Philosophy of Race - Continued

I’ve chosen some interviews that I think you might find interesting.
The whole book, if you’re so inclined, is here.
When you choose an interview, I’d like you to do the following:
Linda MArtin Alcoff
(1) What are two essential ideas or concepts that the philosopher being interviewed uses? How do you
define them?
(a) She emphasizes the poor practice of philosophy which speaks for all when it never speaks to
all. All philosophy defaults back to is not speaking to the masses but also speaking as if
knowing exactly the innermost workings of humanity. She cites Bartolome De las Casas and
WEB Du Bois as examples of people who explore their own impact on society and model a
discourse that people can join. People are brought into a conversation rather than just being
told what they want as humanity.
(b) White philosophers claim to speak for humanity when in reality they never read other
works from other races. They can’t relate to these ideologies because a white-majority
philosophy creates a sense of entitlement towards rights, resources, access to space and
deference. When faced with ideas from non-white philosophers that identity and
experience play a fundamental role in how people experience matters, they reject them
because it limits their power. How can these philosophers relate and speak for the masses
when in reality they can’t understand or grasp any contrarian ideas? Entitlement is at the
core of white subjectivity.
(2) What questions would you want to ask that philosopher?
(a) How would you get to white philosophers? How do you get them to understand all the
crucial things they are missing from their knowledge? What about all the racist white
Americans, how do you get those people to look at things differently than from their racist
white lens?
(3) What is one thing the philosopher brought up that either you hadn’t thought of/you had thought
about, but couldn’t articulate it clearly?
(a) A lot of philosophy from Latin America is very diverse and traces its roots back to
decolonial self-consciousness and aspiration. I’ve always known that identity is incredibly
important to the way one thinks and undertakes approaches to situations. It makes sense
that the philosophy of Latin America is one of aspiration from a colonial identity: of being a
second class citizen. This is similar to what happened in Poland. When Poland was under
communism, you had philosophy coming out with a similar tune of aspirations, freedom to
be oneself with complete certainty, and right to be heard. In both situations, the oppressor,
the regime in charge discounted these things as garbage because of their experiences. They
couldn’t fathom that they in fact did not speak for the masses but in reality only spoke for
the group they identified with.