Is there any hope for the racial diversity of the philosophy profession?

The earlier item on the miniscule proportion of Blacks in academic philosophy (less than 1%) yielded a striking comment by philosopher Lionel McPherson at Tufts University, which he kindly gave me permission to repost here.  Professor McPherson wrote:

With all due respect, the “pipeline” problem is largely a red herring. The notion that blacks are in demand in philosophy, if only they would come, is generally a fraud–especially at the hiring level. The philosophy profession–in composition, sensibilities, and content–is a racially hostile environment, even if that hostility typically manifests itself as benign neglect. No black person who takes himself or herself to have viable alternatives, and common sense, would go down this road. (But, of course, this is true for most people contemplating a career in philosophy these days, regardless of color.)

Yes, I could tell you stories that you wouldn’t really believe: I can hardly believe them myself. I could try to assure you that “well qualified” blacks are not in great demand–other than for submitting job applications and responding to pointless “diversity office” surveys. I could dismiss the need for more studies of a type which basically presuppose that the gross underrepresentation of blacks in philosophy is due almost entirely to external factors.

But why are we talking about this? The philosophy profession has clearly spoken: it has no shame regarding its extraordinary whiteness; and blacks have virtually no leverage in such an environment. I cannot in good conscience encourage any black student in the U.S. (or U.K.) to enter the philosophy profession. The extraordinarily few who are determined to go should at least be aware of what awaits them.

I would like to invite reader comments on this depressing assessment, and also concrete suggestions and proposals.  Students may post anonymously, but I must insist that anonymous postings not name individuals or institutions.  I hope that faculty would post with their names, though as long as they include a valid e-mail, and make a substantive contribution to the discussion, their comments will also be approved.  

ADDENDUM (corrected):  I'll just add one extra data point:  by my quick count, only 9 of the top 20 PGR departments in 2009 have one Black faculty member in a tenured or tenure-stream position (Rutgers, Princeton, Pittsburgh, Harvard, Stanford, Arizona, Columbia, North Carolina, CUNY); two actually have two!  That means Blacks are slightly better represented in top PhD programs compared to the profession at large, but still significantly under-represented compared to their share of the population at large.

Comments

[Steven Hales]

While Professor McPherson's homily is obviously heartfelt, it is data-free and even anecdote-free. A physicist friend of mine relates that physicists worry about the relative paucity of women in physics. They went and looked and found out that ratio of women:men in physics stayed the same from undergrad to grad school to PhD (physicists have job opportunities outside the academy). No leaks in the pipeline. So whatever the explanation, it is something that happens early on. What about philosophy? What percentage of phil undergraduate majors are black? What about grad students? It's not useful to simply point to a small percentage of blacks in the professoriate and then assume it is all due to wicked racist hiring committees.

BL COMMENT: I concur with Professor Hales that we need more data (and perhaps readers can supply some), but in fairness to Professor McPherson, I did not understand him to claim "wicked racist hiring committees" caused the under-representation. There are many ways in which a professional environment can be hostile, which I understood to be his point.

[Andrew MacKie-Mason]

As someone outside the philosophy world but planning to dive into it, I'd be interested in hearing the anecdotes, even if real data is absent. If the racism isn't overt and hostile (I believe it was called "neglect" above) what form does that take? How does it look in departments? Is it a disinterest in the kind of philosophy that people with an African-American heritage tend to pursue, or is it more directly linked to the race/appearance of the individual?

[Job Seeker]

Could it be that most black philosophers do not work in the more traditional and prestigious areas of continental and analytic philosophy. The best known black philosopher I can think of is Cornel West and he's a pragmatist!

[Ronald C. Den Otter]

This is a problem in the field of political science as well --I teach in a political science department-- but not nearly as severe as that of the discipline of philosophy. My impression is that at least for some and perhaps many political scientists --yes, this is crude, and no I don't have any data-- that to study race and politics is to do something lesser or not as worthy in the field. Is this also true in analytical philosophy? For example, what if a grad student in philosophy wanted to analyze the concept of race or racism, what field or subfield would he or she be working in? Would this be recognized as "real" philosophy? I really liked Lawrence Blum's book on racism but I don't know what else is out there, philosophically, on the topic.

[Rick J.]

Does anyone have statistics on what percentage of tenured faculty in physics are black?

[Anonymous]

I think there is a stereotype that most people who work in philosophy of race are 'targeted' minorities (e.g. African-Americans, Latinos/as) and that most targeted minorities, at least in part, work in philosophy of race. If this stereotype is right, then one of the main problems, as Ronald suggests, is that philosophy of race is not taken seriously. One of the unfortunate side effects of this, again if the stereotype is right, is that there are fewer minorities in philosophy than there should be.

I'd be curious to know the representation of other minority groups in philosophy (targeted or not).

[Naomi Zack]

Further to "anecdotal" observation about the small number of blacks in tenure related positions in philosophy departments, it's important to consider the excruciating experience of someone who has "assumed the position," either as a faculty member or graduate student. That person is likely to find herself unable to assess the degree to which disagreements with colleagues are motivated by racism when she is "the only one" among all white senior peers and when on most issues of substance in departmental governance, it is that one against many. The psychological pressures that black faculty in philosophy departments are likely to sustain are considerable. (On inferences of racism, ultimately one is forced to conclude that if it consistently quacks, walks, and looks like a duck, it is one.) So such positions are definitely not for everyone. But I would encourage well-qualified and courageous African-Americans to enter the profession of philosophy. Philosophy is the oldest and most intellectually powerful humanistic discipline. Courage is the universal virture.
Naomi Zack

[Kathryn Norlock]

I don't know their tenured numbers, but if I'm reading the Digest of Ed.Stats. table right, then 2.6% of full-time "physical sciences" postsecondary instructors are African-American men, and 0.7% are African-American women. That same table suggests that of full-time philosophy instructors, 2.3% are black males (data on black females is not listed, with the note, "reporting standards not met"). My source is the same table I used in posting recent numbers on gender:
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_256.asp?referrer=list

(So all the usual problems with that data set continue to apply.)

The pseudo-demand problem for nonwhite faculty, and for the subject of race, is complex. I found, in my career as a specialist in feminist and environmental ethics, that university and student-enrollment demands for my areas far exceeded their prestige and, in that sense, their 'demand' among philosophers in a position to hire. In other words, despite what may be high interest in enrolling on the part of undergraduates, or interest in diverse offerings on the part of higher-ed institutions, the 'demand' also depends on the profession fostering opportunities for valuing the content of race-related studies, and the achievement of students and scholars of color. I do not perceive that philosophy graduate programs or hiring committees do this to great extents, although particular programs have devoted themselves to doing so and stand out as exceptions, conscientiously so.

When I went looking for graduate programs with specializations in race to recommend to my enthusiastic undergraduate students of color, who have often been very interested in developing expertise in philosophy of race, and would happily have taught it for the rest of their lives, I struggled to get any centralized or consistent information for them regarding good/best programs with prestige, well-known placement records, and high attention to the work of the faculty members therein from philosophers in the blogosphere who otherwise have excellent megaphones, etc. Many of my initially interested and promising undergrads left off the pursuit of entry to graduate school in philosophy after feeling discouraged at the prospects; as one student said, he sensed he'd only get ahead in philosophy despite his interest in philosophy of race, rather than because of it.

BL COMMENT: This is perhaps partly responsive to Professor Norlock's point in the last paragraph: the Advisory Board of the PGR will be asked, again, to add "Philosophy of Race" to the specialty rankings, in light of the fact that there are now a number of leading PhD programs with faculty specializing in the area (something not true just seven or eight years ago). I am hopeful it will be added.

[Anonymous]

2 points:

Why has a discussion of blacks in philosophy jumped so quickly to a discussion of the philosophy of race? There's no necessary connection here, even if many black philosophers do such work. There are plenty of black philosophers whose work is quite traditional.

Cornel West isn't even in a philosophy department. If you're a job seeker in philosophy and Anthony Appiah or Ken Perry isn't better known to you, seriously?

[Mark Lance]

While I do not doubt that there are all sorts of problems of racism of various sorts - active hostility, neglect (i.e. laziness), all sorts of structural issues, all sorts of unconscious psychological issues - I take issue with a couple claims in this post. First, the pipeline problem is pretty obviously not a red herring. Whatever other issues there are, the under-representation starts very early. At my enormous undergraduate university there were zero African American majors. At Georgetown, which has a fairly large group of majors, we currently have 3 - and that is the most in the last 25 years, and probably ever. I've spoken to undergraduate philosophy audiences on several dozen occasions over the years, and have never ever seen an audience with an African American representation anywhere remotely close to the percentage at the university. I'd love better data, but I'm willing to bet the farm that AAs are wildly under-represented at the major level.

On the issue of neglect, I share Prof. McPherson's anger about this. I think there is a great deal of "just not caring enough to do things that matter" in philosophy, and not merely on this issue. But the fact that people are discussing this issue on various blogs, are setting up summer institutes, and in some cases actively working to prepare AA undergraduates for graduate school - not to mention the existence of minority graduate fellowships at a number of universities - shows that the neglect is not universal. It is always a struggle to challenge institutionalized exclusions of any sort. The struggle against such things is long. But there are clearly some who are willing to work, and I would hope that more would join rather than giving in to despair or cynicism.

In response to Prof. Otter, certainly that is real philosophy. In terms of area, it could fall under social and political philosophy, metaphysics, or philosophy of language, depending on the approach and focus. (You might have a look at Tommy Shelby's recent book We Who Are Dark: the philosophical foundations of black solidarity.)

[Kathryn Norlock]

Thanks, Brian, for the update. I appreciate it.

I can only reply to Anonymous' question by repeating my observation that the problem is complex. I did not posit a necessary connection between the low numbers of black philosophers and the relationship to the study of philosophy of race, although I do find curricular attention to diversity seems to correlate with nonwhite students' increased interest in philosophy generally. Nothing in this discussion thread commits a quick jump.

My students all read Appiah, so of course he was known to them, but reading a text does not indicate to a student what the profession will be like, or how to go about becoming a leader in it. Last, I suggest that there are not plenty of philosophers in any subfield of philosophy.

BL COMMENT: On the very last point, your meaning must be eluding me, since it is quite clear that there are many more philosophers in multiple subfields of philosophy: philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophical logic, ethics, political philosophy, history of modern philosophy, and so on. Almost every 'top 50' PhD program has at least one specialist, and sometimes several, in thesee areas. Until recently, there were fewer specialists in philosophy of race at leading PhD programs than in Chinese philosophy, and that field is also relatively sparsely represented.

[Job Seeker]

To Anonymous above, I don't know who Perry is. I met Appiah but thought he was Indian, not Black. Perhaps the British accent threw me. Ask any of your black undegrad students if they know who Cornel West is and most will say yes. Just because someone is not in a Philosophy Dept does not mean they're not a philosopher. Look at the late Richard Rorty, another pragmatist and one of the most well known contemporary philosophers. He ended up at Stanford's Comparative Lit Dept.

BL COMMENT: This particular exchange between the two anons is now at an end.

[Kathryn Norlock]

Good heavens, my apologies; my last sentence was supposed to say there are not plenty of black philosophers in any subfield of philosophy. Leaving out the word 'black' certainly empties my statement of meaning, alas!

To return our attentions to Brian's post, however, I must say that I do find myself worried about the answer to the title question: Is there any hope? In a week in which I read that the New College of the Humanities was defended partly on the basis of declining public support for higher education, I am terribly pessimistic about philosophers' futures, as an employed, conscientious and excellent bunch. Reasons for optimism would be most welcome to see.

BL COMMENT: Thanks for the clarification! I hope some readers can address what 'reasons for optimism,' if any, there are, or what can be done to create such reasons.

[Anne Jacobson]

The latest APA newsletter on philosophy and the black experience has some very relevant pieces in it:
http://www.apaonline.org/publications/newsletters/v10n2_Black_index.aspx

The first article, by Leonard Harris, confirms McPherson's claims; it also has some details about what how hiring has been going.

I think Harris says that philosophy provides a viciously hostile atmosphere for blacks. This comes from someone very active in the black community; his lack of any qualifiers strongly suggests he is reporting something like a concensus. If that is so, perhaps the profession has a problem.

There is also a review of a book by Barabara Applebaum, and the book is easily available from Amazon. It's on Kindle, so many can get a reasonable sample from it.

Applebaum, in the sample I read, wants in part to look at complicity among members of a racially hostile community. What might make one complicitous may not be what one would think. Rather, one major factor is an ignorance of the social injustice in one's community. Compare: the good Germans who had no idea of what was going on.
She makes some other really nice points, some of which are also in the review. One thing she considers is how discussions of racism actually tend to center on whites. That is, we ask what we can do, and then we're off to reinstate a relationship between the active solution-seeking whites and the passive blacks. Goodness knows what Blacks find unappealing in that, but perhaps actually it is obvious if one thinks about it.

[Andrew MacKie-Mason]

If Mark Lance is right that the dearth of blacks (does anyone know if this is a problem unique to America, or if it extends throughout the English-speaking world?) in philosophy is beginning at the undergraduate level, then perhaps different questions need to be asked. It's at least possible that, for various reasons, people from certain cultural backgrounds aren't as interested in pursuing philosophy. If that's the case, then it's not clear that there's a problem that needs fixing: there's value in cultural diversity, and changing the field to encourage more people to join it wouldn't be increasing the amount of diversity in philosophy, it would be changing what's called philosophy to pretend that there's more diversity.

It's also possible that interest in philosophy is (understandably) correlated to wealth, which means that solving the problem is minimally in the hands of philosophers themselves, and much more an issue for economists, lawyers, political scientists, etc interested in decreasing the racial wealth gap. Measures to counteract that (scholarships for minority students in philosophy, for instance) are probably going to have minimal impact on that problem, since students from poorer backgrounds are more likely to value post-graduate earning potential over other factors.

That's not to say there aren't racism issues that should be addressed, or other reasons for a lack of diversity that philosophers can do something about. But it's at least conceivable that there's no problem to fix here.

[Anonymous Faculty Member]

It has been my experience while watching students apply for graduate programs that minority students have a harder time getting into comparable graduate programs than non-minority students. That is, minority students with what I would consider comparable attainments and abilities have a harder time being admitted to graduate programs than non-minority students. There may be differences in the record that would account for this: minority students are more likely to have problems with GREs. But when the minority students have a record of success, then one would hope the GRE as a predictor would be discounted. My fear is that, despite some of the new programs that are designed to alleviate the pipeline problem, philosophy doesn't have the soft spot for minorities that some other disciplines do have.

[Josh Richards]

While I understand Professor McPherson's contention, and am somewhat sympathetic to it, I don't think it is correct to call the pipeline problem a red herring. It seems like a living issue alongside any inherent "hostilities" within the field. Calling attention to it isn't necessarily a diversion tactic. Certainly McPherson's point (if valid) is more pressing in an ethical sense, but I think the dearth of young black Philosophers at the undergraduate level is a major concern as well. I find it somewhat hard to believe that if substantially more black students pursued Philosophy that the issue wouldn't be somewhat (even if in a very limited sense) assuaged. If an influx of black students at the undergraduate level didn't translate into an influx of black students at the graduate level and then professional level, McPherson's claims would be strengthened. It seems, to me at least, that addressing the numbers issue at the undergraduate level might be easier than addressing the "hostile-environment" issue. They are both complex sociological and psychological issues, but I think the numbers issue is more tractable. And like I said, if the undergraduate numbers increase, and we don't see increases at the graduate and professional level, the problem is made (or exposed to be) that much more serious in my estimation.

I would be interested in seeing some kind of comparative study of the numbers at all three levels.

(I also feel the need to point out that my analysis is likely somewhat naive, I am but a mere undergraduate student, and I feel inclined to defer to the opinions of those more familiar with the field at a professional level)

[Mark Lance]

I thought I'd offer up a bit of speculation - speculation that has been aided not by any real empirical work, but from many conversations with black students, and a good bit of thinking about the issue - as to why so few go into philosophy. (Again, I'm not denying that there are other factors.) First, there are a range of class considerations. I would not put this the way that Andrew does, but rather say that it is an expression of economic privilege to go into a risky field. One generally needs a certain level of confidence borne of economic security to choose to pursue something a precarious as philosophy. Other class issues involve the schools one has likely gone to before, the likelihood that one has academics in one's life, and so on. (Obviously since race correlates reasonably with class in this country, this is relevant here.)

Then there are issues of a "vicious circle" sort. There are very few black philosophers. Students see that. They don't see a community that looks like them, or therefore one that is seen as welcome. And as has been pointed out, they realize that they will likely be alone for a long time in the field. So there is a tendency to move toward fields in which one is not alone.

There are issues of the way the field is defined. Obviously, it is a white canon for the most part.

I'm sure there are many other factors. And all of them no doubt interact with the many dimensions of racism that exist for those who go into the profession.

All of these are things that ought to be worked against, not simply accepted as Andrew suggests. I am very glad that this conversation is taking place.

[Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman]

If, indeed, we are to be concerned with the "pipeline", we should focus as much on (a) the movement from the graduate stage to the employed stage, and (b) the movement from the stage of initial employment to the stage of first promotion, as we do on (c) the movement from the undergraduate stage to the graduate stage. All three are important, in order to draw accurate conclusions in this matter.

I suspect that there is a global lack of blacks in academic philosophy *throughout the pipeline*; and I suspect that the number of blacks in academic philosophy declines *as one progresses along this pipeline*. However, in order to establish these two contentions, what we really need is *global* data on items (a), (b), and (c). In the absence of that data, I encourage others who read this blog to share their own *local* data, so that we can build a discernible picture of what is, and of what has been, going on in academic philosophy.

For my part, I can offer you the following *local* quantitative data on items (a) and (b). I obtained these data only through difficult, nay cumbersome, research. Since 1970, only one black member of faculty (who did not gain tenure) and only nine black graduate students (only two of whom gained the PhD) have passed through the Department of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. Of the two successful doctoral students, one is not, and has not for some time been, working in professional philosophy, and the other has a primary appointment not in philosophy, but in law.

[Andrew MacKie-Mason]

Mark, you say, "I would not put this the way that Andrew does, but rather say that it is an expression of economic privilege to go into a risky field. One generally needs a certain level of confidence borne of economic security to choose to pursue something a precarious as philosophy."

I'm not clear on exactly where our point of disagreement is. Perhaps I was unclear in my usage of "interest:" I didn't mean interest at an abstract level, but interest in the field as a course of study and possible profession. I suggested that that type of interest correlates at least somewhat with wealth, and the reasoning behind that was what you say here: that it's a field that doesn't give as good employment/earning prospects as others, and is thus less attractive to people with less economic security.

And this also may be due to my own lack of clarity, but I wasn't suggesting that we simply accept the correlation between class and race. I only meant that there's little that philosophy as a profession can do to resolve the problem, beyond simply trying to improve job prospects for philosophers (which I assume they're trying to do anyways.)

As for the concern that it's a "white canon", that's where I'm not sure there's necessarily a problem. Perhaps philosophy as a field would benefit from broadening to include more areas that are of interest to minority students. But I think it would be a mistake to do so solely for the sake of attracting a more diverse student body.

Suppose for the sake of argument, if you will, that there are various fields of study of interest to minority students that could reasonably fit into philosophy, but could also fit into other fields: comparative lit, sociology, political science, history, anthropology, what have you. If philosophy departments broadened to encompass some of those fields it may well lead to an apparent increase in diversity in philosophy departments, but only because "philosophy" would become more abstract. I'm not sure how it would intrinsically help the field to be more "diverse" if that diversity just involved having just as homogenous sub-fields instead of having a smaller, homogenous field, with the diversity mixed into other parts of the academy.

I realize that was probably not clear (I've been writing all day, and my brain is a bit fried), so let me just add this: women's studies has a canon that tends to limit diversity. European History has a generally white canon. Similar things are probably true in a lot of the sciences, and other fields. I'm not sure that any of those would benefit from expanding the definition of their field to encompass more minority (or majority) interests.

[Axisaudio]

As a non-white MA student whose primary focus is on ethics, I can say that my academic experience in professional philosophy has been utter hell. I'll refer to three experiences that I had -- one with students and a teacher (now deceased) and one with an eminent philosophy professor.

In the spring of 2011, I took an Ethical Theory class on Moral Sentimentalism and one of the works we read was David Hume's Enquiry Concerning the Principle of Morals. Everyone here is familiar with the role that rationality plays in Hume's moral system so I won't go over it here. Needless to say when I pointed out that Hume's conception of rationality needed for morality was a rationality that, according to him, non-whites did not have I got a lot of kickback for bringing it up.

I was told by my colleagues that my mention of racism and white supremacy was grossly inappropriate for a class on ethical theory because Hume's racism could be abstracted away and the theory applied with no problem. Since when did Ethical Theory become physics?

More importantly why is it grossly inappropriate to bring up issues of racism and white supremacy in an Ethics class? Is it because it makes white people uncomfortable or is it because epistemology and philosophy of science are more appropriate areas that are suited to addressing these issues?

Another experience I had was with a professor at my institution, now deceased, who stated that Africa had nothing of intellectual merit (intellectual merit being philosophy, science, and mathematics), except music and art, to contribute to the Western world . Furthermore, the professor stated that such contributions were fraudulently made up by fringe academics as part of a massive PR campaign.

My final experience was with a noted professor who came to visit my college. When I had lunch with this eminent philosopher the discussion turned to bringing more non-whites or students of colour into the humanities. I informed the professor of the racial stratification that takes place in philosophy departments that is exacerbated by its lopsided focus on Western philosophy that most non-whites find mostly irrelevant, trivial, or a big sham. I acknowledged that while those departments have gotten better at teaching non-Western philosophy and addressing issues of race and racism prevalent in Western philosophy through scholarly research, they are far from perfect. For instance, when discussing the Enlightenment, in a social, political, and ethical context, issues of race, racism, and white supremacy (that come out of that period) are rarely, if at all, mentioned -- despite the available research. The philosopher denied that racism and white supremacy was conceived during the Enlightenment and dismissed the historical/philosophical work on the issue as simplistic. In an ironic move, this noted philosopher cited Hume and Kant as moral stalwarts violently opposed to racism. When I challenged the philosopher on that issue by pointing to the racist ruminations of Kant and Hume, the person back-tracked and stated that it was all a mixed-bag.

Furthermore, this eminent philosopher stated that it is impossible to believe my experiences in professional academic philosophy because it sounds like something out of the 60s -- to steal a line "those sorts of things don't happen anymore."

After such a display of wretched insensitivity and dishonesty I removed myself from the table.

The experiences I noted are similar to many of the comments on this forum regarding racism/white supremacy in the discipline of philosophy. Excuse after excuse is given to defend the white supremacist bastion of academia.

For example, one my favorites

"If Mark Lance is right that the dearth of blacks (does anyone know if this is a problem unique to America, or if it extends throughout the English-speaking world?) in philosophy is beginning at the undergraduate level, then perhaps different questions need to be asked. It's at least possible that, for various reasons, people from certain cultural backgrounds aren't as interested in pursuing philosophy."

In such a comment it is important to note the confinement of philosophy to the English speaking/Western world. It also important to note that people of different cultural backgrounds, for whatever reason, don't value philosophy as highly as the "English speaking world." Well if you have some truncated definition of philosophy it wouldn't be surprising that non-whites have less of an interest in philosophy than the rest of the English speaking world. In any event, why should non-whites allowed corrupt that prestigious, civilized, and pristine white discipline known as philosophy with their savagery, I mean with their cultural values.

However, such a defence and pardon of a Jim Crow academic discipline should not be surprising since having an honest discussion with whites about race and racism is a rarity now as it was in the past.

It is why MLK proclaimed that many whites, despite the fact that they will stand up for basic decency, are conscious or unconscious white supremacists who have no genuine care or concern for true equality of the black man -- an equality that requires sacrifice on the part of whites. It is why Dr. King moved away from integration toward the respected philosophy of black separatism.

Whites are never willing to listen to the abuses of non-whites dismissing them as anecdotal evidence with little or no data to back them up and even when the account of such abuses does meet the burden of proof there is no shortage of excuses to dismiss the experiences of the non-white community and silence them altogether.

Perhaps the novelist Ishmael Reed is right. For there to be an honest discussion of race and racism in academia, and indeed race and racism in America, white people need to shut the fuck up.

[Tristan Haze]

'The philosophy profession has clearly spoken: it has no shame regarding its extraordinary whiteness; and blacks have virtually no leverage in such an environment.'

The bit after the semi-colon doesn't, to me, obviously follow. I think I can imagine a community having no shame regarding its present whiteness, and yet remaining very open and even positively encouraging to non-white (prospective) philosophers.

I'm not saying that's the current situation in America, but the point seems worthwhile; I'm not an American, and don't profess to know much about this issue, but it's not obvious to me that shame about the whiteness of philosophy, on the part of white philosophers at large, would be a good thing. But it does seem clear that better opportunities for non-white prospective philosophers would be.

So perhaps those agitating for change here should not focus on bringing about shame, but should focus on a more direct, future-oriented course.

[Anon]

I am a white male finishing my B.A. at a top-25 PGR school, and with the exception of 2 or 3 (probably less) courses have never encountered an African American student in a philosophy class. Moreover, I have known a number of African American students with 'intellectual' interests none of which had a desire to study philosophy. My experience with other minority students is pretty much the same. My study of philosophy has always seemed to be so much discussion with white males.

[Mark Lance]

Andrew: I don't think it is a matter of interest at all. I see lots of minority undergraduates who are interested in philosophy, and a few who have genuine talent. The problem is that many don't see it as a possibility. When one is personally economically precarious, and comes from a family and history of precariousness, one does not see something like philosophy as a possibility. That's only very misleadingly called a matter of interest, whether with the subject or with the career. But more important, this obviously points to a need for action, not complacency. You seem to be saying "well, minorities just don't have interest, so what's the problem?" I'm saying that talented potential philosophers don't see - and in other ways don't have - the possibility of entering the profession, so we need to do something about it." Those seem very different to me.

And there are, I think, many things we can do about this. We philosophers alone won't change class inequality, but that is hardly necessary to make it possible - again psychologically and in reality - for specific students to flourish in the field.

My concern with the whiteness of the canon is not one of attracting students. First, I merely mentioned it as a cause. But I do think it's a problem for the simple reason that there is important work that is being excluded.

The issue about whether the profession improves with the inclusion of more areas and perspectives is a bigger issue, having to do with what one thinks philosophy is. I don't think philosophy is a separate field, alongside the various other disciplines. Rather, I think Sellars was right that philosophy is the study of how things, in the broadest sense of the term, hang together in the broadest sense of the term. that is, philosophy is about striving for a synoptic understanding of everything. So if something is missing, philosophy is reduced. I am not going to defend that to anyone who disagrees in a short blog post, but that's what I think. That's why I think broadening in philosophy is more essential than in many other areas.

[Tristan Haze]

I just received an interesting email from Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman concerning my previous comment. He points out that my saying that '[t]he bit after the semi-colon doesn't, to me, obviously follow', suggests that I have construed the original quote as asserting that it does follow. I didn't mean that. I should have simply said that the bit after the semi-colon is not obviously true.

[Anon]

I am a female philosopher of mixed Asian, Hispanic and European descent, and while I did not experience open racism, I have had to struggle to get into a graduate program despite excellent grades, struggle again for a postdoc position, and now again struggling to keep afloat. A TT position remains a distant dream.

[Temidayo Ogedengbe]

I am a proud graduate of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University with a Bachelor of Arts in both Political Science and Philosophy & Religion. I am the daughter of a Saint Lucian woman and a Nigerian man. I was born and raised in South Florida, Miami to be exact. With all that being said there DEFINITELY is hope for racial diversity of the philosophy profession.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=711347066]

If there's to be any hope for racial diversity in the profession, the first step will surely be taking seriously the insights of philosophers like Lionel McPherson when they speak out, rather than dismissing them as "homilies".

[lk mcpherson]

In fairness and optimism, I prefer to believe that ostensibly dismissive or condescending commenters were actually performing a sly reductio.

[Aaron Garrett]

I have little to say, other than that Alexisaudio's and Naomi Zack's comments are right on target as far as I can tell. Now I will shut the fuck up.

[Kris Sealey]

I'm compelled to contribute to this dialogue because I am a black tenure-track professor in philosophy (and also a woman). I was fortunate enough to be part of an amazing ph d program at The University of Memphis (in 2001) that not only explicitly recruited students of color, but actually provided a supportive environment in which we were able to write and defend a dissertation! I owe my current trajectory to their amazing work (which is now being continued at Penn State University). The writer of this blog might want to be aware of the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers as well. The work of this group is precisely what is needed if we are serious about diversifying the Mother of all Sciences...

[Bryce Huebner]

I am glad that this discussion about race and philosophy is taking place, and I think that that a number of critical and important issues have been addressed in the posts above. We have seen appeals to (and examples of) explicit and implicit bias, recognitions and mis-recognitions of the structural features of the discipline that help to institute and perpetuate a culture of perceived white supremacy, and discussions of the deeply entrenched—even if non-conscious—psychology of racism that black philosophers must deal with over the course of their careers. This discussion began from two recognitions: 1) there is a paucity of people of color at every stage of academic philosophy—from undergraduate majors to full professors; and 2) McPherson's claim that the “profession has clearly spoken: it has no shame regarding its extraordinary whiteness; and blacks have virtually no leverage in such an environment.” By engaging in disputes about the relative contribution of the various mechanisms that give rise to the relative paucity of people of color in philosophy (implicit bias, socioeconomic factors, various dimensions of structural racism, the whiteness of the cannon, hostility, laziness, and ignorance) we are likely to be doing little more than confirming McPherson's claim. Perhaps this is reason to think that Axisaudio is right to be skeptical about the possibility of a a serious discussion of race in philosophy.

I want to step back and ask the important question (which is, as always): what can be done. I think that it would be great if the people on this blog could offer some positive suggestions to change the problematic features make philosophy an inhospitable environment for people of color. But, since I don't doubt that we who are white are likely to fail to understand many of the relevant issues, I think that it would be even better if we could stand aside and make more room for others to make those suggestions. (We have grown up in a culture that perpetuates a psychology of racial prejudice, and even with our best efforts to undercut this psychology it is likely to persist; so, we must keep working on it!) Perhaps we who are white would do best to limit ourselves to offers of accompaniment in struggle, and to doing our best to implement the suggestions of others where it is in our power to do so.

[Heath White]

Without playing down “pipeline” issues, I speculate that the under-representation of minorities in philosophy runs a little deeper, and its solution would require more “sacrifice on the part of whites” than we are currently contemplating. Two speculative but, I hope, not irrational questions:

1. Mark Lance mentioned the whiteness of the philosophy canon. Going further, I think it’s plausible to construe the typical history of philosophy sequence (150 years of ancient Greece, 150 years of early modern Western Europe; tidbits elsewhere) as the brainy end of a Western Civ course. Now, suppose you are not all that invested in Western Civilization as a project or a norm, as many minority students might not be. Are we, as a profession, really interested in broadening the canon, altering our reading lists to include continents other than Europe and North America, changing the history of philosophy sequence in quite fundamental ways, perhaps questioning the very idea of “the” history of philosophy? This would affect curriculum, hiring, professional training, and a lot of other quite practical areas.

2. Many of the other humanities raise questions and indulge forms of argument that are typically excluded in an analytic philosophy context. I have in mind questions of motive and the “hermeneutic of suspicion.” To use an example mentioned earlier, it is possible to abstract away from Hume’s racism and consider his sentimentalist theory without it, but it is not necessary either. It is possible to ask questions about whether Hume’s theory is propounded with racist intent, whether it is part of a broader and less conscious exercise of western power, whether the racist aspect of the actual theory discredits the rest of it, how the white supremacy of the Enlightenment affected its moral theorizing, and so on. I can imagine that minority students might find these questions interesting and their dismissal frustrating. Are we, as a profession, really interested in taking up these kind s of questions when we do historical work, in contributing class time and paper topics to their discussion, sitting on dissertation committees where they are treated in depth, etc.?

With respect to question #1, I think a significant proportion of the profession would say that there is really something intellectually unique going on from ancient Greece through the modern west; we are studying that and contributing to it; welcome aboard if you are interested. With respect to question #2, I think a significant proportion of the profession would say that we are interested in the true answers to (say) moral questions, we are not interested in questions of motive or origin or genealogy as those do not advance the project, and if you want to address them you belong in the history or literature or anthropology departments. My main point here is that it would not surprise me if non-white students found these attitudes off-putting. But as I said, I am speculating, and I would welcome further thoughts.

[Anon Grad Student 6-7]

I am a graduate student in philosophy. Before this, I received my BA studying literary theory in a program where we read a great deal of philosophy--Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Kant, Frege, and Wittgenstein were all read carefully, for example. However, in contrast with my experience in philosophy, my undergrad department had at the very least representative quantities of both people of color and females (both the populations with respect to faculty and students).

Now this is just one example, but, together with the assumption that literary theory is of equal economic viability as philosophy, it suggests that Mark Lance is incorrect in his (admittedly speculative) assessment: "I see lots of minority undergraduates who are interested in philosophy, and a few who have genuine talent. The problem is that many don't see it as a possibility. When one is personally economically precarious, and comes from a family and history of precariousness, one does not see something like philosophy as a possibility." It also suggests the analogous claims concerning females in philosophy I've seen floated around here before are false.

[Eric Wiland]

Skimming the comments already posted, I don't think anyone has mentioned the following point, which to me seems highly relevant. We all (should) already know the extent to which women are underrepresented in American philosophy departments. We all (should) also already know the extent to which black men are underrepresented in four year American colleges; most black college students are women. If philosophy fails to attract women, and most black students are women, it should be no surprise that philosophy also fails to attract black students generally. (Will now STFU and listen...)

[ajkreider]

@axisaudio:

It certainly sounds as though your philosophy experience is not what it could and should have been. However there were a couple of points in your post that were especially disheartening, if true - primarily this:

"I informed the professor of the racial stratification that takes place in philosophy departments that is exacerbated by its lopsided focus on Western philosophy that most non-whites find mostly irrelevant, trivial, or a big sham."

If this is the case (and I'm curious as to how you know this), then the prospects for a more racially diverse profession are even worse than they appear. I assume that those who are drawn to traditional epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, logic, etc., are drawn to them, not because of the "Western-ness" or "whiteness" of them, but because they find some merit there. I would hope that seeing the merit of such projects (if there is merit) is not dependent on the whiteness or non-whiteness of the observer. But perhaps that is simply naivete on my part.

Also, in critiquing (perhaps appropriately) those skeptical of the "white supremacist" nature of professional philosophy, I think it important to be fair to your interlocutors. While not being able to speak for the author, this quote:

"If Mark Lance is right that the dearth of blacks (does anyone know if this is a problem unique to America, or if it extends throughout the English-speaking world?) in philosophy is beginning at the undergraduate level, then perhaps different questions need to be asked. It's at least possible that, for various reasons, people from certain cultural backgrounds aren't as interested in pursuing philosophy."

does not appear to suggest that philosophy is limited only to the English-speaking world. I took the author to be wondering whether racial under-representation is a product of failings particular to the U.S., which has it's own unique racial baggage. As this is an English-language blog, it seems not unreasonable to expect comparisons to come from those in other English-speaking countries. It's likely that the author is aware that, say, the French have robust philosophical tradition of which they are rightly proud. And I'm sure that by "people from certain cultural backgrounds aren't as interested in pursuing philosophy", the author is referring to philosophy as it has been traditionally taught and practiced in the West. This seems entirely non-committal concerning whether other and very different philosophical traditions are valuable. Though, one would think that there would be at least some overlap, if both deserve the name "philosophy" at all.

I was also concerned by your response to your colleagues' defense of Hume. I would not have said your comment was "grossly inappropriate", but other than that, would have given the same response. Whether Hume's (or Kant's) accounts of rationality and morality are correct seems not at all related to whether he believed non-whites lack such rationality. I hope this doesn't make me part of the white supremacist bastion, though self-assessments of this sort are notoriously unreliable.

If the problem of massive under-representation in philosophy is going to be solved, we must at least find the root cause(s). Broad generalizations about the whiteness of the canon or of the knee-jerk reactions of whites seem not at all helpful, even if true. Impugning the character of a whole group of people, even less so.

Finally, the very idea that certain groups of people do not have standing to participate in a discussion seems to cut at the very heart of the spirit (if not the historical practice) of philosophy, and I find it disheartening to see that view perpetuated here.

[Anonymous Grad Student]

I've often encountered the claim that one cannot "abstract away" from Hume or Kant's racism. This is often backed up by citations of said racism in either philosopher's work. It's impossible to deny that these philosophers were racists, yes. But I have yet to see an argument which convincingly shows that this means that racism infects all of Hume or Kant's theory. Is it not possible to say that, when we read Hume or Kant critically, excluding factually wrong claims about non-whites, there is something to be gained that is NOT racist? This would be "abstracting away" from their racism to understand their theories in a way more universal than they envisioned.

It is certainly wrong to dismiss this discussion entirely, as (after all) the claim of systematic infection might be correct. But we should see that such a claim is not right simply because it is made. Unless one can show that an author's racism undermines his or her philosophical system in at least one important respect, the argument seems to me to be no more than an ad hominem. The same goes for arguments which proceed from the racism of many (or perhaps all) enlightenment thinkers to the racism of enlightenment universalism en toto. I'm concerned that such claims are too quickly accepted because philosophers do not want to appear racist themselves, but that the claims have no merit when critically engaged. Of course, this is just my suspicion, perhaps no better founded than the suspicion of "abstracting away" in the first place.

[Raff Donelson]

First, I'm not sure that the under-representation of Blacks (and non-Whites more generally) in philosophy is a problem in itself. Racial hostility, racist admissions/hiring practices, and extra difficulties for non-Whites created because of class differences - these are problems. If these and other real problems go away and the under-representation persists, what's would be so bad about that? To me, it would be as deplorable as is the under-representation of Whites in basketball.

Second, Heath, I think the two questions you posed were excellent ones to contemplate, not because the Whiteness of the canon contributes to the under-representation of non-Whites, but because closing ourselves off from questions and voices which very well may be important additions to our truth-seeking enterprise is probably epistemically unjustifiable.

And because I cannot help throwing my two cents in about the questions in particular... With respect to the first question, a significant proportion of the profession doesn't know enough about other intellectual traditions to know whether and to what degree the lineage from Plato to Wittgenstein is intellectually unique. This is something worth fixing, I think. As to the second question, I share the anti-historicist sentiment of many analytical philosophers; however, in the spirit of what I've said thus far, those that disagree should make clear (and we should listen to) why this sort of anti-historicism might be a problem. I imagine there are good reasons to be given, but the fact that some Black students might find the contrary position off-putting is not among them.

[J Boyd]

I am aware of the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers, but other than this, are there any organizations focused on promoting racial diversity within academic philosophy, or, particularly, promoting the interests of blacks in the academy and encouraging blacks to enter it?

[Anonymous Undergrad Studen]

I don't necessarily agree that blacks are "under represented" with respect to their percentage of the overall population. Well, perhaps they are, in the strict sense that the percentage of black philosophy majors/grad students/professors who are black is not equal to their percentage in the overall population; however, I do not think there is any reason it needs to be. It is certainly possible that black students are simply not that interested in philosophy, for completely non-racist reasons. As a student, my black fellow students tend to be concentrating in other humanities -- many times English or a foreign language (admittedly, this is only a rough recollection of my experience). I don't think then that any academic hiring practices are intrinsically racist.

However, it may be, as has been mentioned above, that philosophy has been a field dominated by white thinkers from early on, who were perhaps racist individuals. Off the top of my head, I cannot name any early philosophers covered in my classes who were African, however, anybody vaguely familiar with philosophy could go on forever naming white European philosophers. Even if the thinkers were not racist, they were still white.

This being said, I think that there might be work to be done in garnering the interest of black students in philosophy, which would naturally increase the amount of black students in philosophy, and after an amount of time, also increase the amount of black academics in philosophy departments. How to do this is a good topic for discussion I think.

[Anonymous Undergraduate]

Being an undergraduate, my experience is quite limited. But I'd say in most of my philosophy classes, there were no black undergraduate students, except for one exception (1 black student out of 20 of us), and for the giant lectures, in which they accounted for a marginal portion of the class (though of course, it's hard to tell who's who in those). I don't know the exact numbers, but I'm pretty sure my (medium-sized public) university is diverse enough to start with. But if there aren't any black students studying philosophy on the undergraduate level, how could anyone expect them to fill the ranks of the profession?

[J Boyd]

Anon Undergraduate wrote: "But if there aren't any black students studying philosophy on the undergraduate level, how could anyone expect them to fill the ranks of the profession?"

I think this is a very important point. It may have already been addressed here, but are there racial demographic data regarding undergraduate philosophy majors?

I think that organizations like the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers can play a very important (if not the most important) role not just in promoting the interests of minority graduate students and professional philosophers, but also in recruiting and supporting minority students at the undergraduate level.

[Andrew MacKie-Mason]

Axisaudio,

As another commenter already pointed out, the restriction of my question to the English-speaking world (which you falsely equate with the Western world) was not intended to imply that philosophy only occurs in English-speaking countries. This is merely an English-speaking (and primarily American) community.

Further, the way you twisted my words to arrive at "why should non-whites allowed corrupt that prestigious, civilized, and pristine white discipline known as philosophy with their savagery, I mean with their cultural values." was entirely inappropriate given my statements. I wasn't stating that other cultures have less of an interest: I was supposing, as a hypothesis, that they might. (Such hypotheses, of course, being necessary if you're actually interested in "an honest discussion.") And there is absolutely no way to read my words as espousing some sort of supremacy of white culture, except through your own biases. I affirmed the value of cultural diversity because different cultures can be different and both valuable, not because one is better than another.

After looking at this sentence, you may want to ask yourself who's trying to suppress honest discussion: "However, such a defence and pardon of a Jim Crow academic discipline should not be surprising since having an honest discussion with whites about race and racism is a rarity now as it was in the past." As it stands, I'm willing to have an honest discussion as long as you like. But you're the one who thinks I don't have the racial bona fides to speak.

Mark,

I think on the matter of 'interest' we're circling around a semantic distinction that adds nothing to the discussion. You're saying that they don't want to enter the field because it doesn't give them economic security; I'm saying that they're not interested in entering the field because it doesn't give them economic security. It's the same thing, as far as I can tell. If it makes you feel better, though, I'll accept your terminology.

"this obviously points to a need for action, not complacency." It does, as I've said. But I don't see how that action can come from inside the philosophy profession. How are philosophers going to suddenly increase their pay and job security, and why haven't they do so already?

And as I've said, if broadening the canon would help the discipline as a whole, then it is worth it for its own sake. I don't have the background knowledge to say whether or not that would be a good thing. My only point is that broadening the canon for the *purpose* of increasing "diversity" doesn't make sense.

[Anne Jacobson]

It is interesting to see the extent to which philosophers will discuss a problem in terms of what is possible or conceivable. I've picked out two quotes below, but it is easy to find many others. It might be worth considering what contribution such conjectures make in answering Brian's question, which does not seem to be about what is merely conceivable.

One important contribution such conjectures can make is at the start of an investigation, when we are trying to figure out what a relevant hypothesis would look like. And I am sure others can think of other uses. But I'm struck by the fact that we may not be all that good at formulating in our imaginations all of the important factors. I can myself remembering sitting on committees sometime ago that looked into why women professors typically have lower salaries. I think one of the last hypothesis we had was that we and our obviously well intentioned colleagues have implicit biases that lead to a devaluating of women's work. That's now a well tested explanation.

........

"It's also possible that interest in philosophy is (understandably) correlated to wealth, which means that solving the problem is minimally in the hands of philosophers themselves ...That's not to say there aren't racism issues that should bje addressed, or other reasons for a lack of diversity that philosophers can do something about. But it's at least conceivable that there's no problem to fix here."

"I think I can imagine a community having no shame regarding its present whiteness, and yet remaining very open and even positively encouraging to non-white (prospective) philosophers."

[Mark Lance]

Since the discussion since has been on very different things, could I just endorse the post by my colleague Bryce Huebner at 8:34? I think he is exactly right. If folks feel that another forum is more useful for such a detailed discussion, and that I or others could be helpful, please also feel free to email me.
(Thanks to Brian for raising the issue. This is the most discussion I've seen of it in a long time.)

[Alex Guerrero]

A few concrete things:

(1) Find out whether your campus has a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program (google it). This program is geared toward getting members of underrepresented minority groups to pursue PhDs (of all kinds, but with an eye toward academia) and includes financial support for undergrads (helped me stop working 20 hours a week while in school), mentorship, information on the academic life, and some support while doing the PhD. There are 100 or so campuses involved, but philosophers could take a more active role, could try to bring a program to their campus, and could encourage students to apply (and serve as mentors).

(2) Talk to promising members of underrepresented groups about becoming academics. Don't assume this is on anyone's radar, or that they know anything about it. Don't laugh, but it wasn't until my junior year that I learned that not only did one not have to pay tuition to get a PhD, but that one would also get a living stipend, at least at many programs. This changed my thinking considerably! Members of underrepresented groups are less likely to know much about the academic world (that follows pretty directly from the underrepresentation!). And small gestures of interest and support can go a long way.

(3) Encourage students to apply for outside fellowships like the Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies and the Jacob Javits Fellowship. I believe that the latter, in particular, takes membership in a historically underrepresented group into account. These can help with funding packages and admission to PhD programs.

(4) Consider learning some philosophy outside of the traditional Western canon, and consider teaching it within a standard philosophy course. This is not easy and perhaps controversial as advice, but it seems to me that one of the problems is that the people in the mainstream don't know very much about, say, what gets called Chinese Philosophy, Indian Philosophy, Latin American Philosophy, Native American Philosophy, or African Philosophy. As a result, most departments don't have anyone to teach classes that include the work of anyone from outside of the traditional canon, nor do departments see this as a problem (in the way that they might if, say, they didn't have anyone who works in metaphysics). Of course, some work that falls under these headings would not appeal to a standard analytic philosopher (whatever that is). But some of it clearly would. I have dabbled a bit in African Philosophy, and anyone interested in philosophy of mind and personal identity would (I think) greatly enjoy Kwame Gyekye's book _An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Conceptual Scheme_. Those working in ethics or aesthetics would probably get something out of Barry Hallen's book _The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful: Discourse about Values in Yoruba Culture_. It is of course natural to be afraid of dilettantism or worse, and this kind of step is obviously no fix for some of the larger problems (nor is it guaranteed to appeal to those from underrepresented groups), but it seems worth doing and relatively manageable. One thing that would be useful would be for experts in these canons to identify work that might be of interest to, say, contemporary analytic philosophers.

[prof at large state university]

Some people are wondering about undergraduate enrollment data. I teach at one of the largest state universities in the country (located in the southwest) in an analytic department. We have approximately 250 declared philosophy undergraduate majors. The percentage of minority students is as follows: 16% Hispanic, 6% blacks, and 4% asian. These numbers are roughly in line with the university-wide breakdowns (slightly more hispanic majors and slightly less asian majors). I noticed there is a lot of anecdotal "evidence" above about minorities not liking philosophy etc. and about problems in the pipeline at early stages. These numbers do not support those ideas.

[Anne Jacobson]

May I note with regard to one of Nathan's comments and the reaction to it the following? Many theorists have argued that one cannot erase classism, racism, sexism from philosophers like Hume and Kant and still have a core left. There is now a great deal of literature on this, which may be why Nathan felt he didn't need to cite it. Perhaps he'll mention some outstanding texts from black philosophers. I'll draw an one of my areas of expertise to mention the following: Some of the arguments are in Nancy Tuana's series on Re- reading the Canon, from Penn State Press. A really nice, short book that was one of the first in Anglophone feminist philosophy to do this is Lloyd's The Man of Reason. Annette Baier's Commons of the Mind extends some early arguments.

[Shelley Tremain]

Andrew McKie Mason said:
"if broadening the canon would help the discipline as a whole, then it is worth it for its own sake. .....[B]roadening the canon for the *purpose* of increasing "diversity" doesn't make sense."

I read this as saying that "the discipline as a whole" (whatever that means in this context)or rather "help[ing] the discipline as a whole" is of greater and more fundamental value than distributing social justice, equality, and the recognition requisite for self-esteem and self-worth to an increasing number of people, in particular, historically disenfranchised people. Breathtaking.

[Andrew MacKie-Mason]

Shelley, do you really think that philosophy is so superior to any other field that incorporating fields of study into Philosophy Departments rather than into other departments in a university, such that the "diversity" of the philosophy department increases but there is no actual change in the opportunities for students or faculty of color, will do that much to help with "social justice, equality, self-esteem, and self-worth?"

Honestly, I love philosophy. But I've never met anyone whose self-esteem was lowered by the fact that the fields they're interested in studying were a part of a university other than the philosophy department.

[David Manley]

As a fairly new professor, I think in the past I have underestimated the degree to which certain factors can affect career choices among young people, including the choice of major by undergraduates. For example, according to the following study (though I'm not sure how good the science is), people named 'Dennis' are far more likely to become dentists than people with names like 'Walter' or 'Jerry', and so on for many other examples: http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/stuff_for_blog/susie.pdf

If this is true, presumably the reason is that, for a given young Dennis, there's a sense of familiarity, an ease of self-identification, with the idea of becoming a dentist. Dennis more naturally imagines himself as a dentist than Walter does-- and even this apparently negligible factor has a profound effect on the numbers. It would be difficult to isolate in a study, but presumably this kind of effect is even more dramatic for various other ways in which one might find it more or less difficult to self-identify with a profession-- for example, imagine if every dentist one met or saw in a book were a different race or gender or spoke with a foreign accent.

At the same time, there may be plenty that current members of the discipline can do to help balance out this kind of factor. Many of us may be significantly underestimating the degree to which needlessly having an non-diverse group of authors on a syllabus might affect the extent to which students feel at home in the debate, for instance. Moreover, it strikes me as well worthwhile to undertake a serious study of the factors entering students' decisions not to pursue a philosophy major. (Of course this will not always tease out various subconscious factors-- I doubt many dentists named 'Dennis' would be consciously aware of the connection between their profession and their name.)

[Shelley Tremain]

I don't think that at all. I understood you to be saying that broadening the canon to include different cultural traditions and philosophies was only worthwhile if it benefited "the discipline as a whole" regardless of what effect doing so might or might not have upon certain groups of people.

[Andrew MacKie-Mason]

As is clear from the entire discussion (but may not be if someone chose to read only a single comment and jump to a conclusion without adequate information) I was suggesting that that kind of diversity doesn't actually help any group of people, and thus diversity in philosophy shouldn't be pursued for its own sake if achieving that diversity requires redefining the field in a way that doesn't actually serve the goals of academic inquiry.

[Josh Richards]

In response to Alex,

These are certainly good suggestions that could go a long way towards elucidating the problem (by increasing representation at the undergraduate/graduate level and seeing if increases at the professional level follow), or even abating the problem outright; however, I'm not sure (if some of the previous contentions are valid) that these suggestions would be as helpful as they ostensibly seem. If the dearth of black professional Philosophers is due to some kind of unconscious structural bias or conscious hostility, I'm not sure increasing the pool of applicants would do much towards solving the problem.

I suppose the impetus of the problem must be discovered and defined. Is the problem (lack of black Philosophers at the professional level) caused by a lack of representation throughout the system, or is it structural bias/hostility? If it is the former Alex's ideas could go a long way towards fixing the problem, if it is the latter it won't do as much. I mean think of McPherson's original remark "I cannot in good conscience encourage any black student in the U.S. (or U.K.) to enter the philosophy profession." Clearly Professor McPherson doesn't see it as an issue of representation, but one of structural bias. If this assertion is correct, then I don't see how increasing representation at lower levels would help representation at the professional level. I doubt it can be simplified in such a way, this is obviously a complex issue with no simple answer. But finding the root of the problem will go a long way towards finding the solution.

I think that increasing representation is a good step to take. If anything it can help us figure out more definitively what causes the problem at the professional level.

[Andrew MacKie-Mason]

Josh,

It also bears pointing out that it may be impossible to simply increase the number of undergraduates as a way to see if that helps us get more professionals, if the vicious circle hypothesis holds: that is, if people aren't picking it as a major because they don't see their ethnic group represented in the faculty. (While that problem probably exists in all fields, it may very well be exacerbated in fields like philosophy that are primarily geared towards creating academics.)

[Kathryn]

Re. J. Boyd's comment, and to add to some of the other suggested resources, the Society of Young Black Philosophers facebook group can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_313902619150

As for encouraging undergrads to go on to further study, there’s Rutgers Summer Institute: http://philosophy.rutgers.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=315&Itemid=372

As well as Penn State’s CUSP workshop, http://philosophy.la.psu.edu/graduate/cusp.shtml

And the PIKSI Institute: http://rockethics.psu.edu/education/piksi/

Also, in the way of funding opportunities, don't forget about Ford Fellowships, or the McNair Scholars Program.

I don't know how to solve the problem-- or really, even the extent of the problem itself, but being aware of (and making accessible) resources that can help support underrepresented students seems like a very easy step in the right direction.

[Justin Fisher]

Two quick comments:

(1) Given our dismal job market, I feel morally obligated not to encourage *any* undergrads to pursue a career in philosophy (though I will of course give conditional advice: "if you really want X then you should Y..."). I recognize that this perpetuates an effective selection pressure for grad students who are economically secure enough to be risk-tolerant, which probably correlates with skin color. But I'm at a loss as to what I should do differently. Should I encourage my good black students to make a risky run at grad school in philosophy, when I wouldn't encourage equally talented white students to do so? That seems perverse...

(2) I have several friends who are black atheists (in Texas). They say they've received very strong and unified pressure from the black community not to question religion -- much stronger than most white atheists I've talked to (with a few exceptions). It'd be hard to do professional philosophy without at least considering challenges to religion (not to mention other unpopular questions), so it wouldn't surprise me if disproportionately many black students experience strong pressure to steer clear of philosophy and philosophers' ways of approaching things. (This is supported by stats I've seen correlating religiosity with race, but it'd be great to have people with better data or first-hand experience confirm or deny this.) If the racial disparity in philosophy is partially shaped by some racial communities' doing more than others to steer their members away from philosophy, then it's not clear how much this is *our* responsibility. Or should we be trying to find ways to combat this?

[Billy Lauinger]

Readers may find this brief excerpt from Thomas Chatterton Williams's book (Losing My Cool) interesting: http://nplusonemag.com/Hegel-at-Georgetown

The book is a memoir. This excerpt is entitled "Hegel at Georgetown", and in it Thomas Chatterton Williams (who is African-American) discusses his studying of the Master-Slave dialectic under Wilfried Ver Eecke.

[matthew smith]

Alex's comments are excellent. I second them all. As what Alex says makes clear, the problem we face is not a *philosophical* problem, but instead a personal and institutional problem. That is, doing more philosophy is not how we comprehend and address this problem.

Importantly, if White philosophers would just admit to themselves that, insofar as one is White, one is probably racist, then we might *begin* to talk seriously racism, which is to say nothing about actually confronting racism.

As some people on this blog have suggested, listening to non-whites is not something white people do well. I strongly recommend that white philosophers - men and women - take this to heart. For white people, the struggle against racism begins about as close to home as anything does. It's often not very fun to admit one's own failings to oneself, but if one is committed to confronting racism, then confronting it in oneself is probably the first, best place to start. For those interested, I suggest checking out Tim Wise's book _White Like Me_. Not philosophy, but as I said, the problem is not philosophical. The problem is that white people are racist and we live in a racist society.

Still, as Alex suggested, greater intellectual inclusivity as a curricular adjustment might be one route by which our discipline can come to grips with its own social limitations, ugly or otherwise.

To that end, I add to Alex's recommendations the following recommendation: philosophy ought to open its intellectual doors to other disciplines in the humanities. We have for too long been desperate to buddy up with science - a refuge from the turmoil of the 20th Century, and especially a refuge from the wrenching and just challenges of the 1960s. In particular, it might do us well to reach out and learn from disciplines like history and comparative literature, like sociology and anthropology, and so on, instead of just dismissing their own efforts at self-criticism as evidence of intellectual flabbiness.

I realize we philosophers like to think of ourselves as cousins to scientists. But, we are, alas, at least as much humanists. So, along with all the other excellent suggestions broached by others above (many of which I applaud for more directly addressing the question of racism in the community), I suggest we also seek to include in our philosophical curricula some of the critical studies of race, power, and so on. I am not suggesting that we read charlatans like Badiou. Rather, we might read literature by African-Americans and women alongside philosophy by African-Americans and women. We might read not-quite-"analytic"-philosophy like the work of bell hooks along with historical accounts of racism, while at the same time reading Locke and Mill. We might read sociological studies about institutional racism and sexism while reading Rawls. These are all of a piece.

Instead of reacting to the "canon" and dismissing chunks of it, we might *expand* it. This means more work for us. But, I've always felt that philosophy is the sort of discipline that ought to promote and even reward breadth of study. Lewisinalia is awesome - god knows I love reading Lewis - but that is not all there is or was to philosophy.

[Andrew MacKie-Mason]

"insofar as one is White, one is probably racist"

Insofar as one is human, one is probably racist. There's a strong and understandable human evolutionary tendency to trust the similar and fear/dislike the outsider. Since so much of our current dialogue suggests that race is a key defining factor, it's not surprising that that natural fear of the other becomes attached to race.

[Darius Jedburgh]

Anonymous undergrad student wrote, "I cannot name any early philosophers covered in my classes who were African."

Augustine is one of the greatest of all philosophers. It is too bad if he is not covered in any of your classes.

[Kathryn]

Andrew, I don't disagree that there are bound to be understandable in-group preferences, but of course if one is non-white in a predominately white society, then it is likely not so simple given that the majority of people one is likely to be familarized with are white; and there is research to support this (e.g., see the results of project implicit: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/background/faqs.html#faq18).

But more to the point, regardless of who is racist and who isn't, white philosophers, in virtue of being white, are far more likely to have benefited from racism. If we could admit that, maybe we could start seriously thinking about the ways in which we are complicit in this situation--regardless of whether or not one is racist oneself.

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I'll add also: if there are people in philosophy (and there clearly are, given discussions I've been having) who are *still* so benighted as to openly express racist views, think of how many more there are who bite their tongues and don't so. And that's before we even get into the fact that pretty much all of us are likely to hold these views unconsciously, whatever our conscious views and whatever our own race.

This is why I find scepticism about McPherson's claims shocking and unwarranted. well, I guess not so shocking given all the racism!

BL COMMENT: Just to be clear, I assume it was not Professor Saul's intent to suggest that *any* skepticism about Professor McPherson's claims must necessarily be motivated by conscious or unconscious racism.

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No, it wasn't. Thanks for the clarification.

[Susan Hadley]

I am more than delighted to read about the attention that is being given to the issue of both whiteness and the paucity of Blacks in the field of philosophy. However, many of the entries read as if both issues are new, something recent. This is not the case. For example, philosophers Charles Mills and George Yancy have written on the topic of whiteness in philosophy for years now. Mills has given philosophical attention to the issue of whiteness in terms of its deeply political and epistemological ramifications and Yancy has explored whiteness from the perspective of racial embodiment, focusing on many ways in which whiteness operates within predominantly white philosophical spaces. In fact, Yancy has also written about early Blacks in philosophy, providing the first major essay on the first Black male (Thomas N. Baker) to receive a Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University in 1903. For those interested in reading about what Black philosophers think about the paucity of Blacks in philosophy, Yancy's book of interviews is indispensable. Also, checkout Yancy's attempt to teach philosophy in ways that make philosophy "unsafe" to whites, that is, how he teaches philosophy in such a way that it challenges white students to think about their normative status in the field and within philosophy classrooms. By doing so, Yancy is actually creating conditions for challenging the hegemonic and numerical whiteness of the field. Describing what it feels like to be a Black male philosopher, Yancy says:

"As a black embodied philosopher, there is a peculiar sensation that one gets while
walking through academic spaces dominated by white bodies. I have especially felt this
peculiar sensation while attending philosophy conferences – the American Philosophical
Association variety. There is the complex and multifaceted sensation of being drowned in
a sea of whiteness. In every direction, there are white bodies moving and discoursing
with ease, with no particular sense of being out of place or not at home. The motif of
“home” is an important and germane one as it suggests the sense of familiarity, safety,
and being among those with whom one shares something intimate, something familial.
Within such a context, one feels relaxed and unperturbed. One might say that the spaces
at such conferences, for white bodies at least, are inviting and alluring. To be white
within such spaces is perceived as commonplace. One is fully engaged, pre-reflectively
so, with the mannerisms and etiquette of white social bonding. But what is the frame of
intelligibility that creates the conditions for the possibility of white bodies inhabiting such
spaces, owning such spaces – spaces that go unmarked as white?"

And describing what it is like to witness whites at philosophy conferences, Yancy goes on to say:

"Within the context of predominantly white philosophy conferences, white bodies move with ease, they complement and complete each other, they bond with each other. Their bodies are mobilized by the entire scene: tweed jackets, bow ties, pipes, white hair, white skin, books on white philosophers like Kant and Hegel written by other white philosophers for white consumption, contorted white faces deep in reflection, looks of perplexity, slight hints of wine and cheese breath, and strained eyes red with intensity. The entire philosophical performance, with all of its props, constitutes a site of effective (white) history, a history that points to a continuous chain of white men “jerking off” with wild gesticulations, hands flailing while delineating some supposedly grand philosophical distinction or while articulating a philosophical system that eventually comes to elide its human face. Trained to do philosophy within the context of such normative spaces, young white philosophers (men and women) come to inhabit academic spaces without question, without critical self-reflexivity, without readjusting their white gazes." For more on this, see: http://www.epistemologies.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Essay-Yancy-Loving-Wisdom.pdf

[Chike Jeffers]

How under-represented are black people in Philosophy in the Anglophone world outside the US? One might assume that black people would at least not be under-represented in those parts of the Anglophone world that are majority black, but a quick scan of Philosophy department websites in South Africa would prove that assumption wrong. It is true, of course, that knowing South Africa's history helps make this less of a shock, but it remains a stark example of the problem we are discussing here.

Moving back to spaces in which black people are minorities, Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman forces us to consider (in the posting that started this discussion) the possibility that there are *no* black faculty in Philosophy in the UK. I would appreciate hearing from any UK philosophers (or other people familiar with Philosophy departments in the the UK) about whether this is, to their knowledge, the case.

Onto my country. I currently hold a tenure-track position at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I have a black colleague, Francoise Baylis, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Bioethics and Philosophy, although it should be noted that she is often assumed on the basis of appearance to be white (an experience she has discussed in her work). I am currently unaware of any other tenure-track people in Philosophy in Canada who self-identify as black.

What I would note about Canada and the UK on the basis of what I have said so far, then, is that there is good reason to think that things can be considered as bad or worse as the US, even taking into account the fact that black people make up somewhere around 2% of the population in these countries, as compared with 12% in the US.

But let me not end on this depressing note. I have 2 suggestions to add to those that have already been offered in this thread.

First, I would recommend introducing black students with strong interest in philosophy to George Yancy's book African American Philosophers: 17 Conversations. I say this because of my own experience: reading this book was a major factor in my decision to become a professional philosopher. I was not sure that it was something worth pursuing as a career (rather than something simply interesting to learn about/from) before being introduced to the role models I found in this book.

Second, tell your black Philosophy majors about the Society of Young Black Philosophers, a Facebook group that is targeted primarily at grad students and junior faculty, but which already has some undergrad members and which sees getting more black students into grad school as part of its purpose. It has already been advertised over at Feminist Philosophers: http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/society-of-young-black-philosophers/

These two suggestions are most clearly aimed at what Mark Lance called the "vicious circle" problem: by encouraging black undergrads to learn about the professional philosophers who are already out there and have paved the way (through Yancy's book) and connect with other young people entering the field (through the Facebook group), one helps black students to see themselves reflected in the field and one thereby encourages them to see themselves as having a place of their own in it.

Let me say, though, that I do not see the problem of the "white canon" as totally separate, especially with regard to my recommendation of Yancy's book. It was not just the fact of black philosophers that made that book special to me. It was also the fact that so many people in the book applied the special skills philosophy provides to thinking through the special issues arising out of black people's experiences.

[Raj N. Patel]

Along with all the comments regarding not encouraging minority/black students to go down the graduate school path because of the extra terrible job prospects (and also the extraordinarily long time it takes to complete a PhD in philosophy) being some obstacles to dismantling the "white-wash" that is the Academy nowadays, I think there are at least some other problems:

1. I think that there is a PR problem for philosophy in general. This goes beyond the perceived lack of instrumental value that lies in a BA in Philosophy (we all know the "what are you going to do with that?" response from the undergrad days) - the problem here lies in the conceptualization of philosophy as a purely or predominantly 'white' undertaking. As a "minority" student (I'm of Indian descent) who just graduated with a degree in philosophy from GWU in DC, I can say that I can see why some minority students have this view given the course listings in our department. There are typically NO courses that delve into philosophers who are not white, except for philosophy of race and gender. Even 'Indian Philosophy' is left to the Religious Studies department.

The point here should be that - and philosophy departments should become more effective at communicating this - philosophy is NOT an activity strictly for old white men at the beginning of the undergrad curriculum.

2. This is a slightly nuanced reiteration of Justin Fisher's comment above. The idea that some racial communities tend to have internal biases that produce, on average, less of an interest from these communities in contrast to white students showing an interest in philosophy can, I think, at least in part be helped by philosophy department themselves. This is again a PR problem. (As a side note, I have experienced this bias myself: I had quite a difficult time telling my parents that I was giving up first neuroscience, then economics, to become a philosophy major. In the end, I simply did not listen to them. I do not know of any other Indians going into graduate school philosophy, though I did know of one or two who picked up philosophy as a secondary major.)

What philosophy departments could do, especially at the early undergraduate stage (e.g. intro philosophy, as well as those other classes that are typically bigger because they count as classes towards other majors, i.e. business ethics, or ethical theory) is highlight the universal appeal of the 'activity' of philosophizing itself.

An interesting side note and manifestation of philosophy being viewed as a 'white' or 'Western' activity is in the novel "Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee" by Meera Syal (British-Indian comedienne), one of the main characters draws a correlation between Indian men and women studying in departments such as philosophy or English and how much they diverge from their 'racial community' in general. This is part of the problem - I do not know to what extent the philosophy department CAN change this, but I think that it should be changed somehow.

[Chris]

To the student who couldn't recall any Africans among the early philosophers covered in his curriculum: did the department really leave out Augustine?

A friend has been wondering why he's having a hard time getting an African Studies press to publish his monograph "African Philosophy from Augustine to Camus". But seriously, it's worth bearing in mind that the relative (though not absolute) lack of written languages in pre-colonial, sub-Saharan Africa plays some role in explaining the status quo as far as the canon is concerned.