9 Black Lives Matter and Idle No More
Hunter Aiken
Table of Contents
Introduction
Moral and ethical thinking does not just involve contemplating abstract principles; it should also guide our actions and visions of the world in which we wish to live. It involves treating others with dignity and respect as well as confronting injustice when it arises both socially and individually. But we can not do so unless we engage in critical self-reflection of the ways that we may also be complicit in furthering systems and patterns of injustice ourselves. Hence, discussions about systemic racism and colonialism are necessarily linked to discussions about morality and ethics.
In her work, The Color of Justice, Michelle Alexander confronts systemic racism by examining how justice is racially biased against African Americans. She examines the historical and contemporary roots of the series of laws, patterns of behaviour, and the failures of colour blindness as a social norm and policy that have led to a legal system which creates harm and perpetuates systemic racism (Alexander 2010).
In turn, Charles R. Lawrence III adopts an equally critical view of the legal system as one which has yet to deal with the problems of unconscious and culturally inoculated racial biases. Adopting a Freudian psychoanalytic framework, Lawrence walks us through how racial bias becomes embedded in our unconscious, subconscious, and eventually conscious thinking and its pernicious impacts on how law is written and implemented (Lawrence 1987).
In short, both authors challenge our views about the nature of justice and prompt us to consider the fact that our ordinary conceptions of justice have deep, racially biased problems.
Links to the Material
- “The Color of Justice” by Michelle Alexander (2010)
- “The Id, the Ego, and Equal Protection: Reckoning with Unconscious Bias” by Charles R. Lawrence III (1987)
Discussion Questions
- Alexander problematizes the view of justice held by many philosophers as a neutral concept. Do you agree with her assessment?
- Can you think of other examples where justice is neutral and not neutral? Which do you think has more argumentative weight?
- Racial bias is a deep and systemic problem in the legal system. Can you think of other unconscious biases in our social systems?
- Do you think Lawrence’s use of Freudian models of the mind hinder or strengthen his argument? Do you think it can be supported by more recent findings in psychology and neuroscience?
- How might unconscious bias shape our moral intuitions and reasoning about other people?
Thought Experiments
- Who is the Parent?
- Imagine you are in a busy park, and you see a child who appears to be lost and crying. There are two adults nearby: one is dressed in professional attire and the other in casual, worn-out clothes. You need to decide who to ask for help or who might be the parent. How do you decide?
- Missing Details
- Suppose you witness a minor crime, such as a theft, and later are asked to describe the suspect. You recall the suspect was a young person wearing a hoodie. Reflect on how you fill in the details.
- Preferential Hiring
- Imagine you are hiring for a position at your company. You receive two resumes with identical qualifications, experience, and skills. The only difference is the names: one has a name that is common in your culture and the other a name distinct from those in your culture. Consider your initial reactions and preferences.
Further Reading
- “Non-Cartesian Sums” by Charles Mills (1994)
- Chapter 7 “Black Women and Motherhood” by Patricia Hill Collins (1995) (in Justice and Care: Essential Readings in Feminist Ethics) (via the TRU Library)
- Chapter 4 “The Shape of Lesbian and Gay Subordination” by Cheshire Calhoun (2000) (in Feminism, the Family, and the Politics of the Closet: Lesbian and Gay Displacement) (via the TRU Library)
- How to Recognize your White Privilege and Use it to Fight Inequality [TED talk, 18:27 min] by Peggy McIntosh (2012)
- Letter from the Birmingham City Jail
Bibliography
Alexander, Michelle. 2010. “The Color of Justice.” In The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Abridged excerpt. Montgomery: Southern Poverty Law Center. https://www.learningforjustice.org/sites/default/files/general/The%20Color%20of%20Justice.pdf.
Cheshire Calhoun. 2000. Feminism, the Family, and the Politics of the Closet : Lesbian and Gay Displacement. Oxford: OUP Oxford. https://research-ebsco-com.ezproxy.tru.ca/linkprocessor/plink?id=31a1c035-67f2-376d-8f23-a4ec904206d3.
Collins, Patricia Hill. (1991) 1995. “Black women and Motherhood.” In Justice and Care: Essential Readings in Feminist Ethics, edited by Virginia Held, 117–36. n.p.:Routledge.
Lawrence, Charles R., III. 1987. “The Id, the Ego, and Equal Protection: Reckoning with Unconscious Racism.” Stanford Law Review 39, no. 2 (January): 317–88. https://doi.org/10.2307/1228797.
McIntosh, Peggy. 2012. How to Recognize Your White Privilege — and use it to fight inequality. Filmed in Plaistow, New Hampshire. TEDxTimberlaneSchools video, 18:27. https://www.ted.com/talks/peggy_mcintosh_how_to_recognize_your_white_privilege_and_use_it_to_fight_inequality?subtitle=en.
Mills, Charles W. 1994. “Non-Cartesian Sums: Philosophy and the African-American Experience.” Teaching Philosophy 17, no. 3 (September): 223–43. https://www.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/elearning/wp-content/uploads/sites/168/JL-Charles_Mills_Blackness_Visible_Ch1.pdf.
How to Cite this Page
Aiken, Hunter. 2024. “Black Lives Matter and Idle No More.” In Introduction to Ethics, edited by Jenna Woodrow, Hunter Aiken, and Calum McCracken. Kamloops, BC: TRU. Open Press. https://introductiontoethics.pressbooks.tru.ca/chapter/black-lives-matter-and-idle-no-more/.
