Final Paper: Blum’s Racism Theory
The conceptual implications of Blum’s more nuanced view of race and racism are hard to evaluate preceisely because racial thinking pervades every aspect of life and it is difficult to imagine race meaning anything other than what it currently means. Blum is well-meaning but I think that his work will ultimately be of little practical significance unless people are willing to commit to the difficult work of changing their everyday thoughts, language, and habits involving race. Habits are hard to change, actively working on monitoring your thoughts on a daily basis and resisting the temptation to fall back on racist stereotypes is not something many people would be able to commit to doing for very long. Even …show more content…
There would be less reluctance to openly discuss race with members of other races, less pressure to always be politically correct, less fear of messing up and accused of racism, less risk of being called racist in the first place because there would now be alternative forms of moral reproach other than just racism. So many more dialogues about race could occur if people weren’t so afraid of being called out for being racist, which is just sad because an opportunity to openly discuss race could potentially change someone’s racist thoughts by demonstrating how harmful racism is and offering humane …show more content…
I honestly appreciate Appiah’s conclusion more than Blum’s because it is clear and succint. Blum concludes by suggesting we ditch race for racialized identity because that way we would still have racial language with which to discuss racial ills without suffering from the same moral harm that results from racial thinking. In contrast, Appiah proposes that we practice irony by living with multiple identities, seeking soldiarity with others, but all the while recognizing how race and racial identity are historically and socially contingent. I suspect that both Blum and Appiah were thinking along the same lines and that Appiah’s notion of racial identity is analogous to Blum’s racialized identity, but I still find Appiah’s suggestion more easy to
The conceptual implications of Blum’s more nuanced view of race and racism are hard to evaluate preceisely because racial thinking pervades every aspect of life and it is difficult to imagine race meaning anything other than what it currently means. Blum is well-meaning but I think that his work will ultimately be of little practical significance unless people are willing to commit to the difficult work of changing their everyday thoughts, language, and habits involving race. Habits are hard to change, actively working on monitoring your thoughts on a daily basis and resisting the temptation to fall back on racist stereotypes is not something many people would be able to commit to doing for very long. Even …show more content…
There would be less reluctance to openly discuss race with members of other races, less pressure to always be politically correct, less fear of messing up and accused of racism, less risk of being called racist in the first place because there would now be alternative forms of moral reproach other than just racism. So many more dialogues about race could occur if people weren’t so afraid of being called out for being racist, which is just sad because an opportunity to openly discuss race could potentially change someone’s racist thoughts by demonstrating how harmful racism is and offering humane …show more content…
I honestly appreciate Appiah’s conclusion more than Blum’s because it is clear and succint. Blum concludes by suggesting we ditch race for racialized identity because that way we would still have racial language with which to discuss racial ills without suffering from the same moral harm that results from racial thinking. In contrast, Appiah proposes that we practice irony by living with multiple identities, seeking soldiarity with others, but all the while recognizing how race and racial identity are historically and socially contingent. I suspect that both Blum and Appiah were thinking along the same lines and that Appiah’s notion of racial identity is analogous to Blum’s racialized identity, but I still find Appiah’s suggestion more easy to