tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post4794662107235669796..comments2024-03-28T05:47:54.177+00:00Comments on Philosophical Disquisitions: What is (institutional) racism?John Danaherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-41424066812978121282022-02-24T11:21:25.374+00:002022-02-24T11:21:25.374+00:00Maybe a much shorter summary of my view is somethi...Maybe a much shorter summary of my view is something like this:<br /><br />The only kind of conceptual analysis that will substantively reduce the confusions, misunderstandings and fallacies endemic in our talk about racism is one which clarifies where someone stands on hard issues regarding race and morality, e.g., given that there will always be a set of people who score in bottom 15% of being unfairly denied promotions, have less advantages growing up etc.. etc.. is the only thing that makes racism worse than any other kind of unfairness the fact that people are aware of being prospectively in that group. Doesn't have to be exactly that issue but just hard questions at core of moral assertions about racism.<br /><br />You certainly aren't obligated to provide such an analysis but I do think that's what's needed for a philosophical clarification of racism to be really clarifying.<br /><br />TruePathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00124043164362758796noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-63180160614724025332022-02-24T11:09:13.315+00:002022-02-24T11:09:13.315+00:00Thanks for your reply. Your analysis in the last ...Thanks for your reply. Your analysis in the last paragraph seems almost correct but I'd insist on adding a requirement of blame for not having already done that duty (though that blame may not lie with any individual and only with a psuedo-agent like the banking sector or the NYC police department). I'm not sure how much this is actually disagreeing with you because I'm happy to admit that, when it comes to institutional racism, the blame is often assigned to a psuedo-actor like a government, the banking sector, the new york police department (indeed, your own analysis would seem to imply that in all but the meteor type cases there is such blame as there is a moral duty which hasn't been satisfied).<br /><br />At the end of my response I give a few arguments as to why I think that's the better interpratation but that's just some technical quibbling. My primary concern is that I fear that without the blameworthy qualification this way of defining racism talk is misleading. And even with that qualification, I fear that it's not really helpful. <br /><br />Yes, I accept that some academics/theorists will, when pressed, say things like racism is any kind of racial inequality. But that's not how they (or speakers at large) use the word in practice. Indeed, if that's all it meant to say something was racist than we should always prefer (for clarity's sake): "NYC's stop-and-frisk policy has a disparate impact and we can and should do something to stop it" over "NYC's stop-and-frisk policy is an example of institutional racism." If you define racism to have this element of blame then you can make sense of the different ways we react to those two statements. It makes it easier to be clear and easily understood because the social meaning of calling something racist (bad/critical) matches up with the definition. But if you leave that element out then you obstruct understanding as it invites a kind of motte-bailey response. When pressed people can fall back and say 'well racism just means an inequality we should fix so of course MIT is institutionally racist it has very few black students' even though their words convey criticism that goes far beyond that. If you define the term to include some blameworthiness aspect then the social meaning of making an accusation now lines up with the definitional meaning so we reduce confusion.<br /><br />Also, even if we include the element of blameworthiness I kinda fear this analysis is a bit like analyzing sexual immorality as: actions which are morally wrong on account of their sexual aspect. Ok, maybe that's equivalent to what's being claimed but I'm not sure it really does anything to help clarify the issues and I fear it can sometimes make things worse by making it seem like their is more precision/agreement on the term than there actually is. But I've already droned on for far too long and I'm afraid this is going to come off as if I'm really critical when I'm more saying that we need more discussion of the work trying to identify what's bad about racism.<br /><br /><br />---<br /><br />(As promised) One reason I don't think a purely forward looking account can work is that it doesn't make sense of the ascriptive nature of institutional racism talk, i.e., why does even institutional racism talk usually identify an agent-like entity (or the effects of actions by an agent-like entity) as the thing that's institutionally racist and never just a state of affairs. On your model we can't make sense of why people say things like "the New York police department is institutionally racist" but not Indian ocean tsunami (or the hypothetical meteor) is institutionally racist since a forward looking duty is being claimed in both cases. <br /><br /><br />TruePathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00124043164362758796noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-2784153126572891012022-02-23T18:53:32.424+00:002022-02-23T18:53:32.424+00:00Part of me thinks that the debate is evolving such...Part of me thinks that the debate is evolving such that 'racism' is really used to describe harms as opposed to wrongs (bad actions and outcomes as opposed to blameworthy ones). In that sense, I may just be willing to bite the bullet on the meteor example.<br /><br />Still, I suspect you are right and that most people will find that deeply counterintuitive. I think that's because, historically, the accusation of 'racism' carried with it some accusation of moral blameworthiness. <br /><br />My sense is that blameworthiness is no longer the sole focus in accusations of racism. Indeed, that became somewhat inapposite once we shifted away from explicit, individual racism to the focus on implicit and institutional forms of racism. Nowadays, I think that the focus is more on the idea that we have some power to control or prevent racially unjust outcomes and the accusation of 'racism' draws our attention to that power/ability and suggests we might have some duty to do something about it. So it's not about blame and punishment, per se, but about (forward-looking) responsibility.<br /><br />So, I guess, you might have to modify the account to say that X is racist if it produces a racially unjust outcome and there is some agent or group of agents who have the power/duty to do something to prevent that.<br /><br />Maybe that works.John Danaherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06761686258507859309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-48057369808527143622022-02-23T17:01:27.096+00:002022-02-23T17:01:27.096+00:00Oops, "(it just pushes the question back to w...Oops, "(it just pushes the question back to when a certain disparity is unjust)" should have been "(it just pushes the question back to when the persistence of a certain disparity constitutes a moral failing)"<br /><br />And I'm using disparity broadly here so that an individual's unequal treatment of different racial groups qualifies as a disparity as well. TruePathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00124043164362758796noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-23969916683563594072022-02-23T16:58:06.641+00:002022-02-23T16:58:06.641+00:00I forgot to mention that I do appreciate the attem...I forgot to mention that I do appreciate the attempt to grapple with this concept and enjoyed the post. I wish more people would try and define their terms here, but either I misunderstood you or, I think, there is still quite a bit of work to do.TruePathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00124043164362758796noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1780806945960886534.post-73427315879563152942022-02-23T16:55:18.006+00:002022-02-23T16:55:18.006+00:00I'm a little unclear about what precisely the ...I'm a little unclear about what precisely the necessary and sufficient conditions you are proposing for racism. Furthermore, if I don't misunderstand your analysis, the answer you give seems to be in tension with the principle you seemed to accept about racism being a moral (or at least morally charged term).<br /><br />For instance, suppose a large meteor impact occurs tomorrow killing half the population of Africa and spreading famine and disease throughout the rest of the continent but with little to no impact outside of Africa (or even a slightly beneficial one by way of reducing global warming). Such an impact certainly has disproportionate racial impacts and imposes far more harms on black individuals than other races. And there is obviously no moral justification for the meteor impact (it just happened).<br /><br />If you bite the bullet and call this racism, well, I guess that's a coherent way of using words but it's so far from even the contested area of common usage I don't think it can really be called an analysis of racism.<br /><br />So, I presume, you're going to try and claim that the meteor impact doesn't qualify as racism on your view. But, in that case, I don't really see how you've clarified the term. I mean, the obvious difference between the meteor and the things we describe as racism is that the meteor lacks intention. But, if you lean on that kind of distinction then all the ambiguity is just packaged up into how we understand that intentionalality requirement (after all, a sufficiently stringent intentionality requirement brings us back to the definitions you considered at the top).<br /><br />Extensionally, I think people apply the label racism when there is a racial disparity whose persistence they feel constitutes some kind of moral failing. That's fine as far as it goes but it too doesn't really help conceptually sharpen the term (it just pushes the question back to when a certain disparity is unjust). Worse, it totally fails to clarify exactly what entity, actor or state of affairs the label applies to. Is it anyone who could have counterfactually acted to stop the disparity (even members of uncontacted amazon tribes)? Is it only those who have somehow participated in that institution in some way?<br /><br />As a matter of usage, I think people tend to often apply the term in the later fashion but I'd argue that's both a conceptual and (horrific) moral mistake as it has the effect of infecting anyone who 'touches' the problematic institutions/social frameworks even if they had a positive impact (and if you look only at outcomes you get some absurd results, e.g., the term applies to the many black civil rights leaders who sincerely, but mistakenly, believed that a punitive war on drugs would help their communities and thereby participated in these problematic institutions and had a hugely harmful racially disparate impact).<br /><br />Sorry, but I don't think you can really sharpen this concept without also postulating an account of what makes racism particularly/uniquely morally bad. And, I suspect, that any truly coherent account is going to be one that steps on some toes (no good philosophical position can get away without biting bullets and they'll be doozies in this case).<br /><br />TruePathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00124043164362758796noreply@blogger.com