Lecture Notes: Charles Mills' Racial Contract

Introduction

• Overview of Charles Mills' "Racial Contract"
• Focus on white supremacy as a socio-political and economic system
• Complementary material: past talk from Fall 2017
• Key idea: White supremacy is an unnamed political system shaping the modern world

Structuring the Analysis

• Mills' analysis is structured in three main chapters
• Philosophical approach:
  • Mainstream ethics vs. historical political thought
  • Issues considered: conquest, imperialism, colonialism, land rights, race, slavery, apartheid, etc.

Reconciliation of Abstract and Real

• Abstract notions: freedom, democracy, liberty, citizenship
• Reality: brutality experienced by marginalized groups
• Goal: Reconcile philosophical ideals with real-world injustices

Main Claims of the Racial Contract

1. Existential Claim: White supremacy is both local and global, existing for many years
2. Conceptual Claim: White supremacy as a political system
3. Methodological Claim: It's based on a racial contract among whites

Social Ontology and Racial Contract

• Ontology: Study of being
• Mills' social ontology:
  • Color-coded morality restricting freedom and equality to white men
  • Non-whites marginalized, seen as unequal
  • Universe divided into persons and racial sub-persons

Epistemology of Ignorance

• Concept of epistemological contract
• Inverted epistemology causing cognitive dysfunction
• Whites' inability to understand the system they benefit from

Race as a Political Technology

• Race is a social construction and political technology
• Used to construct human hierarchies
• Affects law, policy, and societal outcomes

Structural Racism

• Racism as structural, not interpersonal
• Expropriation, slavery, and colonial contracts shaping policies
• Law as a tool for racial superiority and exclusion

Legal Production of Inferiority

• Legal definitions of citizenship and race
• Racialized legal concepts impacting immigration and naturalization

Conclusion

• Upcoming lecture shift to broader overview of Mills' work
• Focus on chapters 2 and 3 for deeper understanding
• Preparation for final paper and exam