Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T17:51:55.222Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Knowing How to Feel: Racism, Resilience, and Affective Resistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2021

Taylor Rogers Open the ORCID record for Taylor Rogers [Opens in a new window]
Taylor Rogers*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Loyola Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
*
Corresponding author. trogers11@luc.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the affective dimension of resilient epistemological systems. Specifically, I argue that responsible epistemic practice requires affective engagement with nondominant experiences. To begin, I outline Kristie Dotson's account of epistemological resilience whereby an epistemological system remains stable despite counterevidence or attempts to alter it. Then, I develop an account of affective numbness. As I argue, affective numbness can promote epistemological resilience in at least two ways. First, it can reinforce harmful stereotypes even after these stereotypes have been rationally demystified. To illustrate, I examine the stereotype of Black criminality as it relates to false confessions (Lackey 2018). Second, it can encourage “epistemic appropriation” (Davis 2018), which I demonstrate by examining the appropriation of “intersectionality” and #MeToo by white culture. Finally, I conclude that resisting harmful resilience requires affective resistance, or efforts that target numbness via different kinds of affective engagement. I consider Kantian “disinterestedness” as a candidate.

Type
Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , Fall 2021 , pp. 725 - 747
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Hypatia, a Nonprofit Corporation

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

López, Acosta, del Rosario, María. 2019. One hundred years of forgottenness: Aesth-ethics of memory in Latin America. Philosophical Readings 11 (3): 163–71.Google Scholar
Ahmed, Sarah. 2012. On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Alcoff, Linda. 1999. Towards a phenomenology of racialized embodiment. Radical Philosophy 95 (May/June): 15–26.Google Scholar
Anzaldúa, Gloria, and Moraga, Cherríe, eds. 1981/2015. This bridge called my back: Writings by radical women of color. 4th ed. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Anzaldúa, Gloria. 1987/2007. Borderlands / La frontera: The new mestiza. 3rd ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute.Google Scholar
Sarah C., Appleby, and Kassin, Saul M.. 2016. When Self-Report Trumps Science: Effects of Confessions, DNA, and Prosecutorial Theories on Perceptions of Guilt. Psychology, Public Policy and Law 22 (2): 127–140.Google Scholar
Basu, Rima. 2018. Beliefs that wrong. PhD thesis, University of Southern California.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Robin. 2011. Racial innocence: Performing American childhood and race from slavery to civil rights. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Best, Susan. 2016. Reparative aesthetics: Witnessing in contemporary art photography. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.10.5040/9781474277839CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bheegly, Erin. Forthcoming. What's wrong with stereotyping? Under contract with Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Blum, Lawrence. 2004. Stereotypes and stereotyping: A moral analysis. Philosophical Papers 33 (3): 251–89.10.1080/05568640409485143CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Adrienne Marie. 2019. Pleasure activism: The politics of feeling good. Chico, Calif.: AK Press.Google Scholar
Brownstein, Michael, and Saul, Jennifer, eds. 2016. Philosophy and implicit bias. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Burke, Tarana. 2017. #MeToo was started for black and brown women and girls. They're still being ignored. Washington Post, November 9.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 2004. Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 2016. Frames of war: When is life grievable? London: Verso.Google Scholar
Carastathis, Anna. 2013. Basements and intersections. Hypatia 28 (4): 698–715.10.1111/hypa.12044CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chanter, Tina. 2017. Art, politics and Rancière: Broken perceptions. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
Cheng, Anne Anlin. 2000. The melancholy of race: Psychoanalysis, assimilation, and hidden grief. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Code, Lorraine. 1987. Epistemic responsibility. Providence, R.I.: Brown University Press.Google Scholar
Code, Lorraine. 2008. Advocacy, negotiation, and the politics of unknowing. Southern Journal of Philosophy 46 (Supp): 32–51.10.1111/j.2041-6962.2008.tb00152.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Code, Lorraine. 2015. Care, concern, and advocacy: Is there a place for epistemic responsibility? Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 1 (1).10.5206/fpq/2015.1.1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Code, Lorraine. 2017. Epistemic Responsibility. In The Routledge handbook of epistemic injustice, ed. Kidd, Ian James, Medina, José, and Pohlhaus, Gaile Jr. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 1977/1995. A black feminist standpoint. In Words of fire: An anthology of African-American feminist thought, ed. Guy-Sheftall, Beverly. New York: The New Press.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 2000. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 2003. Some group matters: Intersectionality, situated standpoints, and Black feminist thought. In A Companion to African-American philosophy, ed. Lott, Tommy Lee and Pittman, John P.. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 2017. Intersectionality and epistemic injustice. In The Routledge handbook of epistemic injustice, ed. Kidd, Ian James, Medina, José, and Pohlhaus, Gaile, Jr. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Combahee River Collective. 1974/1997. A Black feminist statement. In The second wave: A reader in feminist theory, ed. Nicholson, Linda. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cooper, Brittney. 2018. Eloquent rage: A Black feminist discovers her superpower. New York City: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1989. Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum 1: 139–67.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1991. Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review 43 (6): 1241–99.10.2307/1229039CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1993. Beyond racism and misogyny: Black feminism and 2 live crew. In Feminist social thought: A reader, ed. Meyers, Diana Tietjens. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 2017. Sister girl bonds. Interview by Heben Nigatu and Tracy Clayton. Another Round (89), April 23.Google Scholar
Cvetkovich, Ann. 2003. An archive of feelings: Trauma, sexuality, and lesbian public culture. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Davis, Emmalon. 2018. On epistemic appropriation. Ethics 128 (4): 702–27.10.1086/697490CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Kathy. 2008. Intersectionality as buzzword. Feminist Theory 9 (1): 67–85.10.1177/1464700108086364CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DiAngelo, Robin. 2018. White fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Dickie, George. 1964. The myth of the aesthetic attitude. American Philosophical Quarterly 1 (1): 56–65.Google Scholar
Dotson, Kristie. 2012. A cautionary tale: On limiting epistemic oppression. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 33 (1): 24–47.10.5250/fronjwomestud.33.1.0024CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dotson, Kristie. 2014. Conceptualizing epistemic oppression. Social Epistemology 28 (2): 115–38.10.1080/02691728.2013.782585CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dotson, Kristie. 2018. Distinguishing knowledge possession and knowledge attribution: The difference metaphilosophy makes. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 96 (2): 475–82.10.1111/phpr.12428CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. 1903/2015. The souls of Black folk. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ehrenreich, Nancy. 2002–2003. Theorizing the connections among systems of subordination. UMKC Law Review 71: 251–324.Google Scholar
Fricker, Miranda. 2007. Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198237907.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, Deborah. 2009. Moving politics: Emotion and ACT UP's fight against AIDS. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammonds, Evelynn. 2004. Black (w)holes and the geometry of black female sexuality. In The black studies reader, ed. Hammonds, Evelynn, Bobo, Jacqueline, Hudley, Cynthia, and Michel, Claudine. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Harding, Sandra, ed. 2004. The feminist standpoint theory reader: Intellectual and political controversies. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hartman, Saidiya V. 1997. Scenes of subjection: Terror, slavery, and self-making in nineteenth-century America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hume, David. 1874. Of the standard of taste. In The philosophical works of David Hume, ed. Green, T. H. and Grose, T. H.. London: Longman, Green.Google Scholar
Jaggar, Alison M. 1989. Love and knowledge: Emotion in feminist epistemology. Inquiry 32 (2): 151–76.10.1080/00201748908602185CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. 1790/2000. Critique of the power of judgment, ed. Guyer, Paul and Wood, Allen. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
King, Deborah. 1988. Multiple jeopardy, multiple consciousness: The context of a black feminist ideology. Signs 14 (1): 42–72.10.1086/494491CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lackey, Jennifer. 2018. Credibility and the distribution of epistemic goods. In Believing in accordance with the evidence: New essays on evidentialism, ed. McCain, Kevin. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Lackey, Jennifer. 2020. False confessions and testimonial injustice. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 110 (1): 43–68.Google Scholar
Leung, Rebecca, and Williams, Robert. 2019. #MeToo and intersectionality: An examination of the #MeToo movement through the R. Kelly scandal. Journal of Communication Inquiry 43 (4): 349–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorde, Audre. 1981. The uses of anger: Women responding to racism. In Sister outsider. New York: Ten Speed Press.Google Scholar
Lorde, Audre. 1984/2007. Sister outsider. New York: Ten Speed Press.Google Scholar
Lorde, Audre. 1993. The uses of the erotic: The erotic as power. In The lesbian and gay studies reader, ed. Abelove, Henry, Barale, Michele Aina, and Halperin, David M.. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mason, Rebecca. 2011. Two kinds of unknowing. Hypatia 26 (2): 294–307.10.1111/j.1527-2001.2011.01175.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Me Too. 2019. History and vision. https://metoomvmt.org/about/#history.Google Scholar
Medina, José. 2011a. The relevance of credibility excess in a proportional view of epistemic injustice: Differential epistemic authority and the social imaginary. Social Epistemology 25 (1): 15–35.10.1080/02691728.2010.534568CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Medina, José. 2011b. Toward a Foucaultian epistemology of resistance. Foucault Studies 12 (October): 9–35.10.22439/fs.v0i12.3335CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Medina, José. 2013. The epistemology of resistance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199929023.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Medina, José. 2019. Racial violence, emotional friction, and epistemic activism. Angelaki 24 (4): 22–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mills, Charles. 2007. White ignorance. In Race and epistemologies of resistance, ed. Sullivan, Shannon and Tuana, Nancy. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Mills, Charles. 2015. Blackness visible. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.10.7591/9781501702952CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mills, Charles. 2019. The white leviathan: Non-white bodies in the body politic, a discussion with Charles Mills. Presented at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois November 8.Google Scholar
Morton, Jennifer, and Paul, Sarah K.. 2019. Grit. Ethics 129 (2): 175–203.10.1086/700029CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moss, Sarah. 2018. Moral encroachment. In Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 118 (2): 177–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nash, Jennifer C. 2014. Institutionalizing the margins. Social Text 32 (118): 45–65.10.1215/01642472-2391333CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nash, Jennifer. 2019a. The politics of reading. In Black feminism reimagined: After intersectionality. Durham, N.C.: Duke University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nash, Jennifer. 2019b. Writing black beauty. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 45 (1): 101–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Mara, Shane. 2015. Why torture doesn't work: The neuroscience of interrogation. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.10.4159/9780674915510CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ortega, Mariana, Medina, José, and Pitts, Andrea, eds. 2020. Theories of the flesh: Latinx and Latina feminisms, transformation, and resistance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole, Mills, Charles Wade, and Mills, Charles Wright. 2007. Contract and domination. Cambridge, UK: Polity.Google Scholar
Pohlhaus, Gaile. 2012. Relational knowing an epistemic injustice: Toward a theory of willful hermeneutical ignorance. Hypatia 27 (4): 715–35.10.1111/j.1527-2001.2011.01222.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rancière, Jacques. 2015. Dissensus: On politics and aesthetics. Boston: Bloomsbury Publishing.10.5040/9781474249966CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Dorothy. 1997. Killing the black body: Race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Rogers, Taylor. 2018. Critical epistemologies bibliography. https://www.criticaltheory.northwestern.edu/documents/critical-epistemology-lexicon.pdf.Google Scholar
Scarry, Elaine. 1987. The body in pain: The making and unmaking of the world. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shotwell, Alexis. 2011. Knowing otherwise: Race, gender, and implicit understanding. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Stansell, Christine. 1992. White feminists and black realities: The politics of authenticity. In Race-ing justice, en-gendering power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the construction of social reality, ed. Morrison, Toni. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Truth, Sojourner. 1851/1972. Ain't I a woman? In Feminism: The essential historical writings. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Van der Kolk, Bessel. 2014. The body keeps the score: Mind, brain and body in the transformation of trauma. London: Penguin UK.Google Scholar
Wex Legal Dictionary. 2017a. Intermediate scrutiny. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/intermediate_scrutiny.Google Scholar
Wex Legal Dictionary. 2017b. Strict scrutiny. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/strict_scrutiny.Google Scholar
Wilderson III, Frank B. 2020. Afropessimism. New York: Liveright Publishing.Google Scholar
Williams, Patricia J. 1991. The alchemy of race and rights. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Yancy, George. 2016. Black bodies, white gazes: The continuing significance of race in America. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar