Roundtable on Race and Racism -An Interdisciplinary Conversation

Nov. 13, 2004

OSU Memorial Union Rm 209, 1-5 PM

Andrew Valls, Political Science

"What is racism?"

I contrast two views on the nature of racism, the congitive and the affective views. On the former, racism is a matter of beliefs, so someone with the appropriate bad or false beliefs may be characterized as a racist. This view certainly has merit, as reflected in the fact that in ordinary language we often refer to someone as a racist who believes, say, that members of a certain racial group are intellectually inferior. However, this view of racism fails to account for one, seemingly essential, feature of racism, that it is always a moral wrong. On the cognitive view of racism, holding false beliefs, perhaps out of ignorance and without any ill-will, is a moral failing.

The affective view of racism, I argue, better accounts for why racism is always a moral wrong. On this view, racism is not a matter of beliefs but of feelings, and of the moral views that may grow out of those feelings. That is, racism involves negative affect--feelings of ill-will, contempt, hatred, etc. Correspondingly, moral views that reflect these feelings--views that hold that members of certain racial groups are not entitled to equal respect, or that their interests are not worthy of equal consideration--are racist. The affective view of racism shows why racism is always wrong; it is wrong because all forms of ill-will and disregard are wrong.