Too frequently, most of us take the meaning of ‘racism’ for granted. In contrast, philosophers recognise that there is no single agreed-upon definition and offer many different suggestions. In his book (Re-)Defining Racism: A Philosophical Analysis, Professor Alberto Urquidez addresses this conceptual disagreement around racism and offers a way out of the confusion. 

Urquidez recognises that disagreement among both scholars and lay people bears important consequences in the fight against racism: if what we are fighting against is not clearly outlined, or if we are unaware we have disagreeing conceptions, we will find taking the appropriate steps towards a more equitable society, let alone driving an effective revolutionary movement, difficult. We can already see that right-wing politicians exploit such an orchestrated conceptual disagreement about ‘race’  to implement discriminatory policies, while hiding behind a veil of deniability. Uncritical, untested, and maliciously manipulated disagreements over a meaning of ‘racism’ are used by people in powerful positions to purposefully create at their call wiggle room that blurs what counts as racist and what does not at different selected times. This allows people to adopt looser, slippery, contradictory, or changing definitions that do not consider certain actions to be racist in order to suit their discriminatory agenda (rather than and in contrast to healthy, open-minded debate where partipants might adjist their understandings when contemplating  reasoning afresh or new evidence). A glaring example is far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, asserting that “racism must always be fought” and that Italy is “the most welcoming country in the world,” while at the same time proposing a “naval blockade” to prevent refugees from arriving on Italian coasts, and praising the Rwanda asylum policy in the UK. Politicians and the public alike can take advantage of the confusion around the concept of racism by enacting conflicting descriptions of the term to perpetuate racist behaviours while firmly confirming that they are not, in fact, racist, enabling them to avoid any moral blame.

Urquidez offers a lucid examination of this issue that arises from uncritically analysed diverging definitions of racism: while disagreement can contribute to a healthy discourse around racism, it can also become pernicious when such definitions are not determined in the interests of the victims but rather in service of the continuation of an oppressive system. He proposes we return to the concept of racism to examine and address destructive and dangerous confusions. He adopts a Wittgensteinian approach, aiming to dissolve philosophical confusion by way of linguistic clarification. We must not merely try to answer the question “what is racism?” but rather reframe the question itself by inspecting the deeper and definition-shaping theories of racism:

“It is my contention that this question has been misunderstood by philosophers of race, in large part due to linguistic confusions. [...] Because there are many competing theories of racism, it is necessary to dive into methodological discussions about how best to analyze racism” (p. 9). 

In Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein introduces the idea of language games. Language, like games, is a rule-governed activity, where meaning arises from the way a word is used, from its rules of application. Words are not defined in terms of what they refer to but instead by their permissible use and what they do within a language game. 

Following the Wittgensteininan approach, the rule governing the use of ‘racism’ reveals its meaning. Urquidez thinks that the meaning of racism is constituted by not only its necessary features (for example, the fact that racism is morally objectionable) but also by contingent features:

“Some of racism’s contingent features are partly constitutive of its necessary side, of what I shall call the grammar of the term” (p. 14). 

Contingent features, for instance, include sociocultural conditions and their historical roots. History, which could have been otherwise, still contributes to the foundations of the concept of racism, as a sociocultural concept situated in space, time, and human culture. Such contingently developed features shape a term’s grammar —how ‘racism’ ought to be used in a language game. Urquidez pragmatically suggests that “‘racism’ should be defined from the victim’s perspective”, and serving  “an “antiracist” agenda” (p. 19; p. 22) since racism is morally objectionable.  In other words, the uses we make of the concept must be to express social criticism against race-based inequities. 

Urquidez proposes philosophers should focus on deciding how ‘racism’ ought to be used:  normativity gives rise to its meaning. Identifying an ontological entity that we call ‘racism’ is misleading. According to his view, oppressors cannot claim to be antiracist and yet promote damaging policies against people of colour. This would be a contradiction at the heart of the use of the term. 

By focusing on the normativity of racism, Urquidez also dismisses the debate between ontological monist and ontological pluralist theories of racism: there is no one single racism, nor multiple racisms. In fact, there is no racism in and of itself —independently existing— at all:

“The terms “racism” and “racist” are applied to many kinds of things, but it does not follow that racism is a kind of thing. I argue that there is no such thing as racism itself” (p. 25). 

Following his Wittgensteininan approach to language, Urquidez clarifies that the word ‘racism’ does not refer to any objects in the world but rather is created through its rules of application. Since meaning is the way we use  words in language games, we move from seeking an objective definition for an independent object to outlining  rules of moral representation: setting a rule on how to represent certain acts, behaviours, beliefs, or systemic tendencies that involve racial oppression:

“To describe a practice is not to describe reality, but to prescribe reality” (p. 26).

The prescriptive concept of racism implies a morally negative connotation. Hence oppressors sometimes deny being racist while exhibiting racist behaviours. Although they are in fact racist, they do not see how ‘racism’ actually explicitly prescribes against their own questionable actions.

Urquidez argues that the function of theory should be to prescribe norms rather than describe reality. In other words, philosophy should teach us how to correctly use language. The task, then, for philosophy of race is to prescribe rules of application for ‘racism’ that pay paramount attention to the needs of its victims and that promote antiracism. You’ll need to read his work to find out more. 

Suggested Further Readings

McBride III, Lee A. Ethics and Insurrection: A Pragmatism for the Oppressed. Bloomsbury

Publishing, 2021.

Cited in McBride, Chapter 5: Evoking Race

Frye, Marilyn. Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory. Berkeley: The Crossing Press,

1983. [Cited by McBride in the Introduction]

Harris, Leonard, and Lee A. McBride III. A Philosophy of Struggle: The Leonard Harris Reader.

Edited by Lee A. McBride III. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.

Lugones, María. Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition against Multiple Oppressions.

New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003.

Outlaw, Lucius T. “Rehabilitate Racial Whiteness?” In What White Looks Like, edited by George

Yancy, 175–88. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Sullivan, Shannon. “In Defense of Separation.” In Revealing Whiteness: The Unconscious Habits

of Racial Privilege, 167–85. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.

Sullivan, Shannon. “Transaction and the Dynamic Distinctiveness of Races.” In Living Across

and Through Skins: Transactional Bodies, Pragmatism, and Feminism, 157–70.

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.

Cited in Prof Urquidez’ presentation

Curry, Tommy J. “Will the Real CRT Please Stand Up? The Dangers of Philosophical

Contributions to Critical Race Theory.” The Cut 2, no. 1 (2009): 1–47.

Jardina, Ashley. White Identity Politics. Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Silva, Grant J. “Racism as Self-Love.” Radical Philosophy Review 22, no. 1 (2019): 85–112.

https://doi.org/10.5840/radphilrev201913193.

Recommended Readings (on white identity / white racism)

Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of

Racial Inequality in America. 5th ed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.

Doane, Ashley W., and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. White Out: The Continuing Significance of

Racism. New York: Routledge Press, 2003.

Doane, Ashley W. “What Is Racism? Racial Discourse and Racial Politics.” Critical Sociology

32, no. 2–3 (2006): 255–74.

Gallagher, Charles. “White Racial Formation: Into the Twenty-First Century.” In Critical White

Studies, edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. Philadelphia: Temple University

Press, 1997. [Cited by Lucius Outlaw]

Jardina, Ashley. White Identity Politics. Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Silva, Grant J. “Racism as Self-Love.” Radical Philosophy Review 22, no. 1 (2019): 85–112.

https://doi.org/10.5840/radphilrev201913193.

Urquidez, Alberto G. “White Individualism and the Problem of White Co-Optation of the Term

‘Racism.’” Radical Philosophy Review 25, no. 2 (2022): 161–90.

https://doi.org/10.5840/radphilrev2022117124.