Write a 1-2 paragraph response/reflection on one of the Mills readings. You may write about the "Overview" from The Racial Contract or "Intersecting Contracts" in Contract and Domination.
Despite my aversion to Mills’ critique of Rawls that we read earlier this semester, his ideas about a Racial Contract are certainly worth considering. After reading the Overview of the Racial Contract, it is easier to see how Rawls’s theory would certainly represent a type of “epistemological ignorance,” as Mills puts it. I found it interesting that Mills imposes this epistemological ignorance on us, but claims that the only area where this ignorance exists is in the context of race, when such obliviousness certainly exists in issues regarding gender, sexuality, crime, and many other sectors of society. Mills claims that the Racial Contract “has the best claim to being an actual historical fact,” because it can be traced through history from the beginnings of European colonialism. Mills is careful to address the rhetoric surrounding Eurocentrism as it developed in world history. From a “white” perspective words like “discovery” and “New World” are used to describe European colonialism where for “non-whites” the rhetoric drips with oppressive phraseology like “expeditions of conquest.” Mills agrees with the latter rhetoric and asserts that this is a much more accurate way of describing European colonialism, and I would have to agree with Mills on this point.
Mills further discusses the “overlapping dimensions” of the racial contract which include geography, culture, and religion and how one moved seamlessly into another. I was surprised that he used Native Americans as his primary example of this chain of dimensions as opposed to Black Africans. But within a discussion of European colonialism and expeditions, perhaps it is fitting to discuss Native Americans as one of the first victims of the Racial Contract. Originally Native Americans were perceived to be of a different geography (North America), then a different culture (savages), then a different religion (not-Catholic). Mills concluded that these three dimensions “eventually coalesced into the basic opposition of white versus nonwhite,” something that I would again have to agree with. Generally, I disagree that Pateman’s Sexual Contract is not real, but men and women have for the most part lived among one another which is not the case for Native Americans and European colonialists. I can appreciate Mills contract, his claims that it is real, and his usage of “epistemological ignorance” to explain its perpetuation, as well as the horrible legacy it has created. Perhaps Mills is correct that the Racial Contract has been the most oppressive and has had the direst consequences, but the Racial Contract is certainly not the only oppressive contract that exists.
In The Racial Contract, Charles Mills outlines what he believes to be a contract which affects everyone in our society, yet goes largely unnoticed. This contract is the Racial Contact (I guess the title of the book kind of gave it away, huh?). The Racial Contract, Mills argues, is a set of explicit and implicit agreements which differentiate between white and non-white members of society. Further, the contract stipulates that non-white members of society are relegated to a lower and inferior class of person, such that they are considered inferior in almost every aspect of our society. Mills goes on further to define who the signatories to this covenant are: whites. Mills says that although not every white person is a signatory to the racial contract, all whites benefit from it. Similar to Pateman, Mills examines the problems which arise when an entire class is subject to contracts and orders which they had no part in establishing.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Mills’ Racial Contract. His writing style is clear and his arguments are laid out in such a way that is hard to disagree. His arguments are, in my opinion, better grounded and arithmetic than those of Pateman’s. By that I mean that in digesting Mills’ work, it is not hard for the reader to follow the logic of the argument—whereas in Pateman I often found myself struggling to make the connections she made.
Perhaps most poignant in Mills’ Racial Contract is his notion of the epistemology of ignorance. On the surface a non-sequitur, the epistemology of ignorance describes how a system such as the racial contract can be operative and have demonstrable effects, yet go unnoticed, unaddressed, and un-reconciled. In short, the epistemology of ignorance the condition which allows the racial contract to persist. This is similar to the idea presented in class when we were discussing the White Privilege readings. It was hard to face and come to terms with the fact that simply by virtue of being white, I receive benefits denied to nonwhites. Up until that point I was a full-on practitioner of the epistemology of ignorance. It is my hope that with continued effort and work we can dismantle this mindset and strive toward a contract in which all peoples have an active say in formulating.
I really enjoyed Charles Mills' work. He has an extremely consistent, logical, and methodical writing style that is easy to follow, and seems to anticipate and address the counterarguments to his points. In The Racial Contract, Mills outlines the basic idea of the racial contract, the different ways in which it has functioned over our history, and continues to function even today. Mills, like Pateman, believes that our current social contract excludes and oppresses females (Pateman) and non-whites (Mills), mostly to the benefit of white males. However, unlike Pateman, Mills does not make a lot of wild claims right out of the gate. His argument is reasoned and rational, and it makes me much more likely to agree with him. For example, he makes the point that when slavery was established in the new world, it was already mostly dying out in Europe at that time. To make it possible to bring slavery back in full force, it was necessary to establish the inferiority of non-whites, and that is exactly what happened.
When we read our first piece by Charles Mills, I could not understand why it seemed as though he was nitpicking at John Rawls’ “A Theory of Justice.” However, after reading the “Overview” in The Racial Contract, I have a better understanding of why Mills critiqued Rawls in the manner that he did. In fact, I found myself liking Mills after we read his work in The Racial Contract and Contract and Domination. According to Mills, there exists a racial contract, which is a set of agreements, both formal and informal, between whites and nonwhites which establishes whites as superior to nonwhites. Mills argues that the racial contract is also political, moral and epistemological. It is political because it explains how society as created and transformed, thus also reconstituting the individuals living in the society. It is moral because it explains how the moral code and moral psychology of society was brought into existence. Lastly, it is epistemological because it prescribes the norms for cognition to which the signatories of the racial contract must adhere. Mills argues that all white people are beneficiaries of the racial contract, although not all are signatories of it. Thus, the racial contract requires that those who benefit from it (white people) are supposed to maintain a certain blindness to issues related to race in an effort to maintain the “white polity” that the contract establishes.
I would have to agree with Mills’ claim that our society is built on the racial contract. Often times, race is viewed as such a taboo topic. To engage in a discussion about race is to begin to divulge in the history of oppression that many nonwhites have faced, which is typically difficult to address and accept. Mills does a wonderful job of bringing the issue to the forefront of everyone’s minds. As much as we might want to argue that we live in a race-neutral society, Mills reminds us that this will almost never be possible. He acknowledges that there have been some improvements in regards to the opportunities afforded to nonwhites, take our having an African-American President, yet there are still disparities between whites and nonwhites, proving that the two groups are still unequal. After reading this overview, and learning about the epistemology of ignorance, I understand why Mills critiques Rawls as much as he does, and I would have to say that I agree. Initially, I wanted to give Rawls the benefit of the doubt and excuse him for not mentioning the racial oppression of the civil rights movement in his analysis of justice. However, after reading Mills’ work, I now see that the epistemology of ignorance is real and Rawls is a shining example of how it works. Overall, this chapter made me appreciate Mills’ work and actually take into consideration many of his arguments about the functions of race in our society. Ultimately, we can never escape the issues of race since they are so deeply embedded in our society, so we should do as Mills does and address them head on, then try to find ways to make changes in the future.
Humans have a tendency to embrace those that they feel are members of their in group. In an effort to protect their natural group dynamic, they fear, and often ostracize, anyone who they see as part of their out group. While this was vital five thousand years ago, these instincts have lead us to treat each other without the respect and dignity that all people deserve over the last several hundred years. Mills chooses to focus his discussion on racial identity, one of the most visible signs of membership in a particular group. Mills calls this the "Racial Contract" in which whites consolidate their in group and attempt to strip political and civil rights from anyone who does not share their racial heritage. Mills goes on to explain that this system has justified terrible atrocities as well as the institution of slavery by designating anyone who isn't white as subhumans, thus making it not unethical to exploit them.
As a white male, this system hasn't affected me as outwardly as it has other non white and non male individuals. Mills calls this the epistemology of ignorance, in which the system hides itself from the beneficiaries of the system. While I certainly agree that whites have dominated various other groups in the past, I don't think enough time is spent discussing just who gets to be "white" and how. The Irish, Catholics, and Jews are just a few groups that, by their skin color, are "white" but have not always been beneficies of the Racial Contract, especially in America. I do, however, think that his analysis of how groups use certain characteristics of their group to justify taking away the rights of others and exploiting those different from themselves to be compelling and very logical. Hopefully, we are moving in a direction in which we will see a true application of the social contract in which all people, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc. will be treated equally.
I actually wrote about the same topic in the Pateman blog before reading your post here. I totally agree. We need to dismantle the system that allows the white in-group to, as you put it "use certain characteristics of their group to justify taking away the rights of others and exploiting those different from themselves". Good post.
I was intrigued by Mill’s The Racial Contract, due largely to his explanation of the contract as political, moral, and epistemological. The part that attracted my attention the most was how the contract is epistemological, and how Mill’s proposed this idea of the epistemology of ignorance. I was interested in this because it sounded very similar to the idea of white privilege, where the current culture and customs of the white race could completely ignore the difficulties of other races even when they are presented with instances of injustice on a daily basis. The idea that something could become so ingrained in our culture that it is no longer seen as a problem, and merely part of the system is something that is unbelievable to me, and it makes me question whether or not there are similar injustices taking place all around me but because of my situated knowledge I am unable to see them. The other aspects of the racial contract, (political and moral) also provided a new outlook on our current and past political and cultural systems. The methods that our ancestors used to maintain white dominance over other races, while still coming across as “fair”, were absolutely ridiculous. Mills used the example of the Spanish when they were attempting to establish colonies in America, they would enter into contracts with the Native Americans, written in Spanish, which would basically force the natives to become slaves. However, this was perceived as fair because the Native Americans entered into the contract willingly, even though they had no idea what they were signing. Looking back, this seems absolutely ridiculous that we resorted to such a measure, and while we would consider this racist now, back then it was simply the way things worked. After this realization, I cannot help but think of some of the current laws that we have in place which are not perceived as racist by the majority of people, but that may simply be due to white privilege. I am thinking mainly about the ability for police to “stop and frisk” people on the streets, with the overwhelming majority of those people being stopped being minorities. Also, the war on drugs in America has incarcerated substantially more minority criminals than whites, which leads to misleading statistics and perpetuating a system of white privilege. Mills would call the people who buy into these laws as contract signatories, or people who continue the racial contract into the present. While these laws are in place because they are viewed as “fair” and the statistics of people incarcerated and people stopped and frisked are “fair” because of the belief that on average minorities abuse drugs more frequently than whites, it does not take into account that the reason why there are more minorities arrested is because they are stopped more frequently. Essentially, it creates a cycle which keeps minorities fighting against a system that has been in place for hundreds of years. This chapter has helped me to realize that the racial contract is not a thing of the past, and it is just as prevalent today as it was when the Spanish tricked the Native Americans.
In the "Racial Contract", it points out that past philosophers have long ignored the question of race when talking about concepts such as justice, freedom, and human rights. Furthermore, he states the presence of the contract by claiming racial exploitation of “subhuman nonwhites” by “full human whites”. The most important point is not the contract itself, but rather how little people seem to acknowledge its existence. This “epistemology of ignorance” is the first major hurdle, the recognition that this racial contract is still a problem and from there some sort of solution can be reached.
One thing that was discussed was the concept of “white” as a sociopolitical one rather than biological and so the definition of “white” is not necessarily one of skin color, but the privileges gained through the relations within a society. And it is these privileges gained through the racial contract that may be thought of by society as being natural that creates the epistemology of ignorance. We mentioned white privilege in class and Mills uses a history of the racial contract to show how that came about where the racial exploitations of whites have put them in a position where they have advantages in the current society.
The main question is then if it really matters if recognizing this white privilege or central racism matters. If everyone were to recognize this is wrong, what would the expectation of whites be? I feel like it is very difficult from both a materials standpoint and a cultural one. Such a drastic cultural shift would not only be difficult, but possibly be impossible without some sort of event (possibly catastrophic) to act as a catalyst for the change. From a materials standpoint, it is difficult to actively quantify the benefits gained from being white and is hard to ask someone who was ignorant to give back something they believed they earned rightfully. In the end, without answers to these questions and some sort of plausible solution, the endgame of what Mills hopes to achieve remains ambiguous and perhaps he wants something similar to Pateman where the contract itself is completely redesigned.
Earlier in the semester, I remember reading Charles Mills’ critique of John Rawls’ “A Theory of Justice” and I can’t say that my initial reaction was a favorable one. I had a lot of trouble buying into the idea that because Rawls didn’t explicitly mention race when he discussed his concept of the veil of ignorance that this meant that “A Theory of Justice” had a racist vein to it. However, after reading Mills’ overview of his concept of the racial contract, a type of social contract that places whites above other races on a political, moral, and epistemological level, I believe that Rawls, and myself as a reader for that matter, may in fact have been operating under a different kind of ignorance. In Mills’ book “The Racial Contract”, he highlights an intriguing concept in the “Overview” chapter called the epistemology of ignorance. The epistemology of ignorance is a term that describes the invisibility to many whites of the privileges that they possess as well as their naivete to the oppression of nonwhites. One does not have to be a racist to subscribe to the epistemology of ignorance. I’ll admit that I am guilty of subscribing to the epistemology myself and I believe this is why I initially found it hard to buy Mills’ argument concerning Rawls, who I believe had fallen prey to the same trap of ignorance that I had. Being apart of an interfaith family, I stand from the position of someone who has been subjected to prejudicial attitudes within certain circles but is looked at by society as any other white person. I’ve been able to write off anyone who has directly criticized me because of who my parents are as an ignorant jerk and moved on with my life, never having to worry about my ethnicity affecting the privileges I’ve become accustomed to. Under the epistemology of ignorance, I had come to assume that today’s racist attitudes were just that: the views of ignorant jerks and nothing more. While I believe that our society has come a long way in terms of overt expressions of oppression, Mills has opened my eyes to the fact that there is still so much more progress left to be made. If Rawls had had the opportunity to read Mills’ overview of the racial contract, he likely would have seen the importance of explicitly addressing race. I’m very thankful that I was exposed to Mills’ epistemology of ignorance and think that it is something everyone should be aware of. As Mills says, all whites are beneficiaries of the racial contract even though not all are signatories to it. Operating under the epistemology of ignorance may cause even the most tolerant person to become an enabling bystander to oppressive forces.
In the chapter entitled “Intersecting Contracts,” Charles Mills, in my opinion, successfully demonstrated that the sexual contract and the racial contract overlap. I especially liked how he exposed the differences between white women, black men, and women of color. Women of color have two strikes against them—their gender and their race. It is interesting how easily the particular concerns of women of color get sidelined by the concerns of women “in general”—white women—or by the general concerns of people of color. Black women in particular experience discrimination differently than white women or black men.
I now understand why Mills was so fired up over Rawls omitting racial injustices in this theory of justice. Mills is constantly pointing out “ blindness.” Generally speaking, white men are at the top of the totem pole. They benefit from white supremacy and male supremacy. Blind to all oppression—having never experienced it themselves—they have established a society that suits them. White women are blind to racial oppression, but not ignorant of sexual oppression. They experience oppression to a certain degree although they still have a considerable race advantage and they often experience sexual oppression differently than women of color. In the past, white women have chosen to ally themselves with white men instead of white women; it will be interesting to see in the future if that changes. Next, black men are blind to the sexual oppression of women, but not to racial oppression. Speaking from personal experience, if I announce that I support feminism to a group of black men, they might give me a skeptical look and ask why I am not more concerned with anti-racism. Perhaps even they see my race before my gender. Finally, black women experience both sexual and racial oppression. It is interesting to venture that women of color in general are the most aware of the various systems of oppression, however, their experiences are the most quickly forgotten or overlooked.
The Mills piece that I am going to reflect on is the “Intersecting Contracts” chapter. Specifically, I’d like to focus on the racia-sexual contract, and the discussion of color-blindness and gender-blindness. One of the most interesting points that Mills makes is that the supposedly sexless heads of households behind Rawls’ veil are actually male and white, which hearkens back to Mills’ criticism of Rawls’ “A Theory of Justice”. Mills points out that the allegedly gender and race neutral terms “men” or “persons” abstract away from concrete social oppression. In essence, the racia-sexual contract is the first step towards a solution to social oppression by acknowledging the difference race and gender make, and not merely assuming that liberal idealism ensures egalitarianism.
I found this section to be extremely intriguing because it is almost an extension of the Mills’ piece we read earlier in the semester. My one problem with the Rawls criticism was that it didn’t provide any sort of solutions, and was content with merely problematizing Rawls’ veil of ignorance and its lack of realism. In the critique, Mills rightly points out that Rawls’ failure to address race in a time of such massive social upheaval (civil rights movement) makes his theories less effective and less applicable to real life. Now, in this chapter of Contract and Domination, Mills provides the initial elements needed to counter the epistemology of ignorance. By assuming sameness of status, egalitarian liberal theorists like Rawls actually limit the degree to which their theories can be truly egalitarian. Ignoring differences is simply too idealistic, and has led to a system where many people who hold white privilege do not even realize that this is so. By utilizing the racia-sexual contract, all people are forced to recognize the position of men, women, whites, and nonwhites in present-day society as structured by the social contract. Mills puts it best when he writes, “… this non-ideal contract forces us to confront the question of what would be necessary to achieve ideality, rather than starting from that ideality.” The racia-sexual contract takes the actual subordination of women and nonwhites into account, which is a necessary starting point in the attempt to overhaul the system of subjugation, and a more realistic approach than Rawls’ naive veil of ignorance.
Charles W. Mills Intersecting Contracts First I would like to say that this was a good read, I enjoyed it a lot and love the responds in class. What I have taking from this read the most, was the understanding of race and gender and how it plays a substantial part in our lives. Mill’s further explain the concept of the “racia-sexual Contract” giving it a frame for the readers to better understand. Mills and Pateman overall points were to mix race with gender and put a little light on Racial (white supremacist) patriarchy and I believe they did a really good job in explaining how race and gender is important to the development of liberal democracy/social dominance. Also the figures displayed fairly created an acceptable addition to their point as well. Since patriarchy predates white supremacy and historical development, views were shape in such a way that literature such as white privilege is relevant. And also the hardship it has on women of color and there choice of profession.
In Mills’s “Overview” from the Racial Contract he reevaluated the role played by the “state of nature” within the Racial Contract. I found this short section of the reading the most interesting. The ability to establish a society, Mills points out, requires that no society occupied that space before. The space then, becomes a geological location in need of white male intervention, the white male having already evolved into a sociopolitical creature. The previous inhabitants of the location are then found to exist as savages outside the sociopolitical system. This is the case in colonialism, but also the case in Western religion.
According to the Western world’s religions once God created the Earth, he charged men to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth” (Genesis, King James Version). The Church, an institution characterized by white men, took up this most noble goal of holding dominion over the Earth and the Earth’s subservient populations. I think that in the original social contract theorists’ time and space, a mindset like this could not have been easily avoided and thus the Racial Contract holds immense importance as social contracts are re-evaluated.
Charles Mills and Carole Pateman team up in their book Contract Domination to challenge the current social contract with regards to race and sex specifically. In the chapter “Intersecting Contracts,” Charles Mills investigates the racial and sexual contract. What Mills does is to form a new social contract chart. Previous charts where formulated as linear, with the split coming from difference in race or difference in sex. What Mills does is he combines the two charts to form four quadrants; the first being the area of contractors. This area contains white men only. They are the ones that create the subjugation within the social contract. The next two quadrants belong to subcontractors. These areas are home to nonwhite men and white women. These groups do not particularly benefit from the social contract, but are only subject to one form of discrimination based on either race or gender. The last group is the noncontractors. This is where nonwhite women lie. This group is the one “facing the greatest epistemic barriers to their credibility.” The reason this is so is because they face both forms of discrimination. However Mills does admit, in certain areas of the chapter, that his chart does not fully depict the reality of the social contract, but rather gives a rough outline. No one theory can be perfect. In my opinion, Mills makes a very strong argument for his claims in this chapter. Before reading this, I never thought to deeply about the combination of the two social contracts, race and sex. After reading this chapter, I was able to think more deeply about the system as somewhat of a tier system. Overall, I enjoyed the chapter, and have little to say in response that hasn’t already been covered by Mills.
In the “Overview” from The Racial Contract, Charles Mills explains that the “racial contract” is a manifestation of societies that are governed by the social contract who have condoned racial discrimination within their own territories and proliferated the practice around the world through institutionalized and discursive colonial practices and ideas. He argues that contract theory can be salvaged because the original contract theorists didn’t account for/ accurately address or envision racism as it has played out in Western societies and political systems. It seems as though from their privileged positions they were never incentivized to discuss the proper treatment of people of different races or even women in their conceptions of what should constitute justice and fairness. Mills asserts that this racial contract delineates a white in-group in an effort to deny civil and political rights to people of different ethnicities. He feels that this contract is the treatise responsible for crimes against humanity such as the slave trade because it has subjugated non-white people, even labeled them as nonhumans. The concept that stood out most to me was the epistemology of ignorance. Initially I just liked the term itself because I had never heard it before and epistemology sounds pretty when you say it out loud, but when I realized that the term is in itself a contradiction I was very intrigued. The epistemology of ignorance explains how a system that is so blatantly cruel and flawed such as the racial contract can exist and become completely normalized without even being addressed or confronted. It is the willful ignorance regarding race that is prescribed by a moral contract, where all white people receive the benefits of whiteness by virtue of being white regardless of whether or not they are actual signatories of the contract itself. I think that being aware of one’s own privilege is something that can only be done when one is willing to confront the rights that have been denied to others in the “out-group” and acknowledge that their “in-group”, albeit without their consent, is the perpetrator of this injustice.
For Charles Mills, the "Racial Contract" is a set of quasi-agreements between whites to categorize non-whites as subpersons of inferior moral and legal status relative to whites. This "contract" gives whites the right to exploit non-whites and deny them opportunities provided to whites. It portrays non-whites as designated to serve whites much as non-humans were designated by God to serve the benefit of humans. Mills argument helps make clear how, for most of the modern era, whites have had as little obligation to recognize the rights of non-whites as they have had to recognize the rights of non-humans. Mills acknowledges that gender and class have also determined hierarchical relationships among human beings. All human beings have multiple identities determined by the categories of race, gender, class, religion, locale, intelligence level, talent level, educational level, ect. But race, Mill argues, is the identity that has been most important in determining vulnerability to exploitation and access to beneficial opportunities. The purpose of the 'racial contract' and the 'racial state' it engenders rests in "securing the privileges and advantages of the full white citizens and maintaining the subordination of nonwhites". Nonwhites were construed as being unequal by nature. They had instrumental worth insofar as they were useful in achieving objectives set by whites, but no intrinsic worth that whites need respect. Non-whites had little more moral or political standing than dogs, horses, or cattle, because non-whites were considered little more than non-human animals.
Despite my aversion to Mills’ critique of Rawls that we read earlier this semester, his ideas about a Racial Contract are certainly worth considering. After reading the Overview of the Racial Contract, it is easier to see how Rawls’s theory would certainly represent a type of “epistemological ignorance,” as Mills puts it. I found it interesting that Mills imposes this epistemological ignorance on us, but claims that the only area where this ignorance exists is in the context of race, when such obliviousness certainly exists in issues regarding gender, sexuality, crime, and many other sectors of society. Mills claims that the Racial Contract “has the best claim to being an actual historical fact,” because it can be traced through history from the beginnings of European colonialism. Mills is careful to address the rhetoric surrounding Eurocentrism as it developed in world history. From a “white” perspective words like “discovery” and “New World” are used to describe European colonialism where for “non-whites” the rhetoric drips with oppressive phraseology like “expeditions of conquest.” Mills agrees with the latter rhetoric and asserts that this is a much more accurate way of describing European colonialism, and I would have to agree with Mills on this point.
ReplyDeleteMills further discusses the “overlapping dimensions” of the racial contract which include geography, culture, and religion and how one moved seamlessly into another. I was surprised that he used Native Americans as his primary example of this chain of dimensions as opposed to Black Africans. But within a discussion of European colonialism and expeditions, perhaps it is fitting to discuss Native Americans as one of the first victims of the Racial Contract. Originally Native Americans were perceived to be of a different geography (North America), then a different culture (savages), then a different religion (not-Catholic). Mills concluded that these three dimensions “eventually coalesced into the basic opposition of white versus nonwhite,” something that I would again have to agree with. Generally, I disagree that Pateman’s Sexual Contract is not real, but men and women have for the most part lived among one another which is not the case for Native Americans and European colonialists. I can appreciate Mills contract, his claims that it is real, and his usage of “epistemological ignorance” to explain its perpetuation, as well as the horrible legacy it has created. Perhaps Mills is correct that the Racial Contract has been the most oppressive and has had the direst consequences, but the Racial Contract is certainly not the only oppressive contract that exists.
In The Racial Contract, Charles Mills outlines what he believes to be a contract which affects everyone in our society, yet goes largely unnoticed. This contract is the Racial Contact (I guess the title of the book kind of gave it away, huh?). The Racial Contract, Mills argues, is a set of explicit and implicit agreements which differentiate between white and non-white members of society. Further, the contract stipulates that non-white members of society are relegated to a lower and inferior class of person, such that they are considered inferior in almost every aspect of our society. Mills goes on further to define who the signatories to this covenant are: whites. Mills says that although not every white person is a signatory to the racial contract, all whites benefit from it. Similar to Pateman, Mills examines the problems which arise when an entire class is subject to contracts and orders which they had no part in establishing.
ReplyDeleteI thoroughly enjoyed reading Mills’ Racial Contract. His writing style is clear and his arguments are laid out in such a way that is hard to disagree. His arguments are, in my opinion, better grounded and arithmetic than those of Pateman’s. By that I mean that in digesting Mills’ work, it is not hard for the reader to follow the logic of the argument—whereas in Pateman I often found myself struggling to make the connections she made.
Perhaps most poignant in Mills’ Racial Contract is his notion of the epistemology of ignorance. On the surface a non-sequitur, the epistemology of ignorance describes how a system such as the racial contract can be operative and have demonstrable effects, yet go unnoticed, unaddressed, and un-reconciled. In short, the epistemology of ignorance the condition which allows the racial contract to persist. This is similar to the idea presented in class when we were discussing the White Privilege readings. It was hard to face and come to terms with the fact that simply by virtue of being white, I receive benefits denied to nonwhites. Up until that point I was a full-on practitioner of the epistemology of ignorance. It is my hope that with continued effort and work we can dismantle this mindset and strive toward a contract in which all peoples have an active say in formulating.
I really enjoyed Charles Mills' work. He has an extremely consistent, logical, and methodical writing style that is easy to follow, and seems to anticipate and address the counterarguments to his points. In The Racial Contract, Mills outlines the basic idea of the racial contract, the different ways in which it has functioned over our history, and continues to function even today. Mills, like Pateman, believes that our current social contract excludes and oppresses females (Pateman) and non-whites (Mills), mostly to the benefit of white males. However, unlike Pateman, Mills does not make a lot of wild claims right out of the gate. His argument is reasoned and rational, and it makes me much more likely to agree with him. For example, he makes the point that when slavery was established in the new world, it was already mostly dying out in Europe at that time. To make it possible to bring slavery back in full force, it was necessary to establish the inferiority of non-whites, and that is exactly what happened.
ReplyDeleteWhen we read our first piece by Charles Mills, I could not understand why it seemed as though he was nitpicking at John Rawls’ “A Theory of Justice.” However, after reading the “Overview” in The Racial Contract, I have a better understanding of why Mills critiqued Rawls in the manner that he did. In fact, I found myself liking Mills after we read his work in The Racial Contract and Contract and Domination. According to Mills, there exists a racial contract, which is a set of agreements, both formal and informal, between whites and nonwhites which establishes whites as superior to nonwhites. Mills argues that the racial contract is also political, moral and epistemological. It is political because it explains how society as created and transformed, thus also reconstituting the individuals living in the society. It is moral because it explains how the moral code and moral psychology of society was brought into existence. Lastly, it is epistemological because it prescribes the norms for cognition to which the signatories of the racial contract must adhere. Mills argues that all white people are beneficiaries of the racial contract, although not all are signatories of it. Thus, the racial contract requires that those who benefit from it (white people) are supposed to maintain a certain blindness to issues related to race in an effort to maintain the “white polity” that the contract establishes.
ReplyDeleteI would have to agree with Mills’ claim that our society is built on the racial contract. Often times, race is viewed as such a taboo topic. To engage in a discussion about race is to begin to divulge in the history of oppression that many nonwhites have faced, which is typically difficult to address and accept. Mills does a wonderful job of bringing the issue to the forefront of everyone’s minds. As much as we might want to argue that we live in a race-neutral society, Mills reminds us that this will almost never be possible. He acknowledges that there have been some improvements in regards to the opportunities afforded to nonwhites, take our having an African-American President, yet there are still disparities between whites and nonwhites, proving that the two groups are still unequal. After reading this overview, and learning about the epistemology of ignorance, I understand why Mills critiques Rawls as much as he does, and I would have to say that I agree. Initially, I wanted to give Rawls the benefit of the doubt and excuse him for not mentioning the racial oppression of the civil rights movement in his analysis of justice. However, after reading Mills’ work, I now see that the epistemology of ignorance is real and Rawls is a shining example of how it works. Overall, this chapter made me appreciate Mills’ work and actually take into consideration many of his arguments about the functions of race in our society. Ultimately, we can never escape the issues of race since they are so deeply embedded in our society, so we should do as Mills does and address them head on, then try to find ways to make changes in the future.
Humans have a tendency to embrace those that they feel are members of their in group. In an effort to protect their natural group dynamic, they fear, and often ostracize, anyone who they see as part of their out group. While this was vital five thousand years ago, these instincts have lead us to treat each other without the respect and dignity that all people deserve over the last several hundred years. Mills chooses to focus his discussion on racial identity, one of the most visible signs of membership in a particular group. Mills calls this the "Racial Contract" in which whites consolidate their in group and attempt to strip political and civil rights from anyone who does not share their racial heritage. Mills goes on to explain that this system has justified terrible atrocities as well as the institution of slavery by designating anyone who isn't white as subhumans, thus making it not unethical to exploit them.
ReplyDeleteAs a white male, this system hasn't affected me as outwardly as it has other non white and non male individuals. Mills calls this the epistemology of ignorance, in which the system hides itself from the beneficiaries of the system. While I certainly agree that whites have dominated various other groups in the past, I don't think enough time is spent discussing just who gets to be "white" and how. The Irish, Catholics, and Jews are just a few groups that, by their skin color, are "white" but have not always been beneficies of the Racial Contract, especially in America. I do, however, think that his analysis of how groups use certain characteristics of their group to justify taking away the rights of others and exploiting those different from themselves to be compelling and very logical. Hopefully, we are moving in a direction in which we will see a true application of the social contract in which all people, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc. will be treated equally.
Ryan,
DeleteI actually wrote about the same topic in the Pateman blog before reading your post here. I totally agree. We need to dismantle the system that allows the white in-group to, as you put it "use certain characteristics of their group to justify taking away the rights of others and exploiting those different from themselves". Good post.
I was intrigued by Mill’s The Racial Contract, due largely to his explanation of the contract as political, moral, and epistemological. The part that attracted my attention the most was how the contract is epistemological, and how Mill’s proposed this idea of the epistemology of ignorance. I was interested in this because it sounded very similar to the idea of white privilege, where the current culture and customs of the white race could completely ignore the difficulties of other races even when they are presented with instances of injustice on a daily basis. The idea that something could become so ingrained in our culture that it is no longer seen as a problem, and merely part of the system is something that is unbelievable to me, and it makes me question whether or not there are similar injustices taking place all around me but because of my situated knowledge I am unable to see them.
ReplyDeleteThe other aspects of the racial contract, (political and moral) also provided a new outlook on our current and past political and cultural systems. The methods that our ancestors used to maintain white dominance over other races, while still coming across as “fair”, were absolutely ridiculous. Mills used the example of the Spanish when they were attempting to establish colonies in America, they would enter into contracts with the Native Americans, written in Spanish, which would basically force the natives to become slaves. However, this was perceived as fair because the Native Americans entered into the contract willingly, even though they had no idea what they were signing. Looking back, this seems absolutely ridiculous that we resorted to such a measure, and while we would consider this racist now, back then it was simply the way things worked. After this realization, I cannot help but think of some of the current laws that we have in place which are not perceived as racist by the majority of people, but that may simply be due to white privilege. I am thinking mainly about the ability for police to “stop and frisk” people on the streets, with the overwhelming majority of those people being stopped being minorities. Also, the war on drugs in America has incarcerated substantially more minority criminals than whites, which leads to misleading statistics and perpetuating a system of white privilege. Mills would call the people who buy into these laws as contract signatories, or people who continue the racial contract into the present. While these laws are in place because they are viewed as “fair” and the statistics of people incarcerated and people stopped and frisked are “fair” because of the belief that on average minorities abuse drugs more frequently than whites, it does not take into account that the reason why there are more minorities arrested is because they are stopped more frequently. Essentially, it creates a cycle which keeps minorities fighting against a system that has been in place for hundreds of years. This chapter has helped me to realize that the racial contract is not a thing of the past, and it is just as prevalent today as it was when the Spanish tricked the Native Americans.
In the "Racial Contract", it points out that past philosophers have long ignored the question of race when talking about concepts such as justice, freedom, and human rights. Furthermore, he states the presence of the contract by claiming racial exploitation of “subhuman nonwhites” by “full human whites”. The most important point is not the contract itself, but rather how little people seem to acknowledge its existence. This “epistemology of ignorance” is the first major hurdle, the recognition that this racial contract is still a problem and from there some sort of solution can be reached.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that was discussed was the concept of “white” as a sociopolitical one rather than biological and so the definition of “white” is not necessarily one of skin color, but the privileges gained through the relations within a society. And it is these privileges gained through the racial contract that may be thought of by society as being natural that creates the epistemology of ignorance. We mentioned white privilege in class and Mills uses a history of the racial contract to show how that came about where the racial exploitations of whites have put them in a position where they have advantages in the current society.
The main question is then if it really matters if recognizing this white privilege or central racism matters. If everyone were to recognize this is wrong, what would the expectation of whites be? I feel like it is very difficult from both a materials standpoint and a cultural one. Such a drastic cultural shift would not only be difficult, but possibly be impossible without some sort of event (possibly catastrophic) to act as a catalyst for the change. From a materials standpoint, it is difficult to actively quantify the benefits gained from being white and is hard to ask someone who was ignorant to give back something they believed they earned rightfully. In the end, without answers to these questions and some sort of plausible solution, the endgame of what Mills hopes to achieve remains ambiguous and perhaps he wants something similar to Pateman where the contract itself is completely redesigned.
Earlier in the semester, I remember reading Charles Mills’ critique of John Rawls’ “A Theory of Justice” and I can’t say that my initial reaction was a favorable one. I had a lot of trouble buying into the idea that because Rawls didn’t explicitly mention race when he discussed his concept of the veil of ignorance that this meant that “A Theory of Justice” had a racist vein to it. However, after reading Mills’ overview of his concept of the racial contract, a type of social contract that places whites above other races on a political, moral, and epistemological level, I believe that Rawls, and myself as a reader for that matter, may in fact have been operating under a different kind of ignorance.
ReplyDeleteIn Mills’ book “The Racial Contract”, he highlights an intriguing concept in the “Overview” chapter called the epistemology of ignorance. The epistemology of ignorance is a term that describes the invisibility to many whites of the privileges that they possess as well as their naivete to the oppression of nonwhites. One does not have to be a racist to subscribe to the epistemology of ignorance. I’ll admit that I am guilty of subscribing to the epistemology myself and I believe this is why I initially found it hard to buy Mills’ argument concerning Rawls, who I believe had fallen prey to the same trap of ignorance that I had.
Being apart of an interfaith family, I stand from the position of someone who has been subjected to prejudicial attitudes within certain circles but is looked at by society as any other white person. I’ve been able to write off anyone who has directly criticized me because of who my parents are as an ignorant jerk and moved on with my life, never having to worry about my ethnicity affecting the privileges I’ve become accustomed to. Under the epistemology of ignorance, I had come to assume that today’s racist attitudes were just that: the views of ignorant jerks and nothing more. While I believe that our society has come a long way in terms of overt expressions of oppression, Mills has opened my eyes to the fact that there is still so much more progress left to be made. If Rawls had had the opportunity to read Mills’ overview of the racial contract, he likely would have seen the importance of explicitly addressing race. I’m very thankful that I was exposed to Mills’ epistemology of ignorance and think that it is something everyone should be aware of. As Mills says, all whites are beneficiaries of the racial contract even though not all are signatories to it. Operating under the epistemology of ignorance may cause even the most tolerant person to become an enabling bystander to oppressive forces.
In the chapter entitled “Intersecting Contracts,” Charles Mills, in my opinion, successfully demonstrated that the sexual contract and the racial contract overlap. I especially liked how he exposed the differences between white women, black men, and women of color. Women of color have two strikes against them—their gender and their race. It is interesting how easily the particular concerns of women of color get sidelined by the concerns of women “in general”—white women—or by the general concerns of people of color. Black women in particular experience discrimination differently than white women or black men.
ReplyDeleteI now understand why Mills was so fired up over Rawls omitting racial injustices in this theory of justice. Mills is constantly pointing out “ blindness.” Generally speaking, white men are at the top of the totem pole. They benefit from white supremacy and male supremacy. Blind to all oppression—having never experienced it themselves—they have established a society that suits them. White women are blind to racial oppression, but not ignorant of sexual oppression. They experience oppression to a certain degree although they still have a considerable race advantage and they often experience sexual oppression differently than women of color. In the past, white women have chosen to ally themselves with white men instead of white women; it will be interesting to see in the future if that changes. Next, black men are blind to the sexual oppression of women, but not to racial oppression. Speaking from personal experience, if I announce that I support feminism to a group of black men, they might give me a skeptical look and ask why I am not more concerned with anti-racism. Perhaps even they see my race before my gender. Finally, black women experience both sexual and racial oppression. It is interesting to venture that women of color in general are the most aware of the various systems of oppression, however, their experiences are the most quickly forgotten or overlooked.
The Mills piece that I am going to reflect on is the “Intersecting Contracts” chapter. Specifically, I’d like to focus on the racia-sexual contract, and the discussion of color-blindness and gender-blindness. One of the most interesting points that Mills makes is that the supposedly sexless heads of households behind Rawls’ veil are actually male and white, which hearkens back to Mills’ criticism of Rawls’ “A Theory of Justice”. Mills points out that the allegedly gender and race neutral terms “men” or “persons” abstract away from concrete social oppression. In essence, the racia-sexual contract is the first step towards a solution to social oppression by acknowledging the difference race and gender make, and not merely assuming that liberal idealism ensures egalitarianism.
ReplyDeleteI found this section to be extremely intriguing because it is almost an extension of the Mills’ piece we read earlier in the semester. My one problem with the Rawls criticism was that it didn’t provide any sort of solutions, and was content with merely problematizing Rawls’ veil of ignorance and its lack of realism. In the critique, Mills rightly points out that Rawls’ failure to address race in a time of such massive social upheaval (civil rights movement) makes his theories less effective and less applicable to real life. Now, in this chapter of Contract and Domination, Mills provides the initial elements needed to counter the epistemology of ignorance. By assuming sameness of status, egalitarian liberal theorists like Rawls actually limit the degree to which their theories can be truly egalitarian. Ignoring differences is simply too idealistic, and has led to a system where many people who hold white privilege do not even realize that this is so. By utilizing the racia-sexual contract, all people are forced to recognize the position of men, women, whites, and nonwhites in present-day society as structured by the social contract. Mills puts it best when he writes, “… this non-ideal contract forces us to confront the question of what would be necessary to achieve ideality, rather than starting from that ideality.” The racia-sexual contract takes the actual subordination of women and nonwhites into account, which is a necessary starting point in the attempt to overhaul the system of subjugation, and a more realistic approach than Rawls’ naive veil of ignorance.
Charles W. Mills
ReplyDeleteIntersecting Contracts
First I would like to say that this was a good read, I enjoyed it a lot and love the responds in class. What I have taking from this read the most, was the understanding of race and gender and how it plays a substantial part in our lives. Mill’s further explain the concept of the “racia-sexual Contract” giving it a frame for the readers to better understand. Mills and Pateman overall points were to mix race with gender and put a little light on Racial (white supremacist) patriarchy and I believe they did a really good job in explaining how race and gender is important to the development of liberal democracy/social dominance. Also the figures displayed fairly created an acceptable addition to their point as well. Since patriarchy predates white supremacy and historical development, views were shape in such a way that literature such as white privilege is relevant. And also the hardship it has on women of color and there choice of profession.
In Mills’s “Overview” from the Racial Contract he reevaluated the role played by the “state of nature” within the Racial Contract. I found this short section of the reading the most interesting. The ability to establish a society, Mills points out, requires that no society occupied that space before. The space then, becomes a geological location in need of white male intervention, the white male having already evolved into a sociopolitical creature. The previous inhabitants of the location are then found to exist as savages outside the sociopolitical system. This is the case in colonialism, but also the case in Western religion.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Western world’s religions once God created the Earth, he charged men to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth” (Genesis, King James Version). The Church, an institution characterized by white men, took up this most noble goal of holding dominion over the Earth and the Earth’s subservient populations. I think that in the original social contract theorists’ time and space, a mindset like this could not have been easily avoided and thus the Racial Contract holds immense importance as social contracts are re-evaluated.
Charles Mills and Carole Pateman team up in their book Contract Domination to challenge the current social contract with regards to race and sex specifically. In the chapter “Intersecting Contracts,” Charles Mills investigates the racial and sexual contract. What Mills does is to form a new social contract chart. Previous charts where formulated as linear, with the split coming from difference in race or difference in sex. What Mills does is he combines the two charts to form four quadrants; the first being the area of contractors. This area contains white men only. They are the ones that create the subjugation within the social contract. The next two quadrants belong to subcontractors. These areas are home to nonwhite men and white women. These groups do not particularly benefit from the social contract, but are only subject to one form of discrimination based on either race or gender. The last group is the noncontractors. This is where nonwhite women lie. This group is the one “facing the greatest epistemic barriers to their credibility.” The reason this is so is because they face both forms of discrimination. However Mills does admit, in certain areas of the chapter, that his chart does not fully depict the reality of the social contract, but rather gives a rough outline. No one theory can be perfect.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, Mills makes a very strong argument for his claims in this chapter. Before reading this, I never thought to deeply about the combination of the two social contracts, race and sex. After reading this chapter, I was able to think more deeply about the system as somewhat of a tier system. Overall, I enjoyed the chapter, and have little to say in response that hasn’t already been covered by Mills.
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ReplyDeleteIn the “Overview” from The Racial Contract, Charles Mills explains that the “racial contract” is a manifestation of societies that are governed by the social contract who have condoned racial discrimination within their own territories and proliferated the practice around the world through institutionalized and discursive colonial practices and ideas. He argues that contract theory can be salvaged because the original contract theorists didn’t account for/ accurately address or envision racism as it has played out in Western societies and political systems. It seems as though from their privileged positions they were never incentivized to discuss the proper treatment of people of different races or even women in their conceptions of what should constitute justice and fairness. Mills asserts that this racial contract delineates a white in-group in an effort to deny civil and political rights to people of different ethnicities. He feels that this contract is the treatise responsible for crimes against humanity such as the slave trade because it has subjugated non-white people, even labeled them as nonhumans.
ReplyDeleteThe concept that stood out most to me was the epistemology of ignorance. Initially I just liked the term itself because I had never heard it before and epistemology sounds pretty when you say it out loud, but when I realized that the term is in itself a contradiction I was very intrigued. The epistemology of ignorance explains how a system that is so blatantly cruel and flawed such as the racial contract can exist and become completely normalized without even being addressed or confronted. It is the willful ignorance regarding race that is prescribed by a moral contract, where all white people receive the benefits of whiteness by virtue of being white regardless of whether or not they are actual signatories of the contract itself. I think that being aware of one’s own privilege is something that can only be done when one is willing to confront the rights that have been denied to others in the “out-group” and acknowledge that their “in-group”, albeit without their consent, is the perpetrator of this injustice.
For Charles Mills, the "Racial Contract" is a set of quasi-agreements between whites to categorize non-whites as subpersons of inferior moral and legal status relative to whites. This "contract" gives whites the right to exploit non-whites and deny them opportunities provided to whites. It portrays non-whites as designated to serve whites much as non-humans were designated by God to serve the benefit of humans. Mills argument helps make clear how, for most of the modern era, whites have had as little obligation to recognize the rights of non-whites as they have had to recognize the rights of non-humans.
ReplyDeleteMills acknowledges that gender and class have also determined hierarchical relationships among human beings. All human beings have multiple identities determined by the categories of race, gender, class, religion, locale, intelligence level, talent level, educational level, ect. But race, Mill argues, is the identity that has been most important in determining vulnerability to exploitation and access to beneficial opportunities.
The purpose of the 'racial contract' and the 'racial state' it engenders rests in "securing the privileges and advantages of the full white citizens and maintaining the subordination of nonwhites". Nonwhites were construed as being unequal by nature. They had instrumental worth insofar as they were useful in achieving objectives set by whites, but no intrinsic worth that whites need respect. Non-whites had little more moral or political standing than dogs, horses, or cattle, because non-whites were considered little more than non-human animals.