posted
I just finished a book called "The Racial Contract," by Charles Mills. In the book, Mills draws upon traditional contract theory to show that white supremacy is in fact, if only subtly expressed in theory, the political system upon which modern social contract theory depends. Social contract theory roughly argues that modern democratic civilization is motivated by the idea that free individuals in the past either have, or would have, joined together, ceding the power of violence to the state, agreeing not to do any direct harm to each other, in order to create a space where all the signatories of this contract live better. This is a pervasive trope in Western public thought. For example, the signing of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitutional Convention can easily be seen as modern contract theory in the flesh.
Different contract theorists construe different motivations for signing the contract: Hobbes says we sign it for the safety and comfort the contract provides, for Locke, contract signing is the easiest way to facilitate commerce and the institution of private property, Kant understands the contract as the natural extension of human reason, and for Mill, the contract is an elegant way to bind society to promote utilitarianism. It's a moderately unobjectionable statement that these thinkers, along with Rousseau, represent the foundation of western political social contract theory. For the most part, this is the way academic political and legal philosophy talks about contract theory, with modern updates from Rawls, Nozick, and a handful of other thinkers who often look back to Hobbes, Kant, Mill, and Locke.
The problem Mills understands in social contract theory is that the theory is founded within a broader Racial Contract. This Racial Contract is the agreement that whites have come to about nonwhites: Hobbes thought that the American Indians were natural savages outside of civilization; Kant and Locke didn't believe that non-whites were annexed the same powers of intellect by God to see the beauty and ordered laws in the world; and Mill did not hesitate to give whites more than one vote when it came to his utilitarian calculus, as non-whites were not as morally sensitive. These contract theorists, while talking about equality within the contract in theory, all posited in practice, other, lesser races for whom the benefits of the white signatories were not extended.
The result is a pathology among Western whites where they it's completely consistent to misinterpret the political facts of their violent behavior in lieu of the idea of universal political freedom.
This willing divorce of political ideology and political practice explains why the same men who signed off on the statement that all men are created equal, voted that blacks weren't full men. This dualism also explains virtuous and violent conquests and colonizations by Europe from the enlightenment on through WWII. It even explains the My Lai Vietnam massacre, and Calley's subsequent suspended sentence, while others have served time for doing much less than overseeing the killing of a few hundred civilians.
Admittedly, this pathological dualism is largely specific to Western social political thought, because ours is one of the few traditions who talk the rhetoric of universal freedom and equality.
Mills argues that the social contract is an agreement whites have between themselves to misinterpret the political facts of the world, and their subjugation of non-whites, but with the assurance that their misinterpretations will be validated by white institutional authority. The punchline is that all of this conditioning not to see the world as it is, but instead, to see the world as they have imagined it to be, has produced "the ironic outcome that whites will in general be unable to understand the world they themselves have made."(pg. 18)
If you understand the racial contract as underlying the social contract, the Nazi Holocaust makes sense as the Germans just redefining the Jews and Gypsies as non-white, and using the same means the colonizers used at the time. The racial contract also explains why it's completely reasonable for democratic Israel to treat Palestinians as the other. Most importantly, understanding the Racial Contract allows these events to be considered as the norm rather than a deviation of social contract theory. The colonial enterprise, My Lai, the Holocaust, and the Indian Massacres and perfidy were not aberrations. They were working within the norm of the racial contract. And by understanding the Racial Contract, the ease in which democratic whites move to violently dominate non-whites becomes a matter for political philosophy, and with the Racial Contract, the fact of systemic white supremacy actually becomes a legitimate topic of political philosophy. For example, it makes the topic of illegal immigration-- and the tempting draw of institutionalizing a second tier citizenship in America-- much more than about cheap labor.
And if we rightly begin to divorce whiteness from a biological trait to an ethnicity, it explains how Alberto Gonzales can be caught up in the same white pathology that allows us to ask a white person whether all people should be treated with dignity, have the person will say yes, then ask the same white person about torture and prisoner's rights, and have the person will start to back pedal, with the added kicker that the person will back pedal with an astounding amount of popular and institutional support defending his claims that prisoners don't really count as people.
This divorce of biology and ethnicity also allows for race traitors like Howard Dean or Eleanor Roosevelt or any white person who was not complicit in the white supremest system of modern social contract theory.
"The Racial Contract" covers a lot of ground in 133 pages. I think that Mills did a good job.
posted
My first read of this was "what does this have to do with contracts" But then I step back and realize you aren't talking about the same kind of contracts that my mind is stuck with and it all makes a bit more sense
quote:The problem Mills understands in social contract theory is that the theory is founded within a broader Racial Contract. This Racial Contract is the contract is the agreement that whites have come to about nonwhites...
This part is a load of bull.
Basically, what is required to draw your conclusion is the belief that white people will never be able to think of non-whites as fully equal human beings (and thus deserving of equality within the social contract).
That's a steaming pile.
The entire hypothesis boils down to: people will define other people as "not the same sort of human" in order to deny them access to benefits extended to other humans. Well, duh. Of course that's true. And frequently this denial occurs across racial lines. But the idea that this is somehow a problem endemic to Western philosophy is just ludicrous.
Mainly, Irami, what I find amusing -- and more than a little offensive at the same time -- is the idea that you're seizing at yet another rationale to justify your own deep distrust of "whites," without somehow realizing the extraordinarily hollow pseudointellectualism that's shoring it up. Are you really going to claim that such a "Racial Contract" doesn't exist among non-whites?
quote: Basically, what is required to draw your conclusion is the belief that white people will never be able to think of non-whites as fully equal human beings (and thus deserving of equality within the social contract).
That's not required at all. I do believe that there is a strong incentive to abide by the Racial Contract, as it stands, and that whites who don't abide will be branded as irrational or race-traiters. In addition, I think that there is an enormous, almost pathological blind spot with respect to social contract theory that allows white legal and political theorists to talk about democratic politics without even acknowledging or noticing the racial contract. This is one of the reasons why I believe that modern political philosophy is in such a bad way.
________
quote:The entire hypothesis boils down to: people will define other people as "not the same sort of human" in order to deny them access to benefits extended to other humans. Well, duh. Of course that's true. And frequently this denial occurs across racial lines. But the idea that this is somehow a problem endemic to Western philosophy is just ludicrous.
It's not the issue of "not the same sort of human," but that others are not fully human. And this pathology is unique to western social contract theory because are talking about a tradition that posits freedom and equality from the get go. It's this hypocrisy, and the inability to see it, act to right it, and even acknowledge its existence, that makes the Racial Contract a problem in western political theory.
posted
White legal and political theorists acknowledge the "racial contract" all the time. We call it prejudice, and generally point it out when it's obvious.
This "racial contract" crap boils down to the idea that people dehumanize the Other. Well, wow. That's freshman-year sociology.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I don't suppose it helps to point out that the American revolution was dealing with colonialism itself. Sure it was a white boys only club, but various amendments have corrected that. In practice, it still mostly is, but there is no law barring the ascendance of minorities. I can't find the quote anymore, but at one point Barak Obama's wiki had his statement that minorities have to relinquish their victimhood or something to that effect.
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quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: The result is a pathology among Western whites where they it's completely consistent to misinterpret the political facts of their violent behavior in lieu of the idea of universal political freedom.
Is that pathology also present in Asians who advocate universal political freedom? Is it also present in Blacks that advocate the same?
Or is this strictly a pathology for white people?
quote: ...with the added kicker that the person will back pedal with an astounding amount of popular and institutional support defending his claims that prisoners don't really count as people.
"Don't count as enemy combatants" I can buy happening, but do not count *as people*, ...astounding amount? You're going to have to back that up.
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quote:In practice, it still mostly is, but there is no law barring the ascendancy of minorities.
That's absolutely true, especially if one is willing to accept the Racial Contract, which largely means that one does not talk about white supremacy and the racial contract. Cosby made his money by ignoring race realities, and urges other blacks to do the same. Gonzales became Attorney General by being a Latino who is casual about torture. Clarence Thomas is a role model because guys like Bush Sr. promote him to the supreme court, and OSC buys his books. Raisin in the Sun is one of the most popular black authored plays in American history because it depicts a black family who wants nothing more dearly than to be a middle class white family. Obama may even become President because he speaks to white talking points and respects the racial contract and priorities, which includes the idea that getting American soldiers home from Iraq is much more important than talking about prisons and schools. There is a great deal of money and prestige available for bright minorities who don't bring up the racial contract, and thereby remain complicit in the political system of white supremacy.
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quote:especially if one is willing to accept the Racial Contract, which largely means that one does not talk about white supremacy and the racial contract
Okay, so let's be clear about this: evidence for the "Racial Contract" is that white people don't talk about the racial contract?
Man, Irami, when will you wake up and realize that you're just trying to justify your own racism?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:this pathological dualism is largely unique to Western social political thought, because ours is one of the few traditions who talk the rhetoric of universal freedom and equality.
Unique as in, "Been around in some form or other since God?"
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quote:There is a great deal of money and prestige available for bright minorities who don't bring up the racial contract, and thereby remain complicit in the political system of white supremacy.
But would you call them race-traitors?
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posted
Scott, there is another element to this debate which centers around instituting white supremacy and the Racial Contract because white Christians are the only ones gifted enough to understand God's plan for civilization. I fully admit that colonization was a dominant theory because non-Christians were established as heathen others who could be slaughtered with moral impunity and even praise in the eyes of God.
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quote:my point was not about religion, but about history.
Even if your point was about history, I still think that robust discourse concerning the viability of democratic freedom only exists in localized pockets of history, whereas brutal subjugation is all over the general run. The blend of western democratic theory and the Racial Contract is significant because here we have both, with one trope denying the existence of the other.
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posted
What's the difference between treating black inequally in 19th century America, and treating women inequally in Plato's Greece?
Both societies recognized a Tribe; blacks were not included in 19th century America; women (and others) were not included in Greece. The Tribe got a say in the political and sociological decisions; the Other did not.
It's old news, brother.
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posted
Not much, except that Athens wasn't explained by social contract theory.
Personally, I'm not being into contract theory. Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, and the whole American legal system is all kind of blah to me, but if we are going to talk about social contract theory, then I don't think it's appropriate to ignore the Racial Contract.
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quote:This Racial Contract is the agreement that whites have come to about nonwhites:
Part of the problem I'm having is that you still haven't told us what the Racial Contract is.
Typically a contract can be summarized by listing the promises made by each party. I can summarize the social contract easily in a sentence: a promise made by a member of society to restrict his behavior in certain ways made in exchange for the same promise by other members of society.
It doesn't have to be one sentence, but can you summarize the promises white people have made to each other as part of this Racial Contract.
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posted
That not every person or group in a society is entitled to the full respect, as humans, of the social contract signatories. For example, it's permissible for the US government to go back on a treaty it made with an Indian tribe.
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posted
Irami, I would argue that -- in the cases cited -- the people involved did not believe that the groups excluded were in their society.
And, again, I don't see any evidence that this is unique to "white" civilization. Looked at Rwanda lately?
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posted
So what do you want people to do then, stop wearing clothes in rejection of the white social contract?
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posted
I don't understand how this fits the word contract. As I understand it, a contract is an agreement that multiple parties enter into that delineates the things that the different sides are promising to do.
I don't see mulitple parties here and I don't see any sort of promises.
It sounds like a term poorly chosen to play off of the idea of a Social Contract.
edit: Looks like Dag has addressed this in more detail already.
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Also, the idea that Bill Cosby is some sort of Uncle Tom is patently absurd. You may as well say the same of Hari Belafonte or Sidney Poitier.
posted
The idea that if a black guy ascends to the single most powerful (and real power, too) position in the society, that's evidence of racism against black guys is pretty damn out-there.
And to answer your question, Tom, "Never. Especially not when it's a white-devil telling him."
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posted
"This racial contract" seems like it would be more appropriately named "The tribal contract". Mills seems to take the general theory that humans fear strangers and specializes it to white people. The real issue is that humans have natural tendencies to work together with people they know and to avoid those who they don't. Race is one [obsolete] way of identifying strangers, but it is certainly not the only. The idea that this is a white person thing is bunk (Tom's example of the Rwandan genocide being a perfect example of non-white ethnicity-based dehumanization).
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The Koran makes the statement that you claim only Western Politics does--that all men are created equal. But to quote Animal Farm, some are more equal than others.
The Koran states that all Muslims are equal, yet those who follow the ways of the Shiah and those that follow the ways of the Sunni don't count each other as equals.
Then I have seen good Muslims from Iran argue that 9/11 could not have been caused by Al-Queda because, and I quote from a man of Persian lineage, "Those Arabs aren't smart enough to pull something like that off."
Tribalism is everywhere.
Western White leaders of the time of Locke were not only arguing that Blacks were not white enough, but that Slavs, Italians, and the Irish were not quite human either.
The Jews you use to prove the "Racial Contract" in Isreal are also a Non-White race when the Nazi's began exterminating them.
Still with all of that, does a Racial Contract exist similar to a Social Contract.
I think so.
But it only exists in the minds of the more racially segregated people, and that is people of all races, everywhere.
Whether you are talking about a Russian Colonel who can't get a promotion because he was not born in true Russia, but has Arab/Persian blood in him, or if you are talking an Indian woman who has her marriage arranged so she can move up in the caste system, there are people who believe and promote a Racial Contract--perhaps not the same one, but one they follow.
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quote:In practice, it still mostly is, but there is no law barring the ascendancy of minorities.
That's absolutely true, especially if one is willing to accept the Racial Contract, which largely means that one does not talk about white supremacy and the racial contract. Cosby made his money by ignoring race realities, and urges other blacks to do the same. Gonzales became Attorney General by being a Latino who is casual about torture. Clarence Thomas is a role model because guys like Bush Sr. promote him to the supreme court, and OSC buys his books. Raisin in the Sun is one of the most popular black authored plays in American history because it depicts a black family who wants nothing more dearly than to be a middle class white family. Obama may even become President because he speaks to white talking points and respects the racial contract and priorities, which includes the idea that getting American soldiers home from Iraq is much more important than talking about prisons and schools. There is a great deal of money and prestige available for bright minorities who don't bring up the racial contract, and thereby remain complicit in the political system of white supremacy.
Wait a minute...isn't a common minority complaint that too much of the American military consists of minorities because white people are rich and can afford to opt out? Either way, whatever the rationale is, I've heard that complaint before, and considering so much of the military IS of the minorities races in America, why wouldn't Iraq be very much a minority issue? Seems kind of cheap to call it a white issue when Obama wants to get us out of there, but I bet if ALL the white people wanted us to stay, you'd call THAT racism too.
And how are schools purely a minority issue either? Schools aren't a minority issue, they are an EVERYONE issue, and if you wanted to break it down a little more, I'd call it an economic class issue more than a black issue. Poor and mid to lower class white people are having just as many problems as black people are finding good schools and finding a way to pay for their kids to go to them, and being from Michigan, with our wonderful little one state recession and Republicans running our education system into the ground, I know how that is first hand, not just as part of an intellectual debate. You're far too quick to call something a black issue while ignoring the stake whites have in it too. Get off your high horse.
PS. And if I understand this correctly, the first rule of Racial Contract Theory is: "Don't talk about Racial Contract Theory"?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
It's strange. Frequently I'm one who's willing to continue arguing an issue long after it's obvious that the mind I'm arguing with won't be changed, and that my mind won't be changed. Sometimes I do this in order to increase understanding. Others, I just do it because I enjoy arguing or pointing out flaws. Kate Boots being an example of the former, and people such as Irami and KoM being an example of the latter.
It's like Irami is playing, "How close can I come to saying something without actually saying it?" when the things being said are "black man elected president=systemic racism" and "white people are the most awfulest people around".
If his mind is ever going to be changed, it's certainly not going to be some honky that does it. Even though us crackers may not want (actively) to be awful, may not be aware (consciously) that we're awful, and may in fact be committed (publicly) to not being awful, the truth is we're so deeply and subtly awful that it's just not going to change. This is a pretty liberating way to think about race relations, since it helps one exclude any views favorable to the opposition because of the one already accepted truth.
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posted
Drawn by a child in my friend's ESL class in Korea:
Likes: meat, chicken, video games. Dislikes: green peppers, homework, Japan people.
More enculturated prejudice: Crow vs. Cheyenne. Apache vs. Mexican. Chickasaw vs. EVERYONE. Ha.
Racism against American Indians has been rampant since 1492, but I think broken treaties have more to do with Economics and Real Estate than with ethnic discrimination. They could have been lily white, but they weren't speaking English or accruing person wealth. They were a conquerable people living on valuable land. Me wants land, me takes it. Most of those treaties came about when people like the Lakotas were powerful enough to beat the pants off of the as of yet not well funded U.S. Military. A treaty was a great way to get them to stand down long enough for the military to recuperate; and then go back and take what they (the U.S. govt.) wanted.
I really don't find this kind of discourse to be part of a solution; if anything it conjures up racism where it wasn't in the first place. I am not saying there isn't racism; it just isn't everywhere some people claim it to be. Or want it to be, in order to rationalize their own prejudice and fears.
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posted
When an issue that is so black and white (heh) comes up, I always feel sorta left out.
I never know where Asians fit in.
What, are we not prosperous enough to be part of the white conspiracy to keep the black man down?
On the other hand, are we too prosperous to be part of the downtrodden, the ones that the white man is placing his boot upon?
Can we not get a memo from at least one side of this so-called divide? As it stands, it seems like we neither get the benefits of being able to play the victim OR the benefits of being the oppressor. What a jip Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
I think Irami has said that he considers most Asians to be "culturally white." Then again, Irami seems to conveniently consider everyone who is middle class or above and/or who owns a business to be "culturally white." Except himself. Just like how he considers everyone else racist except himself.
What the heck? We were sewing stuff and starting to build walls, walls that would later be expanded and become labelled "great" when white people were still shivering in furs. (Note: White man, do not be offended, I'm sure they were great furs. I'll need your help with hedge fund selection later)
What a load! Culturally white... But I suppose the monocles, Cuban cigars, and bags of American money to light the cigars with should make the pain go away a bit. I do expect a country club membership too.
I'll get on informing the relatives at once. Oh wait, one note of clarification...those billion or so peasant relatives I have in China. Do they at least get share the "we're being oppressed by the evil white man" card or do they also get in on the free monocle deal...because thats a lot of monocles.
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quote:What the heck? We were sewing stuff and starting to build walls, walls that would later be expanded and become labelled "great" when white people were still shivering in furs. (Note: White man, do not be offended, I'm sure they were great furs. I'll need your help with hedge fund selection later)
Laying aside the fact I agree with you that technologically and in many ways philosophically China was ahead of the rest of the world for a very long time, I would not use the Great Wall of China as an example of cultural superiority.
It was a stupid wall that took hundreds of years to build, cost the lives of thousands who worked themselves to death to build it, and it failed in what it was designed to do. It was the product of an Emperor's hubris, not of Chinese prowess.
It should be rightly called, "The Great Engineering Blunder of China," to quote Scott Adams.
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Culturally white?!?
What the heck? We were sewing stuff and starting to build walls, walls that would later be expanded and become labelled "great" when white people were still shivering in furs. (Note: White man, do not be offended, I'm sure they were great furs. I'll need your help with hedge fund selection later)
Perhaps we spent our time learning to spell gyp? Posts: 1621 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
pH: Thanks. But I think we get them in the mail, along with the cigars.
BlackBlade:
Humourous response: White man, we didn't call it the Great Wall. AFAIK, we call it 长城 or Chángchéng which just means "long wall" which is pretty damn undebatable.I just put in in there because some white dude dubbed it "Great".
While it failed, at least it worked for several hundred years before some horse-riding Mongols finally figured out that they could bribe the Chinese guards rather than fight their way through. How did your white Maginot line fair? Yeah thats right, completed in 1939, circumvented by invasion in one year
Oh crap, why did I bring it up as great then. Augh! I AM "culturally white"! I *deserve* those monocles! *sobs*
Serious response: You're almost completely right, I just picked the fastest Chinese thing I could think of. If you haven't noticed, I'm not being entirely serious here.
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quote:Originally posted by pH: Then again, Irami seems to conveniently consider everyone who is middle class or above and/or who owns a business to be "culturally white." Except himself. Just like how he considers everyone else racist except himself.
-pH
Yes.
quote:Originally posted by pH: Dude, I want a monocle...
posted
Mucus: Because you asked, "Chang Cheng" literally means "Long City." Last I checked chang cheng didn't even have a crapper much less a city hall, but hey call it what you will. Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:While it failed, at least it worked for several hundred years before some horse-riding Mongols finally figured out that they could bribe the Chinese guards rather than fight their way through. How did your white Maginot line fair? Yeah thats right, completed in 1939, circumvented by invasion in one year
Well, on the flip side of that, the Maginot Line did precisely what it was designed to do: Stop the Germans from invading over the German/French border. And they didn't, they simply went around it and through Belgium. They decided not to build it through Belgium because it would have been too expensive, which ironically in hindsight was a stupid guess, since a small extension would have been much cheaper than having most of France levelled by the war.
If the Germans had had to go THROUGH the Maginot Line, WWII would have likely gone quite differently. Instead of overrunning France as they did, they probably would have ended up in a situation similar to WWI, and the French Navy would have been a serious hindrance on the high seas.
And so that one little "oops" moment helped change the course of history.
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But then I step back and realize you aren't talking about the same kind of contracts that my mind is stuck with and it all makes a bit more sense ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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