Mills Curry Liberal Rights Racial Justice Critique Essay

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Philosophical Questions and Answers


A) Discuss how for Mills a critique of liberal (freedom/equality) and formal/legal (“de jure”) rights and justice must include the “cultural” and “somatic” aspects of race/racism to make clear how difficult it is to establish a real (universal) humanism. Next, discuss how Curry’s accounts of sexual violence against black men and boys -in the present (police/civil) and historically (during slavery) - further develops his critique of “progressive” categories (embraced by “intellectuals”, not “radicals”), which though advocating for rights/values, may cover/miss or, worse, reinforce political and social vulnerabilities and violence. And, consider how Curry’s conclusion that we must relativize “western man” connects to Mills “metaphysical” point that white supremacy is a “bipolar system” that has splintered liberal rights.
This question requires carefully parsing the multiple critiques of race, rights, and systemic violence propounded by Charles Mills and Roderick Curry. The core argument thar emerges from this parsing revolves around how liberal conceptions of rights and justice ignore or otherwise fail to capture the lived experiences of racialized subjects, particularly non-white individuals, by remaining at the level of formal, legal abstractions. For instance, Mills, in his critique of liberal notions of freedom, equality, and formal (or “de jure”) rights and justice, argues that these frameworks frequently fail to take into account the deeply entrenched cultural and somatic dimensions of race and racism, which are essential to understanding the challenges of achieving genuine universal humanism.
Indeed, one of the harsh realities of the human condition is the fact that everyone views the world through a unique, individual lens that is inescapably shaped by the prevailing zeitgeist which is invariably influenced by the racial ideologies that manifest in societal norms and values. In sum, although establishing a universal humanism represents a laudable and enlightened goal, the process itself is hampered by the disparities in worldviews between mainstream society and its marginalized populations.
Given the significant disproportionate percentages of whites versus non-whites in recent American history, it is little wonder that the prevailing zeitgeist has also largely failed to take into account non-white experiences and values compared to their white counterparts. While this situation is changing as the demographic makeup of the nation also continues to change, racist ideologies die hard – if at all – and it is reasonable to suggest that the transition from de jure to de facto civil rights will require far more than just a facelift but rather changes to fundamental aspects of American society, including its institutions as well as the manner in which these issues are discussed in public forums.
In this regard, Mills maintains that any legitimate analysis of liberal rights must also take into account the cultural and somatic aspects of racism.

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In other words, developing an informed understanding concerning racism and its adverse effects requires both an examination of institutionalized racism as well as considering the empirical observations and lived experiences of non-white people in a traditionally white dominated society. In this context, Mills advises that, “White supremacy is the term that has traditionally been used to denote the domination of whites over non-whites” (369).
In addition, by including the somatic aspects of racism, Mills also makes the point that oppression in any race-dominated society extends…

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…perspective, then, the “cultural imperial” manifest through systemic mechanisms like linguistic suppression, educational policies that marginalize Spanish and Latino cultural narratives in insidious ways as well as creating economic structures that limit social mobility. Further, Tabor argues that the dominant cultural representations that frequently reduce Latino experiences to stereotypical narratives are not only counterproductive, they conceal the realities that permeate American society for these marginalized populations. In other words, these social forces work to construct a prescribed identity that serves the interests of the dominant Anglo-American cultural framework while simultaneously attempting to render Latino populations manageable within existing power structures.
It is important to note, though, that Tobar’s work also reveals the generative potential within these social pressures. Indeed, Latino communities throughout America do not just lay down and take it from mainstream society, but they rather actively engage in countless types of cultural resistance that serves to educate their own populations as well as the larger America society. In other words, Latino individuals and communities do not simply passively absorb these imperial constructions but actively reframe and reconstruct their identities through creative acts of cultural resistance. In fact, this process could be termed “cultural revolutionary” since it intentionally attempts to simultaneously acknowledge and subvert the imperial pressures. In fact, Young (1990) calls for such a cultural revolution to address the longstanding “bourgeois respectability” that permeates American society which dictates that types of bodily appearances and behaviors are regarded as acceptable by mainstream society.
Taken together, it is clear that Tobar believes that being Latino is fundamentally concerned about resisting assimilation and losing their culture while navigating the intricate spaces….....

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