Spelman, Elizabeth - Managing Ignorance

02/08/2008

Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, Sullivan & Tuana, eds. State University of NY, 2007

This chapter in a book has two main sections. The first section talks about the doxastic attitude that Baldwin claims whites have about the condition of blacks, or 'the grievances of blacks'. It isn't that whites believe such grievances are false, nor do they believe they are true. Instead, whites manage to be ignorant of the grievances of blacks, effectively maintaining the status quo. It is because whites want to believe the grievances are false, but are too afraid to actually investigave whether they are, in fact, false, because then they might discover (to their horror) that the grievances are true. Unwilling to take the risk that they are true, whites instead ignore the truth-value of the grievances of blacks, and manage to be ignorant.

Such management is dificult, and Baldwin considers that it is rooted in a deep fear that has crippled whites so that they cannot climb out of this willful ignorance without the help of blacks. (pg 122). Author then points out that this is not necessarily a claim of racism by Baldwin, but instead a claim of ignorance. Yet it is a kind of passive or 'cowardly' racism, set somewhere between white supremecists (who wilfully believe that black grievances are false) and those who believe the grievances are true. Thus it is injustice by 'spinelessness' (pg 124). This is an effective way to indict whites who don't consider themselves blatant racists or white supremecists.

The second section of the chapter talks about what kinds of efforts whites took to create the doxastic attitude they now enjoy. Author looks at the history of the reconstruction, both immediately following the Civil War and also as many as 5 centuries later, with a speech by Woodrow Wilson. In the cases author examines, all discussion of the moral aspects of the war, that it was over the treatment of blacks/slaves, are censored from explicit reference. Instead, reconcilliation is achieved among the whites by talking about how both sides fought bravely, and suffered, and so on. In order to mend the republic of whites, the reasons the war was fought are covered over. But this also covered over the grievances of blacks, effectively creating a screen for whites to enjoy. (pg 126-130)