Books by Rutgers Faculty
Examining the role of race in human relations
Archived article from Feb 20, 2006
By Peter Haigney
Should we think in terms of race? Does closely identifying with racial identity move us toward greater equality –or does it drive us further apart?
These questions are the center of Anna Stubblefield’s new book, “Ethics along the Color Line” (Cornell University Press, 2005), which attempts to untangle some of the ongoing philosophical and scholarly debates surrounding race.
Stubblefield, a professor of philosophy and Africana studies in Newark, argues that before considering whether we should think in terms of race, it is necessary to define racial oppression. “We need to understand the ways in which anti-black oppression involves social norms: in particular, the pressures people in positions of authority, such as educators, employers, police and members of the government place on individuals because of their predetermined expectations of their racial group,” she says.
The starting point of “Ethics along the Color Line” is the philosophical debate – especially between philosophers Kwame Anthony Appiah and Lucius Outlaw – over whether black Americans should strongly identify in terms of race and whether we should take race into account when we decide how to treat each other.
Stubblefield draws on black feminist scholarship about the moral importance of thinking and acting in terms of community and extended family in her argument that strong racial identification, if based on appropriate ideals, is morally sound and even necessary to end white supremacy. Furthermore, according to Stubblefield, while it is important for black people to identify with their race to overcome oppression, it is equally important for white people to do the same to end white supremacy.
“It is important for white people to think in terms of their race and how it has granted them certain protections and benefits,” Stubblefield notes. “White people should recognize the pressures they place on each other within their own group and how these pressures serve as barriers to overcoming racial oppression.
“For example, if you are seen as helping ‘them’ out, then you are hurting ‘us.’ There is a pressure to take care of one’s own. … If white people are genuinely anti-racist, they have to take responsibility for those who are racist.”
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