(His argument consists in showing that there is no biological basis for race arguments, nor can biology explain cultural matters. While he systematically underplays the importance of race, it simmers in the subtext in his awe and unquestioned allegiance to European traditions, and in his constant privileging of Euro-constructed models and traditions over his father’s tradition—Nkiru Nzegwu in Questions of Identity and Inheritance: A Critical Review of Kwame Anthony Appiah’s “In My Father’s House” 1996).
There are numerous definitions of racism. How one defines racism depends to a great extent on one’s ideological, philosophical, and cultural perspective. Of course, epistemology is inextricably connected with power. Kwame Appiah who is regarded as an “African” philosopher has formulated a controversial conception of racism. In terms of Kwame Appiah’s formulation of racism, both apartheid nationalists like Henrick Verwoerd of the white supremacist government in South Africa as well as black nationalists such as Steve Biko who were part of the liberation movement are categorized as racists. This essay will explain what “he” means by this and whether or not we agree with “him”. In so doing, we will discuss concepts such as racialism, extrinsic racism, intrinsic racism, structural racism, and individual racism. We will rely on other black philosophers such as Mabogo More to disagree with Appiah’s formulation of racism and provide a justification for doing so. We will commence by discussing Appiah’s formulation of racism and then demonstrate why we disagree with “his” formulation.
The biographical method is not an infallible tool in studying a particular thinker. Despite this caveat, this method aids us in accounting for a thinker’s intellectual evolution and epistemological paradigm to which he or she subscribes. It is mainly the latter which accounts for arguments and conclusions a particular thinker holds. The concepts and theory which a particular thinker utilizes can be gleaned from a biographical understanding of the thinker. Because of the brevity of this essay, we will not delve deeper into the biography of Appiah except to mention his family background, his philosophical background and dominant methodology in accounting for his formulation of racism with which we disagree. Appiah is of mixed race or what in the South African parlance we designate as a Coloured. His mother is a white woman from England while his father is an African man from Ghana (Nzegwu 1996). This racial and cultural background account for his confusion and rejection of race in his scholarship mainly in In my Father’s House (1992). In another book called The Lies that Bind (2018), he refers to identities such as race and culture as “lies that bind”. Unlike the African philosopher Nkiru Nzegwu (1996 and 1999) we will not provide a review of his misguided books but limit ourselves to disagreeing with his formulation of racism. As far as philosophy and ideology are concerned Appiah belongs to a tradition in contemporary African philosophy called professional philosophy as explained by Odera Oruka (2003). To be specific Appiah is trained mainly in the Analytical tradition of Western philosophy and aligns himself mainly with Liberalism at the level political ideology. Because of this Appiah’s formulation of racism is imbricated with this ideological, philosophical, and methodological background. At the heart of Analytical philosophy is a tendency towards ahistorical and apolitical analysis. In terms of this tradition the fundamental task of philosophy is the analysis and clarification of concepts and ideas. While there maybe nuances in terms of methodology, clarification in terms of linguistic analysis is the primary common denominator in the Analytical tradition.
Following his Liberalism Appiah’s formulation of racism is in terms of “atomic individualism” (Mills 2003) sans the history of racism and its structure. In a nutshell Appiah’s formulation of racism is in terms of ahistorical individualism. Because of the intentional absence of history and structure of racism, Appiah’s formulation is abstract and can apply to any individual without consideration of power dynamics just as is the case with Eusebius Mckaiser (2012). At the core of Appiah’s formulation of racism is what he designates racialism. This is how Appiah (1989 :44) states it “At least three distinct doctrines might be called “racism.” One is the view-which I shall call racialism -that there are heritable characteristics, possessed by members of our species, which allow us to divide them into a small set of races in such a way that all the members of these races share certain traits and tendencies with each other that they do not share with members of any other race”. In terms of Appiah’s formulation there are two types of racism stemming from racialism, namely intrinsic racism, and extrinsic racism. This is how Appiah (1989 :44) defines extrinsic racism “One such doctrine we might call “extrinsic racism.” Extrinsic racists make moral distinctions between members of different races because they believe that the racial essence entails certain morally relevant qualities”. Appiah (1989 :45) then moves on to define intrinsic racism as follows “Intrinsic racists, in my definition, are people who differentiate morally between members of different races, because they believe that each race has a different moral status, quite independent of the moral characteristics entailed by its racial essence”. Both these notions of racism are not embedded within history and social structure, thus are mere abstract definitions.
It is interesting that Appiah formulates the notion of racism by relying on a pioneering Western philosopher of race and racism, namely Immanuel Kant. Appiah makes it clear that he is relying on Kantian morality/moral theory to formulate his notion of racism. In critiquing intrinsic racism Appiah (1990 :14) who associates intrinsic racism with “family feeling” posits that “This is because such a defense of the family involves like intrinsic racism a denial of the basic claim expressed so clearly by Kant, that from the perspective of morality it is a rational agents simpliciter that we are assessed and be assessed “. There are numerous objections to this uncritical reliance on Western moral philosophy, but we will state two of these objections. The first one is that following Emmanuel Eze (1979) we know that Kant just like many of the “Occidental Icons” such as Hegel, Hume and Marx were racists of note. Kant’s philosophical formulation of racism is well documented by African philosophers such as Emmanuel Eze in The Color of Reason (1997). The second objection is that following the black philosophers Charles Mills (2021) Appiah seems to uncritically take for granted that equality of moral personhood applies to African people. Following Mills (2021) we know that the subject of Western philosophy and moral philosophy in this case is the “Cartesian sum” and that there is an ontological distinction between personhood and subpersonhood. In other words, African people as Kant’s Untermenschen are not regarded as “rational agents simpliciter” as Appiah mistakenly assumes but are classified as subpersons (Mills 2021).
It is by eliding the idea that “South Africa” and the United States of America are settler colonies (Wolfe 2006) which were constituted on conquest, land dispossession and genocide in terms of the doctrine of Discovery (Miller 2011) that Appiah can make the absurd claim that both the apartheid nationalist, white, supremacist government as well as a black nationalist, resistance movement which could conceivably be formed to fight it, are describable as racists. By individualizing and moralizing racism along the lines of Jorge Garcia’s notion of volitional racism (1999) as “racism in the heart” that Appiah can elide the power aspect of racism and thus focus only on individual racism. By ignoring the distinction between individual racism and institutional racism Appiah reduces the solidarity of the victims of racism to a form of racism. For Appiah black solidarity is a form of intrinsic racism while white nationalism under Apartheid is form of extrinsic racism, thus all amount similarly to racism. This is how Appiah (1989 :47) states it “Though race is at the heart of black nationalism, it seems, therefore, that it is the fact of a shared race, not the fact of a shared racial character, which provides the basis for solidarity. Where racism is implicated in the basis for national solidarity, it is intrinsic, not extrinsic”. In contrast to Appiah and in terms of the Black radical and nationalist tradition, this is how Charles Hamilton and Kwame Ture (1992) define racism “Racism is both overt and covert. It takes two, closely related forms: individual whites acting against individual blacks and acts by the total white community against the black community. We call these individual racism and institutional racism. The first consists of overt acts by individuals, which cause death, injury or the violent destruction of property. This type can be recorded by television cameras; it can frequently be observed in the process of commission. The second type is less overt, far more subtle, less identifiable in terms of specific individuals committing the acts. But it is no less destructive of human life. The second type originates in the operation of established and respected forces in the society, and thus receives far less public condemnation than the first type”.
The elision of power in Appiah’s formulation of racism bears out the idea that “if you do not understand white supremacy what it is and how it works, everything else that you understand will only confuse you” (Fuller and Welsing 1991). There is only one functional racism, and this is white racism everything else in imaginary humbug. This racism is functional in that it is historical and is based not only on discrimination but also on power. This is how More (2004 :91-92) states it “Racism, in terms of Biko’s conception, is about power; hence, ‘One cannot be a racist unless he has the power to subjugate’ (Biko 1996:25). Racism, Biko argues, is a prerogative of white people because the ‘order of things’ is such that white people throughout the entire world are in power. Since black people in South Africa had no power whatsoever, they could not be racist”. This is how More (2004 :94-95) in rejecting Appiah’s formulation of racism states it “Even supposing Black Consciousness was ‘intrinsic racism’ as defined by Appiah, is ‘intrinsic racism’ really racism? Biko: Africana Existentialist Philosopher racism as understood by Biko is not only power but also the belief in the given superiority of the racist group and the supposed inherent inferiority of the excluded and discriminated against racial group. It is this supposed inherent inferiority that provides the foundation of the power to subjugate. Black Consciousness, on the contrary, was black solidarity in the face of subjugation and domination, a solidarity of those and by those who were subjugated and certainly did not regard themselves as inherently superior to whites. Such solidarity cannot possibly be called racist even of the ‘intrinsic’ type”.
In rejecting Appiah’s formulation of racism, we argue that racism is inherent in Western civilization and culture (Robinson 2000) which created the Great Chain of Being in terms of the asili of its culture of control and domination (Ani 1994) as per Diop’s two cradle theory (Wobogo 2011) and “racial polities” (Mills 1998) such as “South Africa”, across the globe since the so-called journeys of discovery following the issuing of Romanus Pontifex (Ramose 2018). It is in this sense that following the African philosophical critique of racism that we define racism contra Appiah as the doubting of the humanity of other people and the enforcing of this doubt within a social structure, thus political ontology and power. In the context of “South Africa” the Indigenous people conquered in the unjust wars of colonization since 1652, simply do not have this doubt, political ontology, and the power to enforce the former against white settlers.
In conclusion, this essay has critically explained Kwame Appiah’s formulation of racism which posits that both the apartheid nationalist, white, supremacist government as well as a black nationalist, resistance movement which could conceivably be formed to fight it, are describable as racists. In so doing, this essay has critically analyzed Appiah’s notions of racialism, extrinsic and intrinsic racism. This essay demonstrated that Appiah’s formulation is wrong, by unlike him defining racism as embedded in power and history.
Masilo Lepuru
An African philosopher and founding director of the Institute for Kemetic and Marcus Garvey Studies (IKMGS).
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