and genomics

• A website about race as a social construct

• Books by Kwame Anthony Appiah

   

  • Color Conscious

• The Ethics of Identity

• In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture

• The collection Philosophers on Race

• The collection Race and Racism in the Oxford Readings in Philosophy series

• The collection African-American Perspectives and Philosophical Traditions

• The collection Racism and Philosophy

• Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth

• The collection Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race

• Lucius Outlaw's On Race and Philosophy

• Lewis Gordon's Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana Existentialist Thought

• Cornel West's Race Matters

• The collection Race in the Blackwell Readings in Continental Philosophy series

• The collection The Idea of Race in the Hackett Readings in Philosophy series

• Vincent Sarich's Race: The Reality of Human Differences

• W.E.B. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk