Gender, Race and Philosophy: The Blog

Rhodes Must Fall protest at Oxford

http://oxfordstudent.com/2015/10/24/students-wear-red-in-matriculation-protest/

Students wore red as they matriculated on Saturday in protest at what they say is the University’s continued celebration of colonialism and lack of diversity.

“The wearing of red by matriculating students draws attention to this bloodshed and related oppression, and highlights Oxford’s red-tape culture, which slows down change.  Rhodes Must Fall Oxford also hopes that the wearing of red underscores the need for passion and transformation to raise awareness of these issues in the coming year at Oxford.

“Rhodes Must Fall Oxford looks forward to a year of transformation at Oxford, and hopes that this matricul-action is a sign of things to come.”

Race and Teacher Expectations

Another study - from the Brookings Institution - providing evidence of what is already known....but good to keep in mind as the school year starts.

"We find evidence of systematic biases in teachers’ expectations for the educational attainment of black students. Specifically, non-black teachers have significantly lower educational expectations for black students than black teachers do when evaluating the same students. We cannot determine whether the black teachers are too optimistic, the non-black teachers are too pessimistic, or some combination of the two. This is nonetheless concerning, as teachers’ expectations likely shape student outcomes and systematic biases in teachers’ expectations for student success might contribute to persistent socio-demographic gaps in educational achievement and attainment."

Yancy interviews Cornel West

...In the New York Times Opinionator.  

As a taste, on "black prophetic fire" West writes:

"Fire really means a certain kind of burning in the soul that one can no longer tolerate when one is pushed against a wall. So, you straighten your back up, you take your stand, you speak your truth, you bear your witness and, most important, you are willing to live and die. Fire is very much about fruits as opposed to foliage. The ice age was all about foliage: “Look at me, look at me.” It was the peacock syndrome. Fire is about fruits, which is biblical, but also Marxist. It’s about praxis and what kind of life you live, what kind of costs you’re willing to bear, what kind of price you’re willing to pay, what kind of death you’re willing to embrace."

Private Prison Divestment

Christia Mercer (Columbia) discusses Columbia University's decision to divest from private prisons and reminds us of the power of divestment in the anti-Apartheid movement.

 

Gooding-Williams on Trayvon Martin and Fugitive Slave Mentality

A must-read.

 

Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans and Queer Philosophy Programs

The Pluralists' Guide certainly generated a lot of heat, even before it went public. In this short post, I'm not going to address any of that heat.

Instead, I'd like to talk about one of the difficulties we faced in putting this site together, and one that I hope posting publicly will help. 

When we decided to cover under-represented areas, I felt it important, and Paul and Linda agreed, that we should cover GLBTTQ Philosophy. Since I had published in the field and had contacts with other philosophers working in the field, I thought I could make up an advisory  board, send out surveys, and see the results. 

I was wrong. Virtually nobody responded to the survey. Several people contacted me expressing their hope that we could generate such a list, but they did not feel fully qualified to fill out the survey. I had access to several reliable email lists of philosophers working in GLBTTQ Philosophy, but to no avail. In the end, the data generated for what are described on the site as "Tentative Lists" was worked out in actual conversation with the people on the advisory board and through sheer "grunt-work" -- checking on who was at which departments and what they had published, and looking through the meager survey results.

There are two obvious reasons for these difficulties: first, GLBTTQ philosophy is a fairly new field, and second, it is a fairly small field. My impression is that there are no departments that can be described as "strong in GLBTTQ Philosophy" in the same way that a department can be described as "strong in American Philosophy." That is, no department has multiple people working in that field and at the top of their game. This impression was reinforced by the difficulty of finding strong departments, and (depressingly) reinforced by the fact that the data showing which parts of the site are getting hits reveals that nobody's going to look at the GLBTTQ recommendations.

So I end this post with a plea, the same one that that appears on the site: please, if you have reliable information about strong programs in GLBTTQ Philosophy, or would be willing to serve on our advisory board, contact the site through our email: [email protected]

 

Linda Alcoff essay on The Stone

Note that there is a piece by Linda Alcoff in the NYT online forum, The Stone, that may be of interest to our readers:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/when-culture-power-and-sex-collide/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=thab1

Discussion of Black Underrepresentation in Philosophy

See the discussion on the Leiter Reports prompted by Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman's original post (also posted on this blog) and Lionel McPherson's comment:
http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2011/06/is-there-any-hope-for-the-racial-diversity-of-the-philosophy-profession.html

Please feel free to discuss the issues here too.

Blacks in Philosophy

Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman has brought to my attention the following important facts and raises a call for action:

1. Only 50 out of 14,000 professors in Britain are black 

The data in item #1 is reported here http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/27/only-50-black-british-professors?intcmp=239, and here http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard/2011/may/27/black-professor-shortage-failure-to-nurture-talent. To my knowledge (and I am a citizen of Britain), none of these 50 black professors specialises in philosophy.

2. Fewer than 125 out of 11,000 members of the American Philosophical Association are black

3. Fewer than 30 out of 11,000 members of the American Philosophical Association are black women

The data in items #2 and #3 are drawn from Kathryn T. Gines. Being a black woman philosopher: Reflections on founding the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers. Hypatia 26(2): 429-43.

Together, these facts add weight to the conclusion that there is a global lack of blacks in professional philosophy. I urge the philosophical professioriat to take immediate and positive action to combat this global lack. Please do convey my entreaty to your readers.

Comments?  Suggestions?

TIWAFLL flickr stream

MIT Women's and Gender Studies has undertaken a campaign to make feminism more visible.  Many people accept the basic principles of feminism (anti-sexism!?) but resist the f-word.  Our thought is that by showing that feminism is a broad-based movement that includes people of all kinds, we can defuse some of the anxiety about the word and build connections and coalitions more easily. 

We began by using International Women's Day as an occasion to wear a sticker saying "This is what a feminist looks like" and then moved on to photograph members of the MIT community wearing their stickers.  You can find it on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mit.wgs?ref=ts#!/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1436127642686.52869.1817835690
Our most recent effort was at the MIT Open House celebrating MIT's 150th anniversary (4/30).  We set up a photo booth and offered a tote bag printed with "This is what a feminist looks like at MIT"  to anyone who would have their photo taken with a sign saying the same thing.  We were busy all day and over 175 people participated.  It is an AMAZING display and includes the president of MIT, Susan Hockfield, the Dean of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Deborah Fitzgerald, the former mayor of Cambridge, Denise Simmons, and many many more from around the area and around the world.  Find it here:

http://flic.kr/s/aHsjuDf3n3

It is an important reminder that feminism is a broad-based and much loved movement.  Show your feminist pride!