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Black Rights/White Wrongs Charles W. Mills (Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center)

Black Rights/White Wrongs By Charles W. Mills (Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center)

Summary

Liberalism is the political philosophy of equal persons, yet liberalism has denied equality to those it saw as black sub-persons. In Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism, political philosopher Charles Mills challenges mainstream accounts that ignore this history and its current legacy in the United States today.

Black Rights/White Wrongs Summary

Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism by Charles W. Mills (Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center)

Liberalism is the political philosophy of equal persons - yet liberalism has denied equality to those it saw as sub-persons. Liberalism is the creed of fairness - yet liberalism has been complicit with European imperialism and African slavery. Liberalism is the classic ideology of Enlightenment and political transparency - yet liberalism has cast a dark veil over its actual racist past and present. In sum, liberalism's promise of equal rights has historically been denied to blacks and other people of color. In Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism, political philosopher Charles Mills challenges mainstream accounts that ignore this history and its current legacy in self-conceivedly liberal polities today. Mills argues that rather than bracket as an anomaly the role of racism in the development of liberal theory, we should see it as shaping that theory in fundamental ways. As feminists have urged us to see the dominant form of liberalism as a patriarchal liberalism, so too Mills suggests we should see it as a racialized liberalism. It is unsurprising, then, if contemporary liberalism has yet to deliver on the recognition of black rights and the correction of white wrongs. These essays look at racial liberalism, past and present: white ignorance as a guilty ignoring of social reality that facilitates white racial domination; Immanuel Kant's role as the most important liberal theorist of both personhood and sub-personhood; the centrality of racial exploitation in the United States; and the evasion of white supremacy in John Rawls's ideal theory framing of social justice and in the work of most other contemporary white political philosophers. Nonetheless, Mills still believes that a deracialized liberalism is both possible and desirable. He concludes by calling on progressives to Occupy liberalism! and develop accordingly a radical liberalism aimed at achieving racial justice.

Black Rights/White Wrongs Reviews

This is an essential reading for those concerned with the demographic composition of political science and philosophy as well as those wondering why this should be considered a concern. * Greta Fowler Snyder, Victoria University of Wellington *
Black Rights/White Wrongs, Mills's latest book, is that long-awaited result: his most thorough account yet of why and how liberal political theory has gone wrong. He returns to his criticism that liberal theory has mainly been attentive to and representative of the sociohistorical demands of white people (men in particular), but he also argues for a refreshed liberalism that retains its core political commitments while offering a fuller reckoning with the racial hierarchies and inequalities of America's past and present. * Christopher Lebron, The Nation *

About Charles W. Mills (Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center)

Charles W. Mills is Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Table of Contents

Introduction Acknowledgments Part I - Racial Liberalism: Epistemology, Personhood, Property 1. New Left Project Interview 2. Occupy Liberalism! 3. Racial Liberalism 4. White Ignorance 5. Ideal Theory as Ideology 6. Kant's Untermenschen 7. Racial Exploitation Part II - Racial Liberalism: Rawls and Rawlsianism 8. Rawls on Race/Race in Rawls 9. Retrieving Rawls for Racial Justice? 10. The Whiteness of Political Philosophy Epilogue (As Prologue): Toward a Black Radical Liberalism References

Additional information

GOR012042833
9780190245429
0190245425
Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism by Charles W. Mills (Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center)
Used - Very Good
Paperback
Oxford University Press Inc
20170504
304
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
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