"Heart" attack: A critique of Jorge Garcia's volitional conception of racism

Journal of Ethics

Volumn 7, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 29-62

  Mills, Charles W ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO   (United States)

Author keywords

Analysis of racism; Jorge garcia; Racism; Virtue theory; Volitional account of racism

Indexed keywords

EID: 59849086971     PISSN: 13824554     EISSN: 15728609     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1022874712554     Document Type: Article

References (64)

1. J. L. A. Garcia, "The Heart of Racism," Journal of Social Philosophy 27 (1996), pp. 5-45.
2. Garcia, "The Heart of Racism," in Leonard Harris (ed.), Racism (Amherst: Humanity Books, 1999), pp. 398-434
3. and in Bernard Boxill (ed.), Race and Racism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 257-296.
4. An excerpt also appears in James A. Mont-marquet and William H. Hardy (eds.), Reflections: An Anthology of African American Philosophy (Belmont: Wadsworth, 2000), pp. 33-45. In my page citations, I will refer throughout to the version in the Boxill anthology.
5. J. L. A. Garcia, "Current Conceptions of Racism: A Critical Examination of Some Recent Social Philosophy," Journal of Social Philosophy 28 (1997), pp. 5-42 (hereafter cited as "Current Conceptions");
6. J. L. A. Garcia, "Philosophical Analysis and the Moral Concept of Racism," Philosophy and Social Criticism 25 (1999), pp. 1-32 (hereafter cited as "Philosophical Analysis");
7. J. L. A. Garcia, "Racism and Racial Discourse," The Philosophical Forum 32 (2001), pp. 125-145 (hereafter cited as "Racial Discourse").
8. Charles W. Mills, The Racial Contract (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997);
9. J. L. A. Garcia, "The Racial Contract Hypothesis," Philosophia Africana 4(1) (2001), pp. 27-42.
10. J. L. A. Garcia, The Heart of Racism (forthcoming).
11. Indeed, it is a sin. Garcia generally keeps his religious commitments under wraps, but every now and then they slip out, as for example here, in a discussion of institutional racism: "While racism is chiefly a sin, it may come to inhabit what Pope John Paul II calls 'structures of sin.' " Garcia, "Racial Discourse," p. 136. One illuminating way to think of his enterprise is as a secularization of a traditional Catholic discourse on sin, with all the familiar attendant problems such a project is likely to face as attempted socio-political analysis.
12. Charles W. Mills, "The Racial Contract as Methodology (Not Hypothesis)," Philo-sophia Africana 5(1) (2002), pp. 75-99.
13. For a brief but telling critique of Garcia from a similar political perspective, from which I have benefited, see Tommie Shelby, "Is Racism in the 'Heart'?" Journal of Social Philosophy 33 (2002), pp. 411-420.
14. Garcia, "Racial Discourse," p. 136.
15. Cf. Garcia's discussion of Goldberg, in Garcia, "Current Conceptions," pp. 5-6.
16. Garcia, "Current Conceptions," p. 6.
17. Garcia, "Current Conceptions," p. 6
18. Garcia, "Current Conceptions," p. 20.
19. Garcia, "Current Conceptions," p. 6.
20. Garcia, "Current Conceptions," p. 6.
21. Garcia, "The Heart of Racism," in Boxill (ed.), Race and Racism, p. 259.
22. Garcia, "Racial Discourse," p. 136.
23. Garcia, "Current Conceptions," p. 41, n. 48.
24. Garcia, "Current Conceptions," p. 14.
25. According to this dictionary, racism's first sense is "belief in or doctrine asserting racial differences in character, intelligence, etc. and the superiority of one race over another or others." Garcia's sense, "feelings or actions of hatred and bigotry toward a person or persons because of their race," comes in a distant third (the second sense refers to racial discrimination) [Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th edition (Foster City: IDG Books Worldwide, 2001), p. 1181].
26. Garcia, "Current Conceptions," p. 29.
27. quot;Since, so conceived, racism is primarily a matter of what a person does or does not wish, will and want for others in light of their race-the contents of a person's will, broadly conceived-I call it a volitional conception of racism" (Garcia, "Philosophical Analysis," p. 13).
28. Cf. Tommie Shelby on racism as a pervasive ideology into which most whites are socialized: Shelby, "Is Racism in the 'Heart'?" pp. 415-416. The failure to advert to these environing structures of belief, meaning, and affect is, of course, a large part of the reason why an individualist account such as Garcia's is going to be inadequate right from the start.
29. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. Charles Lam Markmann (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1967), pp. 109-113.
30. John Deigh, "Cognitivism in the Theory of Emotions," Ethics 104 (1994), pp. 824-825, 834-836. Deigh himself, it should be noted, has reservations about certain cognitivist claims.
31. This would be like "groundless emotion," which Deigh mentions as a possible counter-example.
32. Garcia, "Current Conceptions," p. 10.
33. For the gory details, see, for example, David E. Stannard, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992)
34. and Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
35. Note that the doxastic dimension of the racism of subordinate groups (when this judgment is appropriate) does not usually take the form of claims about the intellectual inferiority of the dominant race (after all, if they are intellectually inferior, then why are they dominant?!), but rather in claims about their intrinsic moral inferiority. They are seen as being intrinsically bad, treacherous, evil, etc.
36. Leon Litwack points out that for their own survival, black children in this period were taught by their parents "the necessary rituals of subservience and subordination. . . . For some black youths the most difficult part of this lesson in racial etiquette was to learn that they should never expect whites to reciprocate with similar terms of deference and respect."
37. Leon F. Litwack, Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 35.
38. Indeed, in one endnote Garcia makes the astonishing statement that even resentment is to be morally condemned: "Some philosophers have recently spoken up for hatred and resentment in certain circumstances. . . . While moral outrage and righteous indignation, however, are morally admirable, I think hate and resentment unacceptable" (Garcia, "Current Conceptions," p. 36, n. 21). My first reaction on reading this statement was that this is a theory of the virtues not for humans, but for saints! But actually, that is not right; that mis-states the point. Could not a case be made that if, in the situations described above, you did not feel at the very least "resentment"-in fact, could not a case be made that if all you felt was resentment-then this would actually show that there was something deeply wrong with your moral character, the very moral character that Garcia, as a virtue theorist, is supposed to be concerned about? "You know, I really resent the fact that you have just disemboweled my child." What would we think of the appropriateness of this as a mother's moral reaction? Would this not be ludicrously inappropriate? Garcia may, of course, be using the term in some idiosyncratic sense (We b s t e r ' s says, p. 1219, "a feeling of displeasure and indignation, from a sense of being injured or offended," which sounds perfectly morally respectable to me-not merely morally permissible, but [minimally] demanded under the circumstances). But then why would he be bothering to underline his difference from other philosophers, if it is merely idiolectic?
39. See quotation from Garcia, previous note.
40. I emphasize tendentially because even in the most racist system, of course, some whites have always been exceptions: "race traitors."
41. See, for example, Charles Mills, " 'But What Are You Really?' The Metaphysics of Race," in Charles Mills, Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), pp. 41-66
42. and Ronald R. Sundstrom, " 'Racial' Nominalism," Journal of Social Philosophy 33 (2002), pp. 193-210.
43. See, for example: Garcia, "The Heart of Racism," p. 260;
44. Garcia, "Current Conceptions," p. 36, n. 17.
45. Garcia, "Current Conceptions," p. 29.
46. Garcia, "The Heart of Racism," pp. 273-274.
47. Garcia, "The Heart of Racism," pp. 284-292.
48. Litwack, Trouble in Mind, pp. 186, 202, 204, 211.
49. Litwack, Trouble in Mind, p. 245.
50. In a footnote, p. 275, n. 35, in "The Heart of Racism," as part of his discussion of "Kiplingesque" racism, Garcia does concede that this kind of racism "most nearly approaches the structure of sexism," while asserting (a claim with which I would agree) that it is more peripheral for racism than sexism. But he seems to think that his argument (the one I challenged above) that hatred or at least racial "uncaring" is still involved removes the sting from this comparison. As indicated, I would deny that his argument works, and so see the likeness as crucially damaging.
51. Garcia, "The Heart of Racism," pp. 275-276.
52. At the end of this section of his article, Garcia does concede that by the terms of his account "some people in these situations, some involved in racially oppressive social systems, will not themselves be racist in their attitudes, in their behavior, or even in their beliefs." Garcia, "The Heart of Racism," p. 276. Again, as with the sexism comparison, my claim would be that this concession is far more damaging to the tenability of his definition than he admits.
53. Garcia, "The Heart of Racism," p. 259.
54. Garcia, "Philosophical Analysis," p. 18.
55. Garcia, "Racial Discourse," p. 134.
56. Garcia, "Current Conceptions," p. 12.
57. Shelby, "Is Racism in the 'Heart'?" p. 411.
58. Garcia, "Current Conceptions," p. 6.
59. Garcia, "The Heart of Racism," p. 266.
60. Garcia gestures in this direction at the end of his discussion of the Kiplingesque racist: Garcia, "The Heart of Racism," p. 276. My response would be that much more of a case would need to be made to avoid begging the question, since her beliefs could certainly have sources other than "her desire to gain by harming others."
61. Garcia, "The Heart of Racism," p. 268;
62. "Current Conceptions," p. 16.
63. Shelby, "Is Racism in the 'Heart'?" pp. 417-419.
64. Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 2nd edition (New York: Random House, 1990).