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The Racial Contract: Unveiling the Unwritten Rules of Society
The world isn't always as it seems. Beneath the surface of seemingly egalitarian societies lies a complex, often unspoken, set of agreements – a racial contract. This isn't a literal, signed document, but rather a framework of power relations, privileges, and disadvantages built upon racial hierarchies. This post delves deep into the concept of "the racial contract," exploring its historical roots, its present-day manifestations, and its profound impact on individuals and society as a whole. We'll unpack its implications and examine how it continues to shape our world, offering a critical analysis that goes beyond surface-level understandings.
What is the Racial Contract?
The term "the racial contract," popularized by Charles W. Mills in his seminal work of the same name, describes the implicit agreement between white people to maintain their dominance and privilege over non-white populations. This isn't a conspiracy theory; rather, it's an analytical framework highlighting the systemic advantages historically bestowed upon white people and the systemic disadvantages imposed upon people of color. It argues that many social structures, laws, and policies—often appearing neutral on their face—are actually built upon and reinforce this underlying racial hierarchy.
Historical Roots of the Racial Contract
The racial contract didn't emerge overnight. Its roots are firmly planted in colonialism, slavery, and the transatlantic slave trade. The brutal exploitation of African people and the systematic dispossession of Indigenous populations laid the foundation for a system where whiteness became synonymous with power, wealth, and legitimacy. The development of racist ideologies, justified through pseudo-scientific theories and religious dogma, served to solidify this racial hierarchy, making it appear natural and inevitable.
The Legacy of Colonialism and Slavery
The lasting consequences of colonialism and slavery are undeniable. They created vast wealth disparities, entrenched systems of oppression, and pervasive societal biases that continue to impact marginalized communities today. The racial contract, therefore, isn't simply a historical artifact; it's a living, breathing system that perpetuates inequalities across generations. Understanding this historical context is crucial for grasping the complexities of the present-day racial landscape.
Manifestations of the Racial Contract in Modern Society
While overt forms of racism are less socially acceptable than in the past, the racial contract persists in subtle, often insidious ways. It manifests in seemingly neutral policies and practices that disproportionately affect people of color.
Systemic Racism and Institutional Bias
Systemic racism isn't merely the actions of individual racists; it's embedded within the very fabric of our institutions. From disparities in education and healthcare to the disproportionate incarceration of people of color, the racial contract operates through systemic biases that perpetuate inequalities. These biases are often invisible, making them difficult to identify and address.
The Role of Media and Representation
Media plays a significant role in reinforcing the racial contract. Underrepresentation of people of color, stereotypical portrayals, and the perpetuation of harmful narratives contribute to the normalization of racial inequalities. The images and stories we consume shape our perceptions of race and influence our attitudes and behaviors.
Challenging the Racial Contract
Acknowledging the existence of the racial contract is the first step towards dismantling it. This requires a critical examination of our own biases, an understanding of systemic inequalities, and a commitment to dismantling the structures that perpetuate them.
Promoting Anti-Racist Activism
Active participation in anti-racist movements is crucial for challenging the racial contract. This includes supporting organizations working for racial justice, engaging in critical conversations about race, and advocating for policy changes that promote equity and inclusion.
The Importance of Education and Awareness
Education is a powerful tool for challenging the racial contract. By learning about the historical context of racism, understanding the mechanisms of systemic oppression, and fostering critical thinking skills, individuals can become more effective agents of change.
Conclusion
The racial contract is a complex and deeply entrenched system of power that shapes our world in profound ways. While it operates through subtle and often invisible mechanisms, its impact is undeniable. By understanding its historical roots, its contemporary manifestations, and its devastating consequences, we can begin to dismantle this insidious agreement and work towards a truly equitable and just society. Only through critical self-reflection, active engagement, and sustained commitment to anti-racist practices can we hope to overcome the legacy of the racial contract and build a future where race is no longer a barrier to opportunity and well-being.
FAQs
1. Is the racial contract a conspiracy theory? No, it's an analytical framework explaining how racial hierarchies are maintained through systemic structures and practices, not a secret plot.
2. How does the racial contract differ from individual racism? The racial contract describes systemic racism, embedded in institutions and policies, while individual racism refers to prejudiced actions by individuals.
3. Can the racial contract be completely eradicated? Complete eradication is a long-term goal requiring continuous effort and systemic change, but significant progress is possible.
4. What role does white privilege play in the racial contract? White privilege is a central component, providing unearned advantages and reinforcing the power imbalance inherent in the contract.
5. How can I personally contribute to dismantling the racial contract? Educate yourself, challenge your biases, support anti-racist organizations, and advocate for equitable policies.
| the racial contract: Unmasking the Racial Contract Debbie Bargallie, 2020 Growing numbers of Indigenous people in Australia are entering historically white, structurally racist workplaces. This book is a study of one such workplace: the Australian Public Service. Bargallie shows that despite claims of fairness, inclusion, opportunity, respect and racial equality for all, Indigenous employees continue to languish on the lower rungs of the Australian Public Service employment ladder. By showing how racism is normalised in white institutions, Bargallie aims to help us see and understand -- and ultimately challenge -- racism. Written from an Indigenous standpoint, it uses race as a key framework to critically examine the discrimination faced by Indigenous employees in an Australian institution. Bargallie provides an insiders perspective, privileging the voices of other Indigenous employees, amd she applies critical race theory to unmask the racial contract that underpins the 'absent presence' of racism in the Australian Public Service. Bargallie provides an important counter-narrative to the pervasive myth of meritocracy, and encourages readers to consider the effects of the racial contract in colonial-colonised relations in Australia more broadly. |
| the racial contract: The Racial Contract Charles W. Mills, 2022-04-15 The Racial Contract puts classic Western social contract theory, deadpan, to extraordinary radical use. With a sweeping look at the European expansionism and racism of the last five hundred years, Charles W. Mills demonstrates how this peculiar and unacknowledged contract has shaped a system of global European domination: how it brings into existence whites and non-whites, full persons and sub-persons, how it influences white moral theory and moral psychology; and how this system is imposed on non-whites through ideological conditioning and violence. The Racial Contract argues that the society we live in is a continuing white supremacist state. As this 25th anniversary edition—featuring a foreword by Tommy Shelbie and a new preface by the author—makes clear, the still-urgent The Racial Contract continues to inspire, provoke, and influence thinking about the intersection of the racist underpinnings of political philosophy. |
| the racial contract: The Racial Contract Charles W. Mills, 2014-01-27 A very important book.... The Racial Contract has the potential to radically challenge many of us to reevaluate how we think about social contract theory. As well, to take the arguments that Mills makes is to be prepared to rethink about the concept of race and the structure of our political systems. This is a very important book indeed, and should be a welcome addition to the ongoing discussions surrounding social contract theory.―Teaching Philosophy The Racial Contract puts classic Western social contract theory, deadpan, to extraordinary radical use. With a sweeping look at the European expansionism and racism of the last five hundred years, Charles W. Mills demonstrates how this peculiar and unacknowledged contract has shaped a system of global European domination: how it brings into existence whites and non-whites, full persons and sub-persons, how it influences white moral theory and moral psychology; and how this system is imposed on non-whites through ideological conditioning and violence. The Racial Contract argues that the society we live in is a continuing white supremacist state. Holding up a mirror to mainstream philosophy, this provocative book explains the evolving outline of the racial contract from the time of the New World conquest and subsequent colonialism to the written slavery contract, to the separate but equal system of segregation in the twentieth-century United States. According to Mills, the contract has provided the theoretical architecture justifying an entire history of European atrocity against non-whites, from David Hume's and Immanuel Kant's claims that blacks had inferior cognitive power, to the Holocaust, to the kind of imperialism in Asia that was demonstrated by the Vietnam War. Mills suggests that the ghettoization of philosophical work on race is no accident. This work challenges the assumption that mainstream theory is itself raceless. Just as feminist theory has revealed orthodox political philosophy's invisible white male bias, Mills's explication of the racial contract exposes its racial underpinnings. |
| the racial contract: The Contract and Domination Carole Pateman, Charles Mills, 2013-04-23 Contract and Domination offers a bold challenge to contemporary contract theory, arguing that it should either be fundamentally rethought or abandoned altogether. Since the publication of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice, contract theory has once again become central to the Western political tradition. But gender justice is neglected and racial justice almost completely ignored. Carole Pateman and Charles Mills's earlier books, The Sexual Contract (1988) and The Racial Contract (1997), offered devastating critiques of gender and racial domination and the contemporary contract tradition's silence on them. Both books have become classics of revisionist radical democratic political theory. Now Pateman and Mills are collaborating for the first time in an interdisciplinary volume, drawing on their insights from political science and philosophy. They are building on but going beyond their earlier work to bring the sexual and racial contracts together. In Contract and Domination, Pateman and Mills discuss their differences about contract theory and whether it has a useful future, excavate the (white) settler contract that created new civil societies in North America and Australia, argue via a non-ideal contract for reparations to black Americans, confront the evasions of contemporary contract theorists, explore the intersections of gender and race and the global sexual-racial contract, and reply to their critics. This iconoclastic book throws the gauntlet down to mainstream white male contract theory. It is vital reading for anyone with an interest in political theory and political philosophy, and the systems of male and racial domination. |
| the racial contract: Black Rights/white Wrongs Charles Wade Mills, 2017 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. |
| the racial contract: Why Race Still Matters Alana Lentin, 2020-04-22 'Why are you making this about race?' This question is repeated daily in public and in the media. Calling someone racist in these times of mounting white supremacy seems to be a worse insult than racism itself. In our supposedly post-racial society, surely it’s time to stop talking about race? This powerful refutation is a call to notice not just when and how race still matters but when, how and why it is said not to matter. Race critical scholar Alana Lentin argues that society is in urgent need of developing the skills of racial literacy, by jettisoning the idea that race is something and unveiling what race does as a key technology of modern rule, hidden in plain sight. Weaving together international examples, she eviscerates misconceptions such as reverse racism and the newfound acceptability of 'race realism', bursts the 'I’m not racist, but' justification, complicates the common criticisms of identity politics and warns against using concerns about antisemitism as a proxy for antiracism. Dominant voices in society suggest we are talking too much about race. Lentin shows why we actually need to talk about it more and how in doing so we can act to make it matter less. |
| the racial contract: The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race Naomi Zack, 2017 The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race provides up-to-date explanation and analyses by leading scholars in African American philosophy and philosophy of race. Fifty-one original essays cover major topics from intellectual history to contemporary social controversies in this emerging philosophical subfield that supports demographic inclusion and emphasizes cultural relevance. |
| the racial contract: From Class to Race Charles Mills, 2003-11-19 In From Class to Race, Charles Mills maps the theoretical route that brought him to the innovative conceptual framework outlined in his academic bestseller The Racial Contract (1997). Mills argues for a new critical theory that develops the insights of the black radical political tradition. While challenging conventional interpretations of key Marxist concepts and claims, the author contends that Marxism has been 'white' insofar as it has failed to recognize the centrality of race and white supremacy to the making of the modern world. By appealing to both mainstream liberal values and the structuralism traditionally associated with the left, Mills asserts that critical race theory can radicalize the mainstream Enlightenment and develop a new kind of contractarianism that deals frontally with race and other forms of social oppression rather than evading them. |
| the racial contract: Blackness Visible Charles W. Mills, 2015-12-18 Charles Mills makes visible in the world of mainstream philosophy some of the crucial issues of the black experience. Ralph Ellison's metaphor of black invisibility has special relevance to philosophy, whose demographic and conceptual whiteness has long been a source of wonder and complaint to racial minorities. Mills points out the absence of any philosophical narrative theorizing and detailing race's centrality to the recent history of the West, such as feminists have articulated for gender domination.European expansionism in its various forms, Mills contends, generates a social ontology of race that warrants philosophical attention.Through expropriation, settlement, slavery, and colonialism, race comes into existence as simultaneously real and unreal: ontological without being biological, metaphysical without being physical, existential without being essential, shaping one's being without being in one's shape.His essays explore the contrasting sums of a white and black modernity, examine standpoint epistemology and the metaphysics of racial identity, look at black-Jewish relations and racial conspiracy theories, map the workings of a white-supremacist polity and the contours of a racist moral consciousness, and analyze the presuppositions of Frederick Douglass's famous July 4 prognosis for black political inclusion. Collectively they demonstrate what exciting new philosophical terrain can be opened up once the color line in western philosophy is made visible and addressed. |
| the racial contract: The Racial State David Theo Goldberg, 2002 By interrogating conceptual shifts in defining the racial state over time, Goldberg shows that debates and struggles about race in a wide variety of societies are really about the nature of political constitution and community. The book concludes with a discussion of how state and citizenship might be reconceived on assumptions of heterogeneity, mobility, and global openness. In this way, at the same time as providing a comprehensive account of modern state formation through racial configuration, this book also rethinks contemporary racial theorising. |
| the racial contract: Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance Shannon Sullivan, Nancy Tuana, 2012-02-01 Offering a wide variety of philosophical approaches to the neglected philosophical problem of ignorance, this groundbreaking collection builds on Charles Mills's claim that racism involves an inverted epistemology, an epistemology of ignorance. Contributors explore how different forms of ignorance linked to race are produced and sustained and what role they play in promoting racism and white privilege. They argue that the ignorance that underpins racism is not a simple gap in knowledge, the accidental result of an epistemological oversight. In the case of racial oppression, ignorance often is actively produced for purposes of domination and exploitation. But as these essays demonstrate, ignorance is not simply a tool of oppression wielded by the powerful. It can also be a strategy for survival, an important tool for people of color to wield against white privilege and white supremacy. The book concludes that understanding ignorance and the politics of such ignorance should be a key element of epistemological and social/political analyses, for it has the potential to reveal the role of power in the construction of what is known and provide a lens for the political values at work in knowledge practices. |
| the racial contract: Time and Social Theory Barbara Adam, 2013-03-01 Time is at the forefront of contemporary scholarly inquiry across the natural sciences and the humanities. Yet the social sciences have remained substantially isolated from time-related concerns. This book argues that time should be a key part of social theory and focuses concern upon issues which have emerged as central to an understanding of today's social world. Through her analysis of time Barbara Adam shows that our contemporary social theories are firmly embedded in Newtonian science and classical dualistic philosophy. She exposes these classical frameworks of thought as inadequate to the task of conceptualizing our contemporary world of standardized time, computers, nuclear power and global telecommunications. |
| the racial contract: The Anatomy of Racial Inequality Glenn C. LOURY, Glenn C Loury, 2009-06-30 Speaking wisely and provocatively about the political economy of race, Glenn Loury has become one of our most prominent black intellectuals--and, because of his challenges to the orthodoxies of both left and right, one of the most controversial. A major statement of a position developed over the past decade, this book both epitomizes and explains Loury's understanding of the depressed conditions of so much of black society today--and the origins, consequences, and implications for the future of these conditions. Using an economist's approach, Loury describes a vicious cycle of tainted social information that has resulted in a self-replicating pattern of racial stereotypes that rationalize and sustain discrimination. His analysis shows how the restrictions placed on black development by stereotypical and stigmatizing racial thinking deny a whole segment of the population the possibility of self-actualization that American society reveres--something that many contend would be undermined by remedies such as affirmative action. On the contrary, this book persuasively argues that the promise of fairness and individual freedom and dignity will remain unfulfilled without some forms of intervention based on race. Brilliant in its account of how racial classifications are created and perpetuated, and how they resonate through the social, psychological, spiritual, and economic life of the nation, this compelling and passionate book gives us a new way of seeing--and, perhaps, seeing beyond--the damning categorization of race in America. |
| the racial contract: A Theory of Justice John RAWLS, 2009-06-30 Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work. |
| the racial contract: Racism Alana Lentin, 2012-12-01 Discover racism's roots, its long-lasting impact on society – and why it is here to stay. Despite the long struggle to eliminate racism, it is still very much with us. In fact, since 9/11, racism appears to be on the rise, making it more important than ever before to understand the meaning of race and the effect it has on society. Alana Lentin maps the emergence and development of ideas about race through political history right up to modern debates about multiculturalism and Islamophobia, and considers the implications of a 'post-racial' society at a time when science has placed genetics over culture. Provocative and intelligent reading for the newcomer and expert alike, this invaluable resource exposes the roots of racial thought and demonstrates why it has remained crucial to our everyday lives. |
| the racial contract: The Racial Contract Charles W. Mills, 1999-06-25 The Racial Contract puts classic Western social contract theory, deadpan, to extraordinary radical use. With a sweeping look at the European expansionism and racism of the last five hundred years, Charles W. Mills demonstrates how this peculiar and unacknowledged contract has shaped a system of global European domination: how it brings into existence whites and non-whites, full persons and sub-persons, how it influences white moral theory and moral psychology; and how this system is imposed on non-whites through ideological conditioning and violence. The Racial Contract argues that the society we live in is a continuing white supremacist state. Holding up a mirror to mainstream philosophy, this provocative book explains the evolving outline of the racial contract from the time of the New World conquest and subsequent colonialism to the written slavery contract, to the separate but equal system of segregation in the twentieth-century United States. According to Mills, the contract has provided the theoretical architecture justifying an entire history of European atrocity against non-whites, from David Hume's and Immanuel Kant's claims that blacks had inferior cognitive power, to the Holocaust, to the kind of imperialism in Asia that was demonstrated by the Vietnam War. Mills suggests that the ghettoization of philosophical work on race is no accident. This work challenges the assumption that mainstream theory is itself raceless. Just as feminist theory has revealed orthodox political philosophy's invisible white male bias, Mills's explication of the racial contract exposes its racial underpinnings. |
| the racial contract: Radical Theory, Caribbean Reality Charles Wade Mills, 2010 Radical Theory, Caribbean Reality is a collection of articles written over many years that explores the common themes of race and class in the Caribbean and the attempt to overcome social domination. Beginning with an autobiographical account of how his own philosophical outlook was shaped by the radicalization of the region following the 1968 Rodney riots, Jamaican philosopher Charles Mills looks both at those turbulent times and at their aftermath. The essays examine abstract political theory (Marxism, critical race theory, liberal social contract theory) while also focusing on specific Caribbean ideas, issues and events, such as M.G. Smith's plural society thesis. portrayals of the Jamaican left in popular thrillers, the collapse of the Grenada Revolution, smadditizin' as the affirmation of personhood in a racist society and the evolution of Stuart Hall's views on race. As such, they all share a concern with the struggle for a more just social order and are radically oriented. The title has a double meaning insofar as it signifies both the application of radical theory to the Caribbean reality, and the ways in which that reality has too often collided with the theory; revealing its inadequacies. As Mills explains, The overall aim is to clucidate some classic subjects and themes in radical theory, both generally and with local Caribbean application, and to map in the process a trajectory of intellectual development not peculiar to my own history but traced by many others of my generation also. Radical Theory, Caribbean Reality is a long overdue collection on the Caribbean from one of its most accomplished scholars....Mills's books to date have focused either on broad questions of race or specific matters related to ideology. This, in a sense, represents his coming home to the Caribbean and his analysis of late-twentieth-century Caribbean polities and society.---Brian Meeks, Professor of Social and Political Change, Director of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, and Director of the Centre for Caribbean Thought, University of the West Indies, Jamaica |
| the racial contract: The Sum of Us Heather McGhee, 2021-03-26 LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 'With intelligence and care (as well as with a trove of sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes heart-opening true stories) Heather McGhee shows us what racism has cost all of us' - Elizabeth Gilbert Picked for the Financial Times Summer Books by Gillian Tett What would make a society drain its public swimming baths and fill them with concrete rather than opening them to everyone? Economics researcher Heather McGhee sets out across America to learn why white voters so often act against their own interests. Why do they block changes that would help them, and even destroy their own advantages, whenever people of colour also stand to benefit? Their tragedy is that they believe they can't win unless somebody else loses. But this is a lie. McGhee marshals overwhelming economic evidence, and a profound well of empathy, to reveal the surprising truth: even racists lose out under white supremacy. And US racism is everybody's problem. As McGhee shows, it was bigoted lending policies that laid the ground for the 2008 financial crisis. There can be little prospect of tackling global climate change until America's zero-sum delusions are defeated. The Sum of Us offers a priceless insight into the workings of prejudice, and a timely invitation to solidarity among all humans, 'to piece together a new story of who we could be to one another'. |
| the racial contract: The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander, 2012-01-16 Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as brave and bold, this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it. By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness. In the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, this book is a call to action. Called stunning by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Levering Lewis, invaluable by the Daily Kos, explosive by Kirkus, and profoundly necessary by the Miami Herald, this updated and revised paperback edition of The New Jim Crow, now with a foreword by Cornel West, is a must-read for all people of conscience. |
| the racial contract: I'm Not Racist But ... 40 Years of the Racial Discrimination Act Tim Soutphommasane, 2015-06-01 Is Australia a 'racist' country? Why do issues of race and culture seem to ignite public debate so readily? Tim Soutphommasane, Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner, reflects on the national experience of racism and the progress that has been made since the introduction of the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975. As the first federal human rights and discrimination legislation, the Act was a landmark demonstration of Australia's commitment to eliminating racism. Published to coincide with the Act's fortieth anniversary, this book gives a timely and incisive account of the history of racism, the limits of free speech, the dimensions of bigotry and the role of legislation in our society's response to discrimination. With contributions by Maxine Beneba Clarke, Bindi Cole Chocka, Benjamin Law, Alice Pung and Christos Tsiolkas. |
| the racial contract: Martin Versfeld Ernst Wolff , 2021-10-15 Martin Versfeld (1909–1995) is one of South Africa’s greatest philosophers, appreciated by academics and activists, poets and the broader public. His masterful prose spans the tension between disquiet and joy. Detractor of the violent trends of modernity, a critic of apartheid from the first hour, he was among the first philosophers of ecology. At the same time he celebrated the generosity of the world and advocated an ethics of simplicity, drawing on mediaeval theology and Eastern wisdom. His philosophy offered food for thought in dark times of the 20th century, as it still does for us in the 21st century. This first book-length study on Versfeld is an invitation to think with him on justice and exploitation, cultural difference and human nature, religion and the environment, time and connectedness. |
| the racial contract: The Politics of Race and Racialisation in the Middle East Burcu Ozcelik, 2024-01-29 This book explores the extent to which race and racialisation offer us an explanatory framework to study the contemporary politics of identity in the Middle East today. -- summary page. |
| the racial contract: Decolonizing Democracy Christine Keating, 2015-06-19 Most democratic theorists have taken Western political traditions as their primary point of reference, although the growing field of comparative political theory has shifted this focus. In Decolonizing Democracy, comparative theorist Christine Keating interprets the formation of Indian democracy as a progressive example of a “postcolonial social contract.” In doing so, she highlights the significance of reconfigurations of democracy in postcolonial polities like India and sheds new light on the social contract, a central concept within democratic theory from Locke to Rawls and beyond. Keating’s analysis builds on the literature developed by feminists like Carole Pateman and critical race theorists like Charles Mills that examines the social contract’s egalitarian potential. By analyzing the ways in which the framers of the Indian constitution sought to address injustices of gender, race, religion, and caste, as well as present-day struggles over women’s legal and political status, Keating demonstrates that democracy’s social contract continues to be challenged and reworked in innovative and potentially more just ways. |
| the racial contract: White Freedom Tyler Stovall, 2021-01-19 The racist legacy behind the Western idea of freedom The era of the Enlightenment, which gave rise to our modern conceptions of freedom and democracy, was also the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. America, a nation founded on the principle of liberty, is also a nation built on African slavery, Native American genocide, and systematic racial discrimination. White Freedom traces the complex relationship between freedom and race from the eighteenth century to today, revealing how being free has meant being white. Tyler Stovall explores the intertwined histories of racism and freedom in France and the United States, the two leading nations that have claimed liberty as the heart of their national identities. He explores how French and American thinkers defined freedom in racial terms and conceived of liberty as an aspect and privilege of whiteness. He discusses how the Statue of Liberty—a gift from France to the United States and perhaps the most famous symbol of freedom on Earth—promised both freedom and whiteness to European immigrants. Taking readers from the Age of Revolution to today, Stovall challenges the notion that racism is somehow a paradox or contradiction within the democratic tradition, demonstrating how white identity is intrinsic to Western ideas about liberty. Throughout the history of modern Western liberal democracy, freedom has long been white freedom. A major work of scholarship that is certain to draw a wide readership and transform contemporary debates, White Freedom provides vital new perspectives on the inherent racism behind our most cherished beliefs about freedom, liberty, and human rights. |
| the racial contract: Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life Karen Fields, Barbara J. Fields, 2012-10-09 No Marketing Blurb |
| the racial contract: Living with Class R. Scapp, B. Seitz, 2013-12-18 A philosophical-cultural exploration, this book expands the discussion of class from a novel perspective. Following the current debates about wealth and class, the contributors address the social and cultural phenomena of class from a uniquely innovative philosophical approach and reconsider philosophical givens within the context of culture. |
| the racial contract: Letter from Birmingham Jail Martin Luther King, 2025-01-14 A beautiful commemorative edition of Dr. Martin Luther King's essay Letter from Birmingham Jail, part of Dr. King's archives published exclusively by HarperCollins. With an afterword by Reginald Dwayne Betts On April 16, 1923, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., responded to an open letter written and published by eight white clergyman admonishing the civil rights demonstrations happening in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. King drafted his seminal response on scraps of paper smuggled into jail. King criticizes his detractors for caring more about order than justice, defends nonviolent protests, and argues for the moral responsibility to obey just laws while disobeying unjust ones. Letter from Birmingham Jail proclaims a message - confronting any injustice is an acceptable and righteous reason for civil disobedience. This beautifully designed edition presents Dr. King's speech in its entirety, paying tribute to this extraordinary leader and his immeasurable contribution, and inspiring a new generation of activists dedicated to carrying on the fight for justice and equality. |
| the racial contract: Black Marxism Cedric J. Robinson, 2021-02-04 'A towering achievement. There is simply nothing like it in the history of Black radical thought' Cornel West 'Cedric Robinson's brilliant analyses revealed new ways of thinking and acting' Angela Davis 'This work is about our people's struggle, the historical Black struggle' Any struggle must be fought on a people's own terms, argues Cedric Robinson's landmark account of Black radicalism. Marxism is a western construction, and therefore inadequate to describe the significance of Black communities as agents of change against 'racial capitalism'. Tracing the emergence of European radicalism, the history of Black African resistance and the influence of these on such key thinkers as W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James and Richard Wright, Black Marxism reclaims the story of a movement. |
| the racial contract: Discourse on the Sciences and Arts Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1992 Rousseau attacks the social and political effects of the dominant forms of scientific knowledge. Contains the entire First Discourse, contemporary attacks on it, Rousseau's replies to his critics, and his summary of the debate in his preface to Narcissus. A number of these texts have never before been available in English. The First Discourse and Polemics demonstrate the continued relevance of Rousseau's thought. Whereas his critics argue for correction of the excesses and corruptions of knowledge and the sciences as sufficient, Rousseau attacks the social and political effects of the dominant forms of scientific knowledge. |
| the racial contract: Pedagogy of the Oppressed Paulo Freire, 2018-03-22 First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. Paulo Freire's work has helped to empower countless people throughout the world and has taken on special urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is ongoing. This 50th anniversary edition includes an updated introduction by Donaldo Macedo, a new afterword by Ira Shor and interviews with Marina Aparicio Barber�n, Noam Chomsky, Ram�n Flecha, Gustavo Fischman, Ronald David Glass, Valerie Kinloch, Peter Mayo, Peter McLaren and Margo Okazawa-Rey to inspire a new generation of educators, students, and general readers for years to come. |
| the racial contract: Summary of Charles W. Mills's The Racial Contract Everest Media,, 2022-03-27T22:59:00Z Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The social contract is actually several contracts in one. The political contract is the foundation of government and our political obligations to it. The moral contract is the foundation of the moral code established for the society, by which the citizens are supposed to regulate their behavior. #2 The Racial Contract is the set of agreements or meta-agreements between the members of one subset of humans, designated by racial criteria, who agree to categorize the remaining subset of humans as nonwhite and of a different and inferior moral status. #3 In the Racial Contract, the state is used to partition and then transform human populations into white and nonwhite men. The role of the state is to maintain and reproduce this racial order, securing the privileges and advantages of full white citizens while maintaining the subordination of nonwhites. #4 The racial contract represents a society’s established morality as just a set of rules for expediting the rational pursuit and coordination of our own interests without conflict with those who are doing the same thing. |
| the racial contract: Edmund Burke for Our Time William F. Byrne, 2021-08-15 This highly readable book offers a contemporary interpretation of the political thought of Edmund Burke, drawing on his experiences to illuminate and address fundamental questions of politics and society that are of particular interest today. In Edmund Burke for Our Time, Byrne asserts that Burke's politics is reflective of unique and sophisticated ideas about how people think and learn and about determinants of political behavior. |
| the racial contract: Race to the Bottom Azfar Shafi, Ilyas Nagdee, 2022 |
| the racial contract: Not My Idea Anastasia Higginbotham, 2018-09 People of color are eager for white people to deal with their racial ignorance. White people are desperate for an affirmative role in racial justice. Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness helps with conversations the nation is, just now, finally starting to have. |
| the racial contract: Marking the "invisible" Andrea M. Hawkman, Sarah B. Shear, 2020 Substantial research has been put forth calling for the field of social studies education to engage in work dealing with the influence of race and racism within education and society (Branch, 2003; Chandler, 2015; Chandler & Hawley, 2017; Husband, 2010; King & Chandler, 2016; Ladson-Billings, 2003; Ooka Pang, Rivera & Gillette, 1998). Previous contributions have examined the presence and influence of race/ism within the field of social studies teaching and research (e.g. Chandler, 2015, Chandler & Hawley, 2017; Ladson-Billings, 2003; Woyshner & Bohan, 2012). In order to challenge the presence of racism within social studies, research must attend to the control that whiteness and white supremacy maintain within the field. This edited volume builds from these previous works to take on whiteness and white supremacy directly in social studies education. In Marking the Invisible, editors assemble original contributions from scholars working to expose whiteness and disrupt white supremacy in the field of social studies education. We argue for an articulation of whiteness within the field of social studies education in pursuit of directly challenging its influences on teaching, learning, and research. Across 27 chapters, authors call out the strategies deployed by white supremacy and acknowledge the depths by which it is used to control, manipulate, confine, and define identities, communities, citizenships, and historical narratives. This edited volume promotes the reshaping of social studies education to: support the histories, experiences, and lives of Students and Teachers of Color, challenge settler colonialism and color-evasiveness, develop racial literacy, and promote justice-oriented teaching and learning. |
| the racial contract: Race and the Yugoslav Region Catherine Baker, 2018 Describes the territories and collective identities of former Yugoslavia within the politics of race - not just ethnicity - and the history of how ideas of racialised difference have been translated globally |
| the racial contract: Social Reproduction Theory Tithi Bhattacharya, 2017 Crystallizing the essential principles of social reproductive theory, this anthology provides long-overdue analysis of everyday life under capitalism. It focuses on issues such as childcare, healthcare, education, family life, and the roles of gender, race, and sexuality--all of which are central to understanding the relationship between exploitation and social oppression. Tithi Bhattacharya brings together some of the leading writers and theorists, including Lise Vogel, Nancy Fraser, and Susan Ferguson, in order for us to better understand social relations and how to improve them in the fight against structural oppression. |
| the racial contract: Oxford Handbook of Classics in Contemporary Political Theory , 2020 |
| the racial contract: W.E.B. Du Bois Elvira Basevich, 2020-10-22 W.E.B. Du Bois spent many decades fighting to ensure that African Americans could claim their place as full citizens and thereby fulfill the deeply compromised ideals of American democracy. Yet he died in Africa, having apparently given up on the United States. In this tour-de-force, Elvira Basevich examines this paradox by tracing the development of his life and thought and the relevance of his legacy to our troubled age. She adroitly analyses the main concepts that inform Du Bois’s critique of American democracy, such as the color line and double consciousness, before examining how these concepts might inform our understanding of contemporary struggles, from Black Lives Matter to the campaign for reparations for slavery. She stresses the continuity in Du Bois’s thought, from his early writings to his later embrace of self-segregation and Pan-Africanism, while not shying away from assessing the challenging implications of his later work. This wonderful book vindicates the power of Du Bois’s thought to help transform a stubbornly unjust world. It is essential reading for racial justice activists as well as students of African American philosophy and political thought. |
| the racial contract: Sin Sick Joshua Pederson, 2021-06-15 In Sin Sick, Joshua Pederson draws on the latest research about identifying and treating the pain of perpetration to advance and deploy a literary theory of moral injury that addresses fictional representations of the mental anguish of those who have injured or killed others. Pederson's work foregrounds moral injury, a recent psychological concept distinct from trauma that is used to describe the psychic wounds suffered by those who breach their own deeply held ethical principles. Complementing writings on trauma theory that posit the textual manifestation of trauma as absence, Sin Sick argues that moral injury appears in literature in a variety of forms of excess. Pederson closely reads works by Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment), Camus (The Fall), and veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (Brian Turner's Here, Bullet; Kevin Powers' The Yellow Birds; Phil Klay's Redeployment; and Roy Scranton's War Porn), contending that recognizing and understanding the suffering of perpetrators, without condoning their crimes, enriches the experience of reading—and of being human. |
The Racial Contract - Wikipedia
The Racial Contract is a book by the Jamaican philosopher Charles W. Mills in which he shows that, although it is conventional to represent the social contract moral and political theories of Thomas …
The Racial Contract - Unizin
1970S struggle against the legacy of global Racial Contract. My wife, Elle Mills, has supported my work from the outset, sometimes having greater faith in me than I had in myself.
The Racial Contract by Charles W. Mills Plot Summary - LitCharts
By dividing humanity, the racial contract establishes a government by and for white people, who rule over non-white people and exploit their land and resources. White people justify this system …
The Racial Contract Paperback – June 21, 1999 - amazon.com
Jun 21, 1999 · Holding up a mirror to mainstream philosophy, this provocative book explains the evolving outline of the racial contract from the time of the New World conquest and subsequent …
The Racial Contract on JSTOR
The Racial Contract puts classic Western social contract theory, deadpan, to extraordinary radical use. With a sweeping look at the European expansionism and ra...
The racial contract : Mills, Charles W. (Charles Wade) : Free …
Feb 24, 2021 · Race relations, Racism, Social contract, White supremacy movements, Political science -- Philosophy Publisher Ithaca : Cornell University Press Collection internetarchivebooks; …
‘The Racial Contract’: Interview with Philosopher Charles W. Mills
Oct 29, 2020 · His first book, “The Racial Contract,” introduces the titular concept: a “contract” that permits white people to violate their own moral principles in dealing with non-white individuals.
The Racial Contract by Charles W. Mills | Paperback | Cornell ...
The Racial Contract puts classic Western social contract theory, deadpan, to extraordinary radical use. With a sweeping look at the European expansionism and racism of the last five hundred …
The Racial Contract - Charles W. Mills - Google Books
May 29, 2014 · Holding up a mirror to mainstream philosophy, this provocative book explains the evolving outline of the racial contract from the time of the New World conquest and subsequent …
The Racial Contract - Charles W. Mills - Google Books
Apr 15, 2022 · As this 25th anniversary edition—featuring a foreword by Tommy Shelbie and a new preface by the author—makes clear, the still-urgent The Racial Contract continues to inspire, …
The Racial Contract - Wikipedia
The Racial Contract is a book by the Jamaican philosopher Charles W. Mills in which he shows that, although it is conventional to represent the social contract moral and political theories of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant as neutral with respect to race and ethnicity, in actuality, the philosophers ...
The Racial Contract - Unizin
1970S struggle against the legacy of global Racial Contract. My wife, Elle Mills, has supported my work from the outset, sometimes having greater faith in me than I had in myself.
The Racial Contract by Charles W. Mills Plot Summary - LitCharts
By dividing humanity, the racial contract establishes a government by and for white people, who rule over non-white people and exploit their land and resources. White people justify this system by perpetuating the racist idea that non-white people are inferior.
The Racial Contract Paperback – June 21, 1999 - amazon.com
Jun 21, 1999 · Holding up a mirror to mainstream philosophy, this provocative book explains the evolving outline of the racial contract from the time of the New World conquest and subsequent colonialism to the written slavery contract, to the "separate but equal" system of segregation in the twentieth-century United States.
The Racial Contract on JSTOR
The Racial Contract puts classic Western social contract theory, deadpan, to extraordinary radical use. With a sweeping look at the European expansionism and ra...
The racial contract : Mills, Charles W. (Charles Wade) : Free …
Feb 24, 2021 · Race relations, Racism, Social contract, White supremacy movements, Political science -- Philosophy Publisher Ithaca : Cornell University Press Collection internetarchivebooks; printdisabled Contributor Internet Archive Language English Item Size 349.9M
‘The Racial Contract’: Interview with Philosopher Charles W. Mills
Oct 29, 2020 · His first book, “The Racial Contract,” introduces the titular concept: a “contract” that permits white people to violate their own moral principles in dealing with non-white individuals.
The Racial Contract by Charles W. Mills | Paperback | Cornell ...
The Racial Contract puts classic Western social contract theory, deadpan, to extraordinary radical use. With a sweeping look at the European expansionism and racism of the last five hundred years, Charles...
The Racial Contract - Charles W. Mills - Google Books
May 29, 2014 · Holding up a mirror to mainstream philosophy, this provocative book explains the evolving outline of the racial contract from the time of the New World conquest and subsequent colonialism to the...
The Racial Contract - Charles W. Mills - Google Books
Apr 15, 2022 · As this 25th anniversary edition—featuring a foreword by Tommy Shelbie and a new preface by the author—makes clear, the still-urgent The Racial Contract continues to inspire, provoke, and...
