Philosophy of Race

racial pride

The ambiguous feeling of pride in one's racial identity that can range from self-respect and solidarity to arrogance and supremacy, depending on context and expression.

somatic racial pride

Pride in one's racialized bodily appearance, such as skin color or other physical features associated with a racial identity.

cultural racial pride

Pride in participating in cultural practices governed by racially distinctive ideals, values, goals, or historical reference points.

vicarious racial pride

Pride in the great achievements of other members of one's racial group.

group racial pride

Pride in one's racial group understood as a collective agent with its own achievements.

pride in resisting racialized oppression

Fischer's fifth kind of racial pride, which often explains why one experiences other forms of racial pride and is central to racial identity because racialization itself involves oppressive processes.

Hill's eliminativism

The view that racial identities are by nature exclusive and arbitrarily discriminatory, turning one into a practicing racist who colludes with a great social evil, and should be replaced by strong cosmopolitanism.

racial subjectivism

The false belief that a person's race determines their mental processes, intellectual outlook, feelings, thought patterns, and conclusions.

polylogism

The false view that each racial group has its own logic.

biological collectivism

The false view that individuals are defined by the codified character traits and actions of a collective of ancestors approximating some vague ideal.

cosmopolitanism

The view that one's identity is not determined solely by any racial, national, or ethnic background, but that all humans share core features of reason, moral purpose, and dignity that override local particularity.

mixed race identity

A racial identity claimed by people with multiple ancestral backgrounds, which is often 'underconstructed' and can challenge biological ideas of racial purity and fixed racial boundaries.

aracial mixed people

Mixed race individuals who do not go out of their way to identify with any racial group and do not spend energy advocating for mixed race rights, modeling how life might be if race were made less relevant.

racial ambiguity

A condition where a person's appearance does not conform to a certain logic of racial seeing, leading others to stare or ask 'What are you?' creating obstacles to the constitution of the self.

domination staring

A kind of staring that fixes a person in racial systems in an attempt to control the other, often directed at racially ambiguous people.

baroque staring

The way we stare when confronted with an unusual object, with a gaze that is startled and lingers to absorb the novel into the familiar; objectifies the racially ambiguous person.

ideal recognition

Recognition founded on the recognition of difference, bearing witness to a person's singularity against the grain of a certain logic of racial perception, rather than subsuming them under preexisting categories.

affirmative action

A practice or policy that organizes opportunity structure to enhance the position of a group that has been subject to far-reaching patterns of exclusion and subordination, including outreach, investment in human capital, numerical goals, weighting, set-asides, and quotas.

racial profiling

Any police-initiated action that relies on race, ethnicity, or national origin and not just on the behavior of an individual; includes preventive/preemptive profiling and post-crime profiling.

statistical approach to racial profiling

Sees racial profiling as an example of statistical discrimination, asking when probabilistic generalizations about group behavior can be used to judge individuals.

social construction approach to racial profiling

Concerned with how racial profiling illuminates the nature, justification, and reproduction of racial hierarchies.

securitization

Treating a policy question primarily as a matter for policing and surveillance, apprehension and incarceration; defines immigration discourse according to Taylor.

post-racial discrimination

Discrimination that appears race-neutral on the surface but produces racially disparate outcomes, such as using 'Mexican appearance' or 'Muslim background' as profiling tools.

Rawls's original position

A hypothetical scenario where rational, free, and equal agents select rules of society behind a veil of ignorance, not knowing their own interests or identities, to ensure impartiality.

veil of ignorance

A device in Rawls's thought experiment that prevents people from knowing their own interests or identities, ensuring they choose fair principles of justice impartially.

difference principle

Rawls's principle that inequality must be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society.

ideal theory

Political theory for societies that are already well-ordered, where citizens know and accept laws as just; Rawls's point of departure for figuring out what an ideal society looks like.

non-ideal theory

Theory for societies that aren't well-ordered and contain injustice, with the long-term goal of bringing society to the condition of being just according to ideal theory.

capabilities approach

Amartya Sen's framework evaluating human welfare by focusing on what people are actually able to do and be, rather than just what they possess.

domination contract

Mills's alternative to Rawls, describing how society is created by groups (whites, men, privileged classes) acting in coordination to secure unfair group advantage, masked by obfuscatory ideologies.

racial contract

Mills's concept that white supremacy has been central to the basic structure of society, requiring a modified thought experiment where one knows they might be a person of color in a white supremacist state.

eliminativism in biomedicine

The view that race's problems are sufficient grounds to eject race from biomedicine entirely.

conservationism in biomedicine

The view that race's usefulness in addressing health disparities and biological differences justifies its continued use in biomedicine.

restricted conservationism

The view that race concepts are not inherently unacceptable, only their incautious use; race can be biological without being genetic because social environments create biological differences among racial groups.

mismatch problem

In biomedical research, the problem that folk race categories often do not align with genetic ancestry, leading to inaccurate predictions for individuals.

racial humor

Humor that involves race, which can range from merely racial (subverting stereotypes) to racially insensitive to fully racist, depending on speaker's aims and audience recognition.

Basic Racist Act (BRA)

Michael Philips's view that an act is racist when done to harm someone due to racial membership or when it can reasonably be expected to mistreat someone as a consequence of their racial membership.

merely racial humor

Humor where the speaker has an aim to subvert the stereotype associated with the target group and the audience can reasonably be expected to recognize this aim.

racially insensitive humor

Humor where the speaker lacks an aim to subvert the associated stereotype or has a subverting aim but cannot reasonably expect audience uptake of that aim.

racist humor (Anderson's definition)

Humor that either wrongly harms the target in virtue of their racial membership or is motivated by a malevolent attitude or one of disregard.

offense vs harm

Offense is a subjective psychological response to affronts; harm is objective damage (physical, psychological, etc.) that can occur without awareness. Harm may be caused by offense, but offense itself is not harm.

sexual racism

Violating a duty to remain open to suitors from other races by choosing partners from one race based on hatred or principled preference.

racial sexual preference

To prefer or not prefer members of a particular racial or ethnic group, everything else being equal, accounting for other preferences and circumstantial factors; can be exclusive, strong, weak, or change over time.

unfair discrimination argument against racial preferences

The argument that sexually desiring only members of one group is racist and discriminatory because it arbitrarily excludes entire groups from one's sexual practices.

moral defect argument against racial preferences

The argument that people with exclusive racial preferences are morally defective because their desires are narrow and not as encompassing as they could be.

stereotype argument against racial preferences

The argument that exclusive racial preferences are racist because they're based on racial stereotypes, which are false, immoral, or formed irrationally.

multicultural white supremacy

Mendoza's concept that accurately depicts the multipronged racial divide, where white supremacy now accommodates multiracial national membership while maintaining hierarchies.

Homeland concept in racial contract theory

Sheth's addition to the Racial Contract, adding dimensions of war, jingoism, and national security that create new racial divides transcending traditional black-white boundaries.