Confronted with the decline of Western hegemony, the post-Great-War American society witnessed a prevailing trend of racism represented by Lothrop Stoddard, who proposed to suppress the nationalist movements in Asia and completely prohibit the immigration of Asians into the United States to maintain white supremacy across the world. His racist discourse also constituted the historical context of Sun Yat-sen’s speech to The Kobe Chamber of Commerce. Unlike previous studies of the speech that focused on Sun’s expression of “Greater Asianism,” (...) this paper examines his critical remarks on Stoddard, intending to explore the intellectual origin of the renewed outlook held by Sun on Chinese culture in his later years, as he intentionally misinterpreted Stoddard’s main idea as cultural revolt, neutralied such notions as biological determination and human inequality, and replaced white supremacy with the ascendancy of Chinese culture by emphasizing its originality, historical unity and moral superiority. On the very basis, Sun presented an alternative mode of modern civilization that diverged from the Euro-centric capitalist modernity. Echoing various anti-capitalist and counter-enlightenment thoughts of this period, Sun’s proposal could be taken as an integral part of the “new cultural conservatism” promoted by Chinese intellectuals in the 1920s. (shrink)

This book unearths and outlines the semantic foundations of white fragility and their consequences for racial justice in the United States. It argues that by expanding our racial vocabulary in certain ways, we can make progress toward justice equally enjoyed by all.

Background Despite decades of anti-racism and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) interventions in academic medicine, medical racism continues to harm patients and healthcare providers. We sought to deeply explore experiences and beliefs about medical racism among academic clinicians to understand the drivers of persistent medical racism and to inform intervention design. Methods We interviewed academically-affiliated clinicians with any racial identity from the Departments of Family Medicine, Cardiac Sciences, Emergency Medicine, and Medicine to understand their experiences and (...) perceptions of medical racism. We performed thematic content analysis of semi-structured interview data to understand the barriers and facilitators of ongoing medical racism. Based on participant narratives, we developed a logic framework that demonstrates the necessary steps in the process of addressing racism using if/then logic. This framework was then applied to all narratives and the barriers to addressing medical racism were aligned with each step in the logic framework. Proposed interventions, as suggested by participants or study team members and/or identified in the literature, were matched to these identified barriers to addressing racism. Results Participant narratives of their experiences of medical racism demonstrated multiple barriers to addressing racism, such as a perceived lack of empathy from white colleagues. Few potential facilitators to addressing racism were also identified, including shared language to understand racism. The logic framework suggested that addressing racism requires individuals to understand, recognize, name, and confront medical racism. Conclusions Organizations can use this logic framework to understand their local context and select targeted anti-racism or EDI interventions. Theory-informed approaches to medical racism may be more effective than interventions that do not address local barriers or facilitators for persistent medical racism. (shrink)

This article, the final part of the series, will focus on genocide. To understand the argument we need to start with some definitions. Rapheal Lemkin invented the term and promoted its adoption. As Samantha Power explains in her introduction to his primary work: “In Axis Rule he wrote that ‘genocide’ meant ‘a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the -/- aim of annihilating the groups themselves’. The perpetrators (...) of genocide would attempt to destroy the political and social institutions, the culture, language, national feelings, religion, and economic existence of national groups. They would hope to eradicate the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and lives of individual members of the targeted group. (shrink)

The article aims at demonstrating that a spike in populist narratives in Western societies leads to the legitimization of a new type of racism, xenoracism. Societies belonging to the so-called Western culture in the second half of the 20th century were attached to the liberal values where every sign of racism was negatively perceived as pejorative and attempts were made at eradicating it. In the 21st century, in turn, various economic and social crises caused by, inter alia, globalizing (...) processes, were attributed to liberal values which contributed to doing politics through fear management towards the Other. The difference between racism and xenoracism lies in the fact that the former was an ideology focused on biological differences while xenoracism abandoned such differences in favour of socially and culturally imbuing them with objective and unalterable character. Populist narratives evoking fear of the Other question that behaviours triggered by this fear result from racism despite the fact that these actions are virtually identical to the ones motivated by the ideology of racism. Therefore, such behaviours and activities are more commonly perceived as positive and not pejorative and as in effect acceptable. (shrink)

abstract This paper examines a claim made by Michael Dummett in his recent book On Immigration and Refugees that the feeling of racism can be removed by the creation of a social climate in which the expression of that feeling is disreputable. I suggest that Dummett's claim can be better appreciated if viewed in the light of some guiding principles of his project in the philosophy of language. With these principles in place, I argue that they provide convincing support (...) for Dummett's claim, as well as showing an important connection between On Immigration and Dummett's broader philosophical concerns. I conclude the essay by suggesting some ways in which the insights gleaned from Dummett's philosophy may be applied to the case of asylum seekers and their representation by the media and in political rhetoric. (shrink)

Because youths are particularly vulnerable to social problems, philosophers since Plato to date have continued to show interest in developing, empowering, and protecting the youths. African youths are particularly far more than ordinarily vulnerable to various social problems including racism especially from outside the continent, mainly because of the shortfall in youth development and empowerment strategies in most African countries. Consequently, young people are pulled to countries with resources and infrastructures that provide them with opportunities to enlarge their capabilities (...) and improve their quality of life, where they are also faced with discriminatory, prejudicial, and antagonistic treatments simply because of their skin colour. So, one way to look at racism and reduce its effects is to examine those socio-political as well as economic structures that constitute obstacles to youth development and empowerment, and which push and expose the young in Africa to the ill-treatments emanating from racism. (shrink)

While race and racism have never stopped being urgent issues for many communities of color, talk about race, racism, and racial justice have once again become a central part of mainstream social and political discourse in America. But while critical phenomenologists have offered many accounts of what it is like to live in a world shaped by racism—particularly in terms of embodiment—they have not drawn attention to questions about what it is like to live in a world (...) increasingly shaped by anti-racist sentiment and action, the kind of world in which the question of critical phenomenology’s contribution to projects of racial justice can itself arise. In this paper, I argue that one avenue to approach the silence in critical phenomenology around the experiences and habits of anti-racism as they circulate in our discourse is to draw attention to how critical phenomenology, as it turns to questions of race, tends to turn away from explorations of language. Interrogating how critical phenomenologists approaching racial issues have managed to escape explicitly thematizing language, I argue that this occlusion of language by critical phenomenology consequently leaves behind resources through which to ask ourselves what is happening as we articulate increasingly taken-for-granted ways of speaking and living out an opposition to racism. (shrink)

Last week David Howard, an aide to the Mayor of Washington, resigned after a staff meeting in which he called his budget ''niggardly.'' A colleague thought he had used a racial epithet, though in fact ''niggard'' is a Middle English word meaning ''miser.'' It has nothing to do with the racial slur based on Spanish for ''black,'' which came into English centuries later.

Jennifer Saul is Waterloo Chair in Social and Political Philosophy of Language at the University of Waterloo. Originally American, she spent twenty-four years at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. Her current focus is manipulative political language, which she explores in Dogwhistles and Figleaves: Linguistics Tricks for Racist and Conspiracist Discourse (forthcoming, Oxford, 2024). She has also written books and articles on feminism, lying and misleading, and implicit bias. She founded the blogs What is it Like to be (...) a Woman in Philosophy and Feminist Philosophers, and was Director of the Society for Women in Philosophy UK 2009–19. Along with Helen Beebee, she published two reports (in 2011 and 2021) on the state of women in philosophy in the UK and drew up good practice guidelines which have been adopted by dozens of departments. She’s also proud of having been a philosophical consultant on a zombie movie. (shrink)

Language tests for overseas registered nurses (ORN) working outside their home country are essential for patient safety, as communication competency needs to be established in any workforce. We argue that the current employment of existing language tests is structurally and institutionally racist and disadvantages ORNs from non‐European Union (EU) and non‐White countries seeking to work in the United Kingdom. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT), we argue that existing English language tests for ORNs seeking registration in the United Kingdom are discriminatory (...) due to the UK's racist migration policies and a regulatory body for nursing and midwifery that fails to acknowledge and understand its own institutionally racist practices. (shrink)

What is at stake in identifying some actions or speech acts as racist as opposed to regarding them as “merely” xenophobic? If we understand racism as a system, how does this impact the way we address the distinction between the terms racism and xenophobia? My attempt to address these questions is guided by two observations drawn from the genealogy of the term racism. First, in the English language, the word was initially a synonym for Nazi anti-Semitism. The (...) strategies to combat racism developed by UNESCO under the influence of Ashley Montagu and other followers of Franz Boas were set by the idea that what had to be opposed was primarily a biologically based racial ideology. However, the attempt to apply this model to the United States was problematized by Oliver Cromwell Cox already in the early 1940s, just as the application of this model to colonialism was opposed by Sartre and Fanon. Secondly, whereas race prejudice had at one time been thought of as natural, as xenophobia still tends to be today, what is called racism in English was from the outset thought of as acquired and blameworthy. As a result of this and other differences, the strategies needed to address racism and xenophobia are fundamentally different. (shrink)

This paper seeks to make “racism” strange, by exploring its invocation in the sociolinguistic context of LGBTQI+ activism in Greece, where it is used in ways that may be jarring to anglophone readers. In my ongoing research on the conceptualisation of interwoven oppressions in Greek social movement contexts, I have been interested in understanding how the widespread use of the term “racism” as a superordinate category to reference forms of oppression not only based on “race,” “ethnicity,” and “citizenship” (...) (e.g., racism, nationalism, xenophobia) but also those based on gender, gender identity, and sexuality (e.g., sexism, transphobia, and homophobia) relates to the increased adoption of “intersectionality” in movement discourses. In ordinary parlance, this commonplace usage of “racism” as an “umbrella term” nevertheless retains its etymological link to “race,” while its scope is extended to other regimes of superiority/inferiority or privilege/oppression. If intersectionality presupposes that oppressions are ontologically multiple and analytically separable, the use of “racism” as an umbrella concept seems to point in the other direction, implying that all forms of oppression originate from a common source, have a similar ontological basis, or generate privilege for the same social agents, who deploy similar tactics vis-à-vis oppressed groups. My research examines how intersectionality—widely understood as a multi-axial theory of oppression, which contends that power relations are multiple, distinct, and irreducible to one another, yet converge simultaneously in the experiences of multiply oppressed social groups—relates to the use of “racism” as a struggle concept in Greek, but also in other languages commonly used in Greece, such as Albanian (racizmi) and Arabic (eunsuria). In this paper, I examine how these two vocabularies—of racism and intersectionality—are operative in movement discourses, but also how they shape, and are shaped by activists’ perceptions, analyses, and theories of oppression. (shrink)

There is good evidence that many people harbour attitudes that conflict with those they endorse. In the language of social psychology, they seem to have implicit attitudes that conflict with their explicit beliefs. There has been a great deal of attention paid to the question whether agents like this are responsible for actions caused by their implicit attitudes, but much less to the question whether they can rightly be described as racist in virtue of harbouring them. In this paper, I (...) attempt to answer this question using three different standards, providing by the three dominant kinds of accounts of racism. I argue that on none of these accounts should agents like this be described as racists. However, it would be misleading to say, without qualification, that they are not racists. On none of these accounts are agents like this entirely off the hook. (shrink)

What is racism? is a timely question that is hotly contested in the philosophy of race. Yet disagreement about racism’s nature does not begin in philosophy, but in the sociopolitical domain. Alberto G. Urquidez argues that philosophers of race have failed to pay sufficient attention to the practical considerations that prompt the question “What is racism?” Most theorists assume that “racism” signifies a language-independent phenomenon that needs to be “discovered” by the relevant science or “uncovered” by (...) close scrutiny of everyday usage of this term. (Re-)Defining Racism challenges this metaphysical paradigm. Urquidez develops a Wittgenstein-inspired framework that illuminates the use of terms like “definition,” “meaning,” “explanation of meaning,” and “disagreement,” for the analysis of contested normative concepts. These elucidations reveal that providing a definition of “racism” amounts to recommending a form of moral representation—a rule for the correct use of “racism.” As definitional recommendations must be justified on pragmatic grounds, Urquidez takes as a starting point for justification the interests of racism's historical victims. (shrink)

Sri Lanka, once a colony of Britain, gained independence in 1948. However, especially the health sector continues to use English as its main medium of communication. Such language bias leads to marginalization of those less fluent in English, and hinders achieving a higher level of health literacy. Discrimination of people or social groups based on their language is termed linguicism. Tackling linguicism requires an understanding of its historic roots and an exploration of potential links to colonial racial prejudices. Published literature (...) presents evidence that traces linguicism to language policies of the British colonial government. Though an exhaustive survey of historical records is not presented, there is reasonable evidence to suggest a close link. British colonial rule derived its justification from supremacist and racist ideology. As a result, English became the medium in all forms of official communications, a situation that persisted after independence. A similar situation exists in many parts of the worlds. We should recognize language-based discrimination and linguicism as public health issues. They are detrimental to health of vulnerable groups and have the potential to worsen health disparities. (shrink)

abstract: Evidence from the Pali texts suggests that the Buddha opposed judging people on the grounds of their place of birth, their ethnic identity, or their skin color. In practice, however, Buddhist traditions have not been and are not free of such judgments. This article illustrates this through a case study of Buddhism in colonial and postcolonial Ceylon, with particular reference to the Aryan theory. It argues that the language of race and nation that emerged among Buddhists in this context (...) was influenced by three factors: the academic work of European linguists and ethnographers; Christian missionary representations of Buddhism; and readings of Pali texts that attributed the term ariya (noble, good, pure) to Buddhist communities. The article first examines the concept of ariya (Pali; Sanskrit: ārya ) in the Theravada Buddhist tradition. It then surveys the discourse in colonial Ceylon on the term "Aryan," including the involvement of Christian leaders and the Buddhist internalization of the discourse in the context of Christian missionary activity, as seen particularly in the writings of the Anagārika Dharmapāla (1864–1933). Another strand in the discourse is then isolated, namely the "othering" of the minority, "Dravidian" Tamils in colonial Ceylon, and the consequences of this in the postcolonial period. Finally, the article asks whether this case study can offer insights into the fault lines within Buddhist cultures, and indeed, Christian cultures, that could give rise to racism. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that political discourse in recent years has become more openly racist and more filled with wildly implausible conspiracy theories. Dogwhistles and Figleaves explores certain ways in which such changes—both of which defied previously settled norms of political speech—have been brought about. Jennifer Saul shows that two linguistic devices, dogwhistles and figleaves, have played a crucial role. Some dogwhistles (such as “88,” used by Nazis online to mean “Heil Hitler”) serve to disguise messages that would otherwise be (...) rejected as unacceptable, allowing them to be transmitted surreptitiously. Other dogwhistles (like the 1988 “Willie Horton” ad) work by influencing people in ways that they are not aware of, and which they would likely reject were they aware. Figleaves (such as “just asking questions”) take messages that could easily be recognized as unacceptable, and provide just enough cover that people become more willing to accept them. Importantly, these work against the background of a divided public. They are particularly effective in influencing people who are conflicted yet malleable—those who don’t want to be racist, for example, but are willing to be convinced that something which seems racist really isn’t. Saul shows how these dogwhistles and figleaves have both exploited and widened existing divisions in society, and normalized racist and conspiracist speech. (shrink)

Is it anachronistic to talk about racism in Hobbes? After all, racism is usually seen as biological: the disliked group must have innate characteristics which are inherited biologically. This is mostly said to be a modern idea. Yet biological racism can be found in medieval and early modern times, as with the Spanish doctrine of limpieza de sangre (cleanliness/purity of blood). Racism, including biological racism, was much more common in Hobbes’s England than we might think, (...) including in texts he may have read; the language of race was hardly uncommon either. Moreover, someone can be called a racist whether or not their dislike of a group is based on characteristics of a group that are inherited biologically, I argue. Whether Hobbes was a racist remains open to debate; this paper offers evidence both for and against that proposition. But we should not reject the question of Hobbes’s racism as anachronistic. (shrink)

The demons of racism, bigotry, and prejudice found in society at large are also found in the Christian Church. Despite the very nature of Christianity that calls on Christians to be a counter voice in the world against evil, many have capitulated to various strains of racism. Some Christian denominations have begun to explore racism in the Church and have developed responses to addressing the issues in both the Church and the world. This article examines the historical (...) context of race and religion in the Christian Church, and addresses the current efforts of some Christian denominations to become proactive in the struggle against racism. Jesus, in His Word, calls believers to pursue peace and oneness. The paper holds that racial harmony and racial unity are possible, but there are many false, old and d beliefs that will have to be crushed under the hammer of God's Word in order to get to a place of real peace. (shrink)

In this paper we explore a new way to deal with social inequality and injustice in an educational way. We do so by offering a particular reading of a scene taken from Minnelli's film The Band Wagon which is often regarded as overly western-centred and racist. We argue, however, that the way in which words and movements in this scene function are expressive of an event that can be read as a new beginning and that it is for this reason (...) in and of itself educational. By drawing on Agamben's and Cavell's insights on childhood and what it means to acquire a language, we argue that in this scene a form of childhood is displayed which denotes a general condition for education to take place in children and grown-ups alike. Hence, education can be understood as a interruption of existing power structures and as a transformation of one's existence. (shrink)

Some of the literature about teaching issues of race and racism in classrooms has addressed matters of audience. Zeus Leonardo, for example, has argued that teachers should use the language of white domination, rather than white privilege, when teaching about race and racism because the former language presupposes a minority audience, while the latter addresses an imaginary or presupposed white one. However, there seems to be little discussion in the literature about teaching these issues to an audience that (...) is in fact predominantly minority. Leonardo assumes that minority students need little convincing about the reality of white domination, but students of color are not a monolithic group. The paper addresses some specific challenges the author has faced teaching theories of white domination to a predominantly minority student audience in New York City. Leonardo is right that audience matters, but audience turns out to matter in ways that defy common assumptions. (shrink)

In theoritical and political writings, multiculturalism is most frequently understood in the language of recognition. Multiculturalist initiatives responds to the demands of minority cultures for political and cultural recognition so long denied them with devastating effects. In this article, we argue that the politics of recognition may have implicit dangers. In so far as it is articulated as a demand placed upon a dominant group and integrally tied to the substantiation of pre-given or fixed identity, it can easily mask or (...) even reiterate cultural hierarchization associated with Eurocentrism. We argue that it is necessary to understand recognition in terms of equal dignity; at the core of our argument is the insistence that all of us must have our potential to shape our identifications recognized by the state, such that we – and not the state – are the source of the meaning that they have to us, as individuals and as members of groups. (shrink)

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries many mathematicians referred to intuition as the indispensable research tool for obtaining new results. In this essay we will analyse a group of mathematicians who interacted with Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer in order to compare their conceptions of intuition. We will see how to the same word “intuition” very different meanings corresponded: they varied from geometrical vision, to a unitary view of a demonstration, to the perception of time, to the faculty of considering concepts (...) that habitually occur in our thinking separately. Furthermore, we will discover that these different meanings had a philosophical, very relevant counterside: they passed from a racial characterization of mathematics to a pluralistic view of it. (shrink)

Critics across the political spectrum have worried that ordinary uses of words like 'racist', 'sexist', and 'homophobic' are becoming conceptually inflated, meaning that these expressions are getting used so widely that they lose their nuance and, thereby, their moral force. However, the charge of conceptual inflation, as well as responses to it, are standardly made without any systematic investigation of how 'racist' and other expressions condemning oppression are actually used in ordinary language. Once we examine large linguistic corpora to see (...) how these expressions are actually used, we find that English speakers have a rich linguistic repertoire for qualifying the degree to which and dimensions along which something is racist, sexist, homophobic, and so on. These facts about ordinary usage undermine the charge of conceptual inflation. Without awareness of facts about ordinary usage, theorists risk making linguistic prescriptions that are unnecessary or counterproductive. (shrink)

Preview: No shortage of bigotry and prejudice can be found around the world. But why race to the bottom and compete for a monopoly on tragedy in human mistreatment? The philosophy of race is an intricate piece to the study of language, art, history, and culture and wants to learn about elsewhere and distant others. How we go about understanding the issues of identity politics and what solidifies a community’s sense of purpose and mythic consciousness hinges upon our attitudes toward (...) cultures and ethno-racial relations. When it comes to the migrant crises, socio-economic conditions aggravating inequalities, or geo-political conflicts, for example, people’s premonitions about race largely inform how they respond to the demands for social justice. Tracing the trajectory from chattel slavery, the trail of tears, Jim Crow laws and lynchings, the civil rights movements, police brutality and profiling, to Black Lives Matter should we be believers or skeptics of racial progress? Our global ethnoscape and diasporic makeup is vast and complex. Due to this, studying race is emerging from the backwaters of academia and becoming an essential mode of inquiry, especially in African American philosophy and philosophy of culture. Similar to the “linguistic turn,” philosophy is undergoing a “racial turn” of sorts. Philosophy’s transdisciplinary nature is well-suited to examine this ethno-racial complexity, but has not lived up to its potential by failing to take more seriously the social disadvantages endured by underrepresented groups. In many ways, philosophy contributed to the dark history of grounding antiblack racism in biology, anthropology, the social sciences, and speculative metaphysics. Hence, it is vital that all practioners in our profession, especially philosophers of culture, work on behalf of reconciliation and atonement for such sins. Furthermore, confronting questions about racism and social justice will “improve philosophy” as Naomi Zack and others have argued. (shrink)

Slavery and slave trade gave birth to racism and society has been struggling towards its prevention and possible elimination with little success. Martin Luther King Jr wrote in his letter from the Birmingham jail: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” Until this undeniable fact is understood and emphasized our contemporary society is heading towards a state of an uncontrollable wildfire of anarchy. (...) It is obvious that all fingers are not equal but that does not negate the fact that all men irrespective of colour or race are created equal—configured with brain, flesh, water, and blood. Racial discrimination is a moral and systemic sin that must be confronted and vehemently condemned. The main thrust of this paper is to expose various forms of racial discrimination ravaging the contemporary society with a view to postulating ideas geared towards its prevention and possible elimination. Relying on observational and historical methods, relevant data required will be elicited. The paper identified among other things that racism is resurging in the 21st century to a threatening dimension that if a coordinated action is not urgently taken, it will result into an uncontrollable wildfire of anarchy. The researcher therefore recommends the need to reemphasize respect and tolerance for all humanity. (shrink)

MAPEDZAHAMA V, RUDGE T, WEST S and PERRON A. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 153–164 [Epub ahead of print]Black nurse in white space? Rethinking the in/visibility of race within the Australian nursing workplaceThis article presents an analysis of data from a critical qualitative study with 14 skilled black African migrant nurses, which document their experiences of nurse‐to‐nurse racism and racial prejudice in Australian nursing workplaces. Racism generally and nurse‐to‐nurse racism specifically, continues to be under‐researched in explorations of these (...) workplaces; when racism is researched, the focus is nurse‐to‐patient racism and racial prejudice. Similarly, research on the experiences of migrant nurses from a variety of ethnicities in Australia has tended to neglect their experiences of the social dynamics of the workplace, thus reinforcing their racialisation. When racialised, the migrant nurse becomes ‘the problem’ through a focus on English language competency and ensuing communication barriers. This paper applies Essed’s framework of ‘everyday racism’ to theorise narratives of racism by black African migrant nurses in Australia. In so doing, it not only brings to the fore silenced discussions of nurse‐to‐nurse racism in Australia, but also exposes the subtle, mundane nature of contemporary racism. For this reason, while the data we present must be read within their context, that is, the Australian nursing workplace, it has significance for advancing a critical analysis of racialised minority groups’ experiences of racism within seemingly ‘race‐less’ nursing workplaces internationally. (shrink)

Projecting essence onto a social category means to think, talk, and act as if the category were a discrete natural kind and as if its members were all endowed with the same immutable attributes determined by the category's essence. Essentializing may happen implicitly or on purpose in representing ingroups and outgroups. We argue that essentializing is a versatile representational tool that is used to create identity in groups with chosen membership in order to make the group appear as a unitary (...) entity, that outsiders often draw on a group's essentialist self-construal in their judgements about the groups, that judgements about members of forced social categories are often informed by essentialist thinking that easily switches to discrimination and racism, and that under certain historical and political conditions members of social categories and groups may contest their essentialized identity, such as parts of the feminist movement, or that they may attempt to reconstruct an essentialized identity, such as parts of the homosexual movement or the largely defunct European nobility. Besides explicit political and power interests, we see communication processes and language use as a tacit force driving essentialization of social categories. (shrink)

In this book, Claire Horisk argues that the real problem with so-called offensive jokes-such as racist, sexist, and ethnic jokes-is not that they are offensive but that they are harmful, because they transmit and reinforce stereotypes and ideas that contribute to a network of unjust disadvantage for the derogated group. She distinguishes between belittling jokes, which shore up unjust disadvantage for social groups, and disparaging jokes, which derogate powerful groups such as doctors but do not contribute to unjust disadvantage. She (...) uses philosophy of language and linguistics to argue that both belittling and disparaging jokes communicate ideas by generalized conversational implicature, and to argue that defenses of derogatory remarks as 'just a joke' are inadequate, because jokes can be used to convey what people believe to be true. She focuses on jokes in ordinary conversation, showing that canonical accounts of cooperative conversation need to be enriched: Some people have greater power to shift the common ground of a conversation, and to introduce new presuppositions, than others, and there are alliances that exclude some parties to the conversation, and yet are powerful in setting the future course of the conversation. She also gives a new account of the morality of listening, arguing that sometimes people who listen to derogatory speech may be culpable for doing so. Throughout, she draws on a wealth of interdisciplinary evidence to support the book's claims and to explain why humor is an especially effective means of unjust discrimination. (shrink)

Defining a nurse as literate is disciplinary and contextual, linked to professional identity formation, and an issue impacting patient safety. Literacy and language proficiency are concepts assessed through examining skills in four pillars: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. This article explores how literacy is not only a practice issue but inextricably intertwined with issues of race, equity, diversity, and inclusiveness in our profession—both in regulatory policy and classroom pedagogy. In making the argument that language is a proxy for race, three (...) cases of language and literacy will be presented. First, the deficit discourse of multilingual student struggle is stereotyped to the presence or absence of an accent, with multilingual student needs often treated homogeneously in disregard of population heterogenous abilities. Second, regulatory policies for language testing internationally educated nurses are discriminatory with testing context bearing little relationship to the language needs of nursing practice. Third, that the myth of “one standard English” results in racist evaluation practices of student academic performance. Recommendations are made for reframing how language and literacy are viewed in nursing education and regulation of practice with a focus on acknowledgment of one's personal relationship to racial issues and emphasizing the need for a change in mindset toward racialized multilingual students and writers. (shrink)

New York University, USA In theoritical and political writings, multiculturalism is most frequently understood in the language of recognition. Multiculturalist initiatives responds to the demands of minority cultures for political and cultural recognition so long denied them with devastating effects. In this article, we argue that the politics of recognition may have implicit dangers. In so far as it is articulated as a demand placed upon a dominant group and integrally tied to the substantiation of pre-given or fixed identity, it (...) can easily mask or even reiterate cultural hierarchization associated with Eurocentrism. We argue that it is necessary to understand recognition in terms of equal dignity; at the core of our argument is the insistence that all of us must have our potential to shape our identifications recognized by the state, such that we - and not the state - are the source of the meaning that they have to us, as individuals and as members of groups. Key Words: multiculturalism • racism • recognition • U.S. politics and culture. (shrink)

Racism is responsible for discrimination against some citizens in Nigeria. It influences government's policies and actions and militates against equity and equal opportunity for all. It has effaced indigenous values and ebbed the country into groaning predicaments of shattered destiny and derailed national development. Racism hinges on superciliousness and the assumed superiority of one tribe and religion over the others. These bring to the fore two forms of racism in Nigeria: institutional and interpersonal racisms. The Western selfish (...) motive to dominate, marginalize, and sustain economic gains, political expansion, psycho-mental control, and socio-cultural devaluations escalated racism in Nigeria. Racist ideologies were entrenched through the selfish ventures of slave trade, colonialism and neo-colonialism, which enforced an unprecedented unjust harvest of impugnable systemic practices. Neo-colonial forces continue to promote ethnocentrism, cultural imperialism, and the dehumanization, exploitation, oppression, and suppression of Africans. Adopting a methodical approach of critical analysis, this article spotlights the negative effects of racism on Nigeria's development. However, the bristling challenges of racist ideologies can be resolved within the epistemological compass of gynist deconstruction approach to human thought and action for a better universe of one human race. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the uses of language in successive historical strategies in Brazil. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the Tupi language was the main vehicle for the catechising work of the Jesuits, a precondition for the conduction of the Indian to the mystical body of the Portuguese empire; from 1758 onwards, Portuguese was imposed as the sole official language for the integration of the Indian as a vassal of the Portuguese king; and in the nineteenth century, Tupi (...) became nationalised for literary and scientific purposes. In each moment, different figures of Indian otherness were traced, from the Jesuits' other as ‘the same’ or ‘fellow man’, to the other as ‘cultural difference’ or ‘racial difference’ in the civilising projects of the Brazilian empire. (shrink)

Over the last few years the diplomatic language of UN resolutions has repeatedly been questioned for the excessive presence of vagueness. The use of vague terms could be connected to the genre of diplomatic texts, as resolutions should be applicable to every international contingency and used to mitigate tensions between different legal cultures. However, excessive vagueness could also lead to biased or even strategically-motivated interpretations of resolutions, undermining their legal impact and triggering conflicts instead of diplomatic solutions. This study aims (...) at investigating intentional vagueness in Security Council resolutions, by focussing on the analysis of the resolutions relating to the second Gulf war. Using the qualitative Discourse-Historical approach (Wodak in Rhetorics of racism and antisemitism, Taylor & Francis Ltd., London [2000]) and quantitative analysis tools (Antconc and Sketch Engine), special attention is given to the historical/political consequences of the vagueness and indeterminacy used in that framework and to the study of vague ‘weasel words’ (Mellinkoff in The language of the law, Little, Brown & Company, Boston [1963]), modals, and adjectives contained in the corpus. The hypothesis of intentional vagueness is further reinforced through an analysis of the US legislation related to the outbreak of the war, to reveal how the US has legally interpreted UN legislation and to understand the purposes and consequences of vague language contained in it. The findings indicate that vagueness in resolutions has triggered the Iraqi conflict instead of diplomatic solutions with the overall legislative intent of using intentional vagueness as a political strategy. (shrink)

Kant is famous for his universalist moral theory, which emphasizes human dignity, equality, and autonomy. Yet he also defended sexist and (until late in his life) racist views. In this essay, I address the question of how current readers of Kant should deal with Kant’s sexism and racism. I first provide a brief description of Kant’s views on sexual and racial hierarchies, and of the way they intersect. I then turn to the question of whether we should set aside (...) Kant’s sexism and racism or ‘translate’ his egalitarian principles into inegalitarian ones. I argue for a third position, namely, that we should highlight the tensions that pervade Kant’s theory. In the final section, I argue that the use of inclusive language and female pronouns in recent discussions of Kant’s moral and political philosophy carries significant risks. I end by articulating several preconditions for fruitfully using Kant’s moral principles to criticize sexism and racism. (shrink)

This paper demonstrates the importance of the use of indigenous languages in formal contexts for the future of Africa’s peoples. Inter-cultural communication using one language wrongly assumes that the unfamiliar can be expressed using familiar terms. This author argues that long-term immersion by a Westerner amongst a non-Western people is a singular means of acquiring insights about them. Long-term participant observation forms the basis of the research for this article. When communicated globally, anti- racism strategies are found to be (...) problematic in their apparent denial of realities of non-Western cultures. The failure of many African communities to recognize and deal with the peculiarities of their own cultural contexts has potentially tragic consequences. Use of European languages is contributing to enormous dependence on the West and/or magic, and to gross under-development. Vulnerable intercultural exposure using non-Western languages and resources with concentrated efforts at understanding people’s theologies is advocated as the way forward. (shrink)

This paper describes how language contributes to the oppression and exploitation of animals by animal product industries. Critical Discourse Analysis, a framework usually applied in countering racism and sexism, is applied to a corpus of texts taken from animal industry sources. The mass confinement and slaughter of animals in intensive farms depend on the implicit consent of the population, signaled by its willingness to buy animal products produced in this way. Ideological assumptions embedded in everyday discourse and that of (...) the animal industries manufacture and maintain this consent. Through analysis of texts, this paper attempts to expose these assumptions and discusses implications for countering the domination and exploitation of animals. (shrink)

Derogatory terms (racist, sexist, ethnic, and homophobic epithets) are bully words with ontological force: they serve to establish and maintain a corrupt social system fuelled by distinctions designed to justify relations of dominance and subordination. No wonder they have occasioned public outcry and legal response. The inferential role analysis developed here helps move us away from thinking of the harms as being located in connotation (representing mere speaker bias) or denotation (holding that the terms fail to refer due to inaccurate (...) descriptive content). The issue is not bad attitudes or referential misfires. An inferential role semantic analysis of derogatory terms shows exactly what is at stake between those who argue that the terms should be eliminated (Absolutists) and those who claim they can be successfully rehabilitated (Reclaimers). The Reclaimer maintains, and the Absolutist denies, that certain contexts can detach the derogatory force from deeply derogatory terms. The article looks at these claims with respect to ‘nigger’ and ‘dyke,’ setting out the inferential role of each term and examining detachability potential. Explaining detachability in terms of linguistic commitments, this article also addresses the issue of whether such terms count as political discourse, and examines the implications of that issue. (shrink)

Contemporary discussions of race and racism devote considerable effort to giving conceptual analyses of these notions. Much of the work is concerned to investigate a priori what we mean by the terms ‘ race ’ and ‘racism’ ; more recent work has started to employ empirical methods to determine the content of our “folk concepts,” or “folk theory” of race and racism. In contrast to both of these projects, I have argued elsewhere that in considering what we (...) mean by these terms we should treat them on the model of kind terms whose reference is fixed by ordinary uses, but whose content is discovered empirically using social theory; I have also argued that it is not only important to determine what we actually mean by these terms, but what we should mean, i.e., what type, if any, we should be tracking. My own discussion of these issues, however, has been confused and confusing. In giving an account of race or gender, is the goal to provide a conceptual analysis? Or to investigate the kinds we are referring to? To draw attention to different kinds? To stipulate new meanings? Jennifer Saul has raised a series of powerful objections to my accounts of gender and race, suggesting that they are neither semantically nor politically useful, regardless of whether we treat them as revisionary proposals, or as elucidations of our concepts. Joshua Glasgow has also offered a critique of my externalist approach to race as an effort to capture “our concept”. I agree with much of what they say, but I also believe that there is something I was trying to capture that. (shrink)

Derogatory terms (racist, sexist, ethnic, and homophobic epithets) are bully words with ontological force: they serve to establish and maintain a corrupt social system fuelled by distinctions designed to justify relations of dominance and subordination. No wonder they have occasioned public outcry and legal response. The inferential role analysis developed here helps move us away from thinking of the harms as being located in connotation (representing mere speaker bias) or denotation (holding that the terms fail to refer due to inaccurate (...) descriptive content). The issue is not bad attitudes or referential misfires. An inferential role semantic analysis of derogatory terms shows exactly what is at stake between those who argue that the terms should be eliminated (Absolutists) and those who claim they can be successfully rehabilitated (Reclaimers). The Reclaimer maintains, and the Absolutist denies, that certain contexts can detach the derogatory force from deeply derogatory terms. The article looks at these claims with respect to ‘nigger’ and ‘dyke,’ setting out the inferential role of each term and examining detachability potential. Explaining detachability in terms of linguistic commitments, this article also addresses the issue of whether such terms count as political discourse, and examines the implications of that issue. (shrink)

Is the term ‘racist’ being applied so widely that it is losing its moral force? Theorists and pundits from across the political spectrum think that it is. They call such a change of meaning “conceptual inflation” and argue that we should try to stop it by restricting the use of ‘racist’ or replacing ‘racist’ with new expressions. But what evidence do we have that ‘racist’ is inflated? Economists do not track currency inflation with mere vibes; they use measurements such as (...) the consumer price index. For example, using CPI, it is observable that there has been considerable US dollar inflation over the last three decades or so: $1.00 in 1989 has the purchasing power of $2.54 in 2024. If ‘racist’ has undergone a similar transformation, as critics of conceptual inflation contend, how could that be measured? Before plunging into the normative debate about whether conceptual inflation is good or bad, we should gather systematic empirical evidence about whether the purported conceptual inflation of ‘racist’ is in fact happening. That is what we do in this paper: we use an apparent time study, a technique drawn from sociolinguistics, to measure whether ‘racist’ is undergoing conceptual inflation. An apparent time study looks at the linguistic behavior of people of different ages as a way of measuring linguistic variation over time. We distinguish two processes that constitute conceptual inflation: extension expansion and intensity bleaching. Across three studies, we found some equivocal evidence that ‘racist’ has undergone extension expansion—its reference class may have slightly expanded—but no evidence that it has undergone intensity bleaching—its moral force remains the same. By comparing ‘racist’ with other terms that have plausibly undergone meaning change, like ‘queer’, we argue that claims about the conceptual inflation of ‘racist’, as they are standardly understood, are overblown. (shrink)

This essay explores the speech act of dogwhistling (sometimes referred to as ‘using coded language’). Dogwhistles may be overt or covert, and within each of these categories may be intentional or unintentional. Dogwhistles are a powerful form of political speech, allowing people to be manipulated in ways they would resist if the manipulation was carried outmore openly—often drawing on racist attitudes that are consciously rejected. If philosophers focus only on content expressed or otherwise consciously conveyed they may miss what is (...) most powerful and pernicious in the speech of political culture. This essay is a call to start paying attention to these more covert speech acts, and a first attempt at beginning to theorize them. It argues that dogwhistles present a complex and interesting case for the philosopher of language, and explores their implications for democratic politics. (shrink)

Can Wittgenstein's philosophy help us to see religious diversities? Thomas D. Carroll uses Wittgenstein's thoughts on religion and language to bring a cross-cultural perspective to philosophy of religion. Through a focus on Chinese philosophical and religious traditions and the intertwining of racism and religion in the United States, Carroll highlights two related features of Wittgenstein's philosophy: the relevance of contextual backgrounds to interpreting ways of life and the importance of reflecting on existential purposes in philosophical inquiry. Committed to the (...) essential task of expanding philosophy of religion, Carroll critically studies the term “religion” and goes beyond the traditional categories of belief to consider diverse religious phenomena such as rituals, practices, institutions, forms of belonging, and pragmatic forms of religious engagement. We see the value of paying close attention to social contexts and refusing to oversimplify interpretation of philosophical arguments. By demonstrating how Wittgenstein's ideas can enrich our understanding of the complex phenomenon of religion and the place it has in our lives, this inclusive and timely study asks us to rethink how we approach philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Based on onto–epistemological pluralism and social practices this work maintains that the proclamation of cultural neutrality originating in the idea of equality without any distinction of color, sex, language, religion or political opinion, really favors white racism and cultural imperialism of the liberal way of life.This article argues that the process of reasoning which justifies human rights is distorted by particular interests, such as the colonization of American territory in the case of the Declaration of the Good People of (...) Virginia in 1776. As no–one questioned the reasons upon which the false belief that some human beings were classified as inferior or superior according to their physical features, it was reiterated as if it were a truth and, consequently acted upon, thereby fixing this belief in stereotypes. In this article I argue that the present Declaration of Human Rights is the result of continuing inherited presuppositions from the 18th Century. These have not been questioned and have constituted the world in which we live as a racist world in which the liberal tradition has consolidated its political power. (shrink)

Here, the claim that Middle Eastern persons are racialized is a response to complexities that define the United States ; namely, the language of race is seen as antiquated or misleading, and thus it fails to capture MENA American experiences, leading some to call for different terminology. The author argues that we should call social-political violence committed against MENA people racism because to name it otherwise is to ground the experience in an incomplete description which affords lighter moral responsibility (...) and omits historical conflict. The article first elaborates the problem of racial conflict in the US and the specific problem of MENA racialization. It then responds with a historical argument that emphasizes key genealogical markers in the co-emergence of orientalism, colonialism, and racialization. The article closes by contrasting the idea of race with competing terms to defend its use on descriptive and normative grounds. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Learning to BreatheFive Fragments Against RacismB. Venkat Mani (bio)For Dr. JLW, for all Black academics and students1. Air HungerI know you, Derek Chauvin. You may think that we first met on May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis. I was called George Perry Floyd. For you, I was just another Black man, a potential criminal. For me, you were not a police officer, but the knee that stands for racism. (...) You kneeled on my windpipe for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. Those were neither my first nor my last memories.You may choose not to recognize me, as you always have. But I do. I recognize every bone, muscle, tendon, pointy curve of the cap, every contour of your strong, heavy, determined, calculating, conniving knee that presses on my windpipe with a false sense of racist superiority. 9 minutes and 29 seconds. As often as you can.We have a history. You have never missed the opportunity of kneeling on my windpipe. You hauled me into your slave ships from various African ports along the Atlantic, then you kneeled on my windpipe all over your cotton and tobacco plantations in the Americas. We met again on schooners from Indian shores journeying across the Indian and Pacific oceans. With slavery banned in the British empire, you turned me into an indentured laborer. You made me put my thumb imprint on a document you created, in a script I could not read, of a language I could not speak. Then you threw me thousands of miles away in Mauritius, Fiji, and numerous Caribbean islands, pressing on my windpipe on sugarcane plantations. My wife, children, sisters, mothers, aunts, brothers, uncles, nephews, nieces, grandparents, great grandparents, we all have lived through those fatal 9 minutes and 29 seconds: on water and land. Repeatedly. Consistently. Incessantly.You want specific dates? April 8, 1857, Barrackpore, Northern India. My name was Mangal Pandey, you called me a Sepoy. You hanged me for standing up against my subjugation by your British East India Company. Against your rule over my land and my people. With your many titles [End Page 41] and names: Major-General Sir Henry Havelock, Lieutenant-General Sir Colin Campbell, Brigadier-General Charles Windham, you rampaged through the streets of Delhi, Meerut, Lucknow, killing anyone in your way so I could be a jewel in Victoria's crown. January 29, 1863, Bear River, Idaho. I was one among the Shoshone of Bia Ogoi, you were Colonel Patrick Connor. You came to us on a frigid morning and killed us by the hundreds. November 15, 1884, the Congo Conference, Berlin. You were called Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and were acting at the behest of sharecropping interests of King Leopold the Second. Your name for me was a "savage." You set up a society to civilize me while you plundered my bounty. You started drawing lines through land, rivers, mountains, deserts. For you, it was the Scramble for Africa. For me, bloody murder. You knelt on my windpipe, smoking a pipe with tobacco my people had grown. April 13, 1919, Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar. You were called Brigadier General Reginald Edward Harry Dyer. For you, I was just a troublemaking native disrupting the civilized business of the Empire. You surrounded our peaceful gathering in Amritsar and opened fire. Your Nobel Laureate Rudyard Kipling claimed that "you did your duty as you saw fit." By killing us in thousands until the bullets ran out. Rikki Tikki Tavi. May 31, 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Inspired by Jim Crow, your knees came running to us in mobs to massacre us. October 19, 1926, Imperial Conference, London. Your name was Field Marshall the Right Honorable Jan Christian Smuts. For you, I was one among the many "colored" subjects from the Cape Colony. You spoke vehemently against mixing my people with your people. Eloquently, I was told, in favor of apartheid.You know very well, Chauvin, that our acquaintance neither begins in 1857 nor ends in 1926. I could take you on a grand tour of the world and give you all the dates when you appeared in different forms. Your self-induced conviction of racial supremacy over me remained the same... (shrink)