An untenured philosopher, who asked that I not use her name, writes:
I just participated in your recent poll about the APA and voted "Definitely"; this may be of little interest but I'm writing because I belong to a group that the identity politics folks describe as a 'triple minority’: 'queer'; 'person of colour'; woman (scare quotes because I dislike those labels). I should, then, be all for these measures designed to include and promote people like me. I'm not, though, because I feel quite included and promoted enough qua the only identity I care to adopt: philosopher. And if I don’t, it’s as someone whose primary interests lie in ancient Greek philosophy and not as a ‘WOC’ (or ‘QWOC’ or whatever absurd acronym best captures my demographic).
I'm not even sure what it means to "Publish more papers of interest to under-represented groups in philosophy" -- do 'under-represented groups' have special philosophical interests? Will it be assumed that people like me are more interested in, say, standpoint epistemology than in Platonic metaphysics?
While I wouldn't dare put my name to any of these thoughts (since I don't have tenure and the times are what they are) I'm truly disturbed by these proposals formulated to help groups under-represented along the lines of sex/orientation/race/etc. I find the suggestions in the most recent APA blog post scary and, frankly, stupid as a philosopher and condescending as a member of various ‘under-represented’ groups.
Sorry for this rather rambling email, but I also just wanted to write and thank you -- I've been reading your blog since I was a first-year undergrad a dozen years ago and I'm always grateful to read (the ever-decreasing) voices of sanity in this profession.
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