Philosophy is dead white – and dead wrong

It is regretful that neither of the previous commenters were able to discover the "thesis statement". To me and others Prof Dabrinksi it is quite clear: http://jdrabinski.com/?p=302#comment-76. Perhaps it might be the actual education system which privileges certain 'rational' argumentation and Enlightened thought and mental tropes such as "thesis statements". It is not your typical piece of writing and so this may confuse some. But in the second paragraph there my be a clue there. He speaks of exclusionary strategies employed by philosophers and individuals to suggest that intelligence levels only afford certain rights to some people to engage in the practice of Philosophy. It is an enduring practice. The significance also relates to the fact that all subject areas have a philosophical foundation and were even derived from the traditions of Philosophy. Hence the highest academic qualification one can attain is a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D). And for the second commenter there is a Philosophy of Women: it is called Feminism. It's been around for a fee decades. It might be useful to look into it.

That should read *perceived levels of intelligence as we all know it is not always apparent.

http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/events/2014/03/21/whyisntmyprofessorblack/

www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/comment/letters/racial-exclusions/2012251.article

http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/philosophy-and-race-in-the-thes/

http://csi-jenkins.tumblr.com/post/80134131567/what-i-signed-up-for

"I am one of only five philosophers racialised-as-black employed by a British university ... James Wilson and I, at University College London. By contrast, the other three philosophers (three women) are employed by other departments: namely Patrice Haynes, in the department of theology, philosophy and religious studies, at Liverpool Hope University; Katherine Harloe, in the department of Classics, at the University of Reading; and Mahlet Getachew Zimeta, in the department of humanities, at the University of Roehampton ... None of us is, yet, a professor." Not that one example drastically changes the picture, but I would suggest that Chandran Kukathas, Chair in Political Theory at the Department of Government, LSE, is a political philosopher: http://www.lse.ac.uk/government/whosWho/profiles/CKukathas@lseacuk/Home.aspx

Against the stage of Philosophy as a whole, this article is a speck of dust that displays more of personal status inconsistency than cogent argument. In any case there is a considerable literature on African philosophy of which the author seems to be sublimely unaware!!

http://jdrabinski.com/?p=302

http://digressionsnimpressions.typepad.com/digressionsimpressions/2014/03/dead-white-not-entirely-useless.html

http://www.newappsblog.com/2014/03/philosophy-its-color-line-and-its-culture-of-justification.html

http://philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/2014/03/does-making-philosophy-more-inclusive-require-rethinking-philosophical-methods.html

This article is underpinned by two important points that have wider implications. First, black and ethnic minority students are not being represented by the academic body. In some universities in London black and ethnic make up almost 50% of the student population, yet it is rare that black academics are visible in junior or senior academic positions or in positions of leadership within the UK higher education system. We need to think about how to change this and I think this needs discussion. Excluding and marginalizing black and ethnic minorities from academic life only reinforces the idea that black people are more likely to be educational underachievers, who don’t think and are embodied creatures rather than intellectual people. People may have different ideas about how we tackle this problem however, I think we can all agree that the problem exists. Second, our ideas and understandings of the world are socially constructed and we are missing out on engaging with an important part of this world of ideas if we exclude sections of society from thinking about it. I would rather this inclusion was part of all mainstream disciplines rather than being hived off into other marginalized and isolated identity based disciplines, but this again should be up for discussion. Finally, call me old fashioned but I didn’t think calling someone white was racist- does it carry the history of systematic institutionalised exclusion from economic, social and political life? Does it embody the belittling discourses of intellectual and emotional inferiority or the beatings and sexualisations that construct some as natural whores or beasts. But perhaps I’m missing point and we don’t have to think about this……

http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2014/04/academia-philosophy-and-race/