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Black Rights / White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism
Liberalism is the political philosophy of equal persons - yet liberalism has denied equality to those it saw as sub-persons. Liberalism is the creed of fairness - yet liberalism has been complicit with European imperialism and African slavery. Liberalism is the classic ideology of Enlightenment and political transparency - yet liberalism has cast a dark veil over its actual racist past and present. In sum, liberalism's promise of equal rights has historically been denied to blacks and other people of color.
In Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism, political philosopher Charles Mills challenges mainstream accounts that ignore this history and its current legacy in self-conceivedly liberal polities today. Mills argues that rather than bracket as an anomaly the role of racism in the development of liberal theory, we should see it as shaping that theory in fundamental ways. As feminists have urged us to see the dominant form of liberalism as a patriarchal liberalism, so too Mills suggests we should see it as a racialized liberalism. It is unsurprising, then, if contemporary liberalism has yet to deliver on the recognition of black rights and the correction of white wrongs.
These essays look at racial liberalism, past and present: "white ignorance" as a guilty ignoring of social reality that facilitates white racial domination; Immanuel Kant's role as the most important liberal theorist of both personhood and sub-personhood; the centrality of racial exploitation in the United States; and the evasion of white supremacy in John Rawls's "ideal theory" framing of social justice and in the work of most other contemporary white political philosophers. Nonetheless, Mills still believes that a deracialized liberalism is both possible and desirable. He concludes by calling on progressives to "Occupy liberalism!" and develop accordingly a radical liberalism aimed at achieving racial justice.
In Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism, political philosopher Charles Mills challenges mainstream accounts that ignore this history and its current legacy in self-conceivedly liberal polities today. Mills argues that rather than bracket as an anomaly the role of racism in the development of liberal theory, we should see it as shaping that theory in fundamental ways. As feminists have urged us to see the dominant form of liberalism as a patriarchal liberalism, so too Mills suggests we should see it as a racialized liberalism. It is unsurprising, then, if contemporary liberalism has yet to deliver on the recognition of black rights and the correction of white wrongs.
These essays look at racial liberalism, past and present: "white ignorance" as a guilty ignoring of social reality that facilitates white racial domination; Immanuel Kant's role as the most important liberal theorist of both personhood and sub-personhood; the centrality of racial exploitation in the United States; and the evasion of white supremacy in John Rawls's "ideal theory" framing of social justice and in the work of most other contemporary white political philosophers. Nonetheless, Mills still believes that a deracialized liberalism is both possible and desirable. He concludes by calling on progressives to "Occupy liberalism!" and develop accordingly a radical liberalism aimed at achieving racial justice.
304 pages, Paperback
First published March 29, 2017
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About the author
Charles W. Mills
26 books88 followersCharles W. Mills was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at The Graduate Center, CUNY. He worked in the general area of social and political philosophy, particularly in oppositional political theory as centered on class, gender, and race. He was the author of over a hundred journal articles, book chapters, comments and replies, and six books. His first book, The Racial Contract (Cornell UP, 1997), won a Myers Outstanding Book Award for the study of bigotry and human rights in America. It has been translated into Korean and Turkish. His second book, Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race (Cornell UP, 1998), was a finalist for the award for the most important North American work in social philosophy of that year.
Mills received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, and previously taught at the University of Oklahoma, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Northwestern University. He was the President of the American Philosophical Association Central Division for 2017-18. In 2017, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Mills received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, and previously taught at the University of Oklahoma, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Northwestern University. He was the President of the American Philosophical Association Central Division for 2017-18. In 2017, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 22, 2019
I must admit that I would have liked BR/WW much more had the entire book been the epilogue. The introductory chapters and the Occupy Liberalism! chapter set the stage for a deep dive into what Mills calls "black radical liberalism" (BRL). This is an exciting project about what liberalism can be if it gets away from the (whitening) abstractions of ideal theory and accepts the central (as opposed to peripheral or deviating) reality of racist (sexist, etc) oppression. BRL accepts the truth of the radical critique of liberalism, but affirms liberalism can be transformed without destroying it. But Mills drops this and doesn't really pick it up until the brief epilogue.
The rest of the book is about the shortcomings of Kant and Rawls and all of ideal theory in understanding race and having anything useful to say about it. This is quality stuff, though I worried at points that Mills was putting a little too much effort into exegesis and not enough into showing how modern interpretations still suffer from insufficient attention to race. Especially if you've never read these sorts of critiques, they are immensely clarifying. I've read a fair bit on the shortcomings of Rawls's theory, especially with respect to gender, but nothing on Kant. The extent of his racism was a little shocking.
Back to the epilogue. Mills builds BRL out of a dialectic of three traditions: critical race theory (black), Marxism (radical), and Kantianism (liberalism). In his eventual, more in-depth exploration of BRL, I hope he branches out from these component traditions. While Marxism may offer interesting insights into class, anticapitalism will cripple BRL. The exponential productive powers of capitalism can ultimately be had without imperialism or systemic oppression, as has been argued by, e.g., Ann Cudd, a scholar Mills is sympathetic toward.
And, while the development of black radical Kantianism is a laudable project, BRL could benefit from dropping Kant and taking on a capabilities liberalism like that of Nussbaum and Sen. Capabilities liberalism already concerns itself with both the social context (in which racist and sexist oppression manifests) as well as comprehensive outcomes. Very little rebuilding from the ground up would need to be done to incorporate capabilities into BRL. Mills refers to his epilogue as also a prologue. I'm looking forward to his future development of black radical liberalism.
The rest of the book is about the shortcomings of Kant and Rawls and all of ideal theory in understanding race and having anything useful to say about it. This is quality stuff, though I worried at points that Mills was putting a little too much effort into exegesis and not enough into showing how modern interpretations still suffer from insufficient attention to race. Especially if you've never read these sorts of critiques, they are immensely clarifying. I've read a fair bit on the shortcomings of Rawls's theory, especially with respect to gender, but nothing on Kant. The extent of his racism was a little shocking.
Back to the epilogue. Mills builds BRL out of a dialectic of three traditions: critical race theory (black), Marxism (radical), and Kantianism (liberalism). In his eventual, more in-depth exploration of BRL, I hope he branches out from these component traditions. While Marxism may offer interesting insights into class, anticapitalism will cripple BRL. The exponential productive powers of capitalism can ultimately be had without imperialism or systemic oppression, as has been argued by, e.g., Ann Cudd, a scholar Mills is sympathetic toward.
And, while the development of black radical Kantianism is a laudable project, BRL could benefit from dropping Kant and taking on a capabilities liberalism like that of Nussbaum and Sen. Capabilities liberalism already concerns itself with both the social context (in which racist and sexist oppression manifests) as well as comprehensive outcomes. Very little rebuilding from the ground up would need to be done to incorporate capabilities into BRL. Mills refers to his epilogue as also a prologue. I'm looking forward to his future development of black radical liberalism.
March 4, 2021
That Kant guy was uhh... pretty fucking racist, eh?
February 18, 2018
Charles W. Mills work here is impressive. His ability to deconstruct liberalism into a subset of liberalisms alone challenges the understanding of liberalism as it appears in the natural consciousness, with part of his argument serving to highlight that the majority of Americans, whether they identify with the Left or Right are fundamentally liberals that subscribe to competing sunsets of liberalism. Central to Mills’ scholarship is what he refers to as racial liberalism, which applies to both the racist history of liberalism in the Western tradition, e.g. regarding Kant, J.S. Mills, and Hegel, and also the post-racial sanctioned erasure of difference. A large section of the book is dedicated to scrutinizing John Rawls’s work on Justice, with a couple chapters bordering the esoteric for race studies scholars who are not also scholars in traditionally defined philosophy, but despite this, Charles W. Mills’s case for radical black liberalism calls attention to the intersection of politics and visibility in a manner that is incredibly engaging. I can see this as a central text for anyone wanting to study how white supremacy is encoded into politics and American/Western history.
June 30, 2019
I am appreciative of this book for its careful articulation and sorting of ideas related to white supremacy. The book is repetitive as it inspects a white supremacist viewpoint in 20th C philosophical thinking from a number of starting points. It meant I could skim certain sections. The footnotes were instructive when they pointed to thinkers and their key volumes (both similar and dissimilar). Mills argument illuminated for me why it is so hard to address the many exclusions (historic and contemporary) in our American politics.
January 22, 2018
Mills critiques the liberalism of actual historical practice, as well as Liberal theory which fails to address historical injustice by focusing on "ideal theory." While the basic premise of his critique is very intuitive, this does not mean that the book can be dismissed as obvious or unnecessary. Mills engages at a granular and substantive level with the history of Liberal thought, as well as radical critiques that advocate abandoning liberalism completely. One of the finest essays in the book is "Occupy Liberalism," in which he sets forth ten such radical objections, and refutes them. He also demonstrates perspicacity in his anticipation of readers' concerns. This is a book that takes ideas, their history, and their consequences, seriously.
August 16, 2025
Liberalism is a political philosophy that champions rights, equality, and personhood for all. Yet European and American history is replete with exceptions to these principles; indeed, many purportedly liberal governments have conducted or were otherwise complicit in slavery, genocide, and imperialism.
Also troubling is the overwhelming majority of liberal theorists who fail to grapple with this sordid past and its present legacies, often instead abstracting them away. In this collection of essays, Mills challenges these accounts and argues that they should be interpreted as racialized. He then postulates a variant of liberalism that synthesizes the insights of Marxism, Kantianism, and critical race theory.
One of those books everyone should read. I was surprised by liberalism's ability, as presented by Mills, to accommodate elements of seemingly contradictory political philosophies. I think this speaks to its ubiquity in politics and academia.
The critiques of Rawls and Kant were fascinating. I was also engaged by Mills's analysis of white privilege and ignorance as an antisocial epistemological framework.
As feedback, I would encourage Mills to build more on the epilogue in which he proposes his radical variant of liberalism. The preceding chapters, though cogent, have some repetitive assertions, namely the Rawls critique.
Also troubling is the overwhelming majority of liberal theorists who fail to grapple with this sordid past and its present legacies, often instead abstracting them away. In this collection of essays, Mills challenges these accounts and argues that they should be interpreted as racialized. He then postulates a variant of liberalism that synthesizes the insights of Marxism, Kantianism, and critical race theory.
One of those books everyone should read. I was surprised by liberalism's ability, as presented by Mills, to accommodate elements of seemingly contradictory political philosophies. I think this speaks to its ubiquity in politics and academia.
The critiques of Rawls and Kant were fascinating. I was also engaged by Mills's analysis of white privilege and ignorance as an antisocial epistemological framework.
As feedback, I would encourage Mills to build more on the epilogue in which he proposes his radical variant of liberalism. The preceding chapters, though cogent, have some repetitive assertions, namely the Rawls critique.
June 10, 2020
I wanna start out by saying that this is a very good book. It's well argued, generally well written and it takes aim at the center of the problem. It's a no holds barred critique of liberalism, but a critique that aims to reform rather than dismantle.
And that might be where the the main issue of the book lies. It's certainly an admirable goal to fit critical race theory into a liberal framework, but it's done so from a perspective on marxism and libertarianism that's stuck in the 1970's. Granted, the reasoning behind these perspectives might be explained in a future work. A work that's teased in the epilogue of Black Rights / White Wrongs.
Even though the book reads as the first third of a larger work, it's still very much a recommended read.
And that might be where the the main issue of the book lies. It's certainly an admirable goal to fit critical race theory into a liberal framework, but it's done so from a perspective on marxism and libertarianism that's stuck in the 1970's. Granted, the reasoning behind these perspectives might be explained in a future work. A work that's teased in the epilogue of Black Rights / White Wrongs.
Even though the book reads as the first third of a larger work, it's still very much a recommended read.
October 4, 2021
Caveat that I stopped reading when it got to the later chapters about Rawls. I appreciated his points about Rawls in his more general essays, but I haven't read any Rawls so I have no framework to get much use out of those later chapters. It's no slight to Mills - if I do pick up some Rawls I'll come back to the last part of this book.
May 1, 2023
Philosophers pretend to think in timeless generalities, even when they turn to politics. Charles Mills argues that this means philosophers have yet to engage with the problems of racism. His essays in this collection are learned, patient, acute, and witty, and in the end they make a compelling case that philosophers should start paying attention to the racist institutions they inhabit.
February 1, 2023
Charles Mills is a beautiful, eloquent writer. He sets out to show how Western philosophy is founded on racial ideas. Despite some egalitarian overtures made by the authors he examines, he deftly shows the contradictions inherent in their positions.
December 16, 2021
ooooooooo big brain
October 6, 2024
Omg just get to the point😐🙄
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews