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Harvard expert speaks on race, gender, ethnicity

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An esteemed writer and scholar of philosophy and African American studies spoke Thursday about race and gender as part of UW-Madison’s Humanities Without Boundaries Series. His talk, “Race, Gender and Individuality,” drew an interested, intellectual and diverse crowd that filled Memorial Union’s Great Hall.

Harvard professor Kwame Anthony Appiah is an award-winning author of numerous books and articles about race and identity.

The 1992 book, “In My Father’s House,” is his best-known work and is widely cited in African study programs.

In the 1980s, Appiah was one of the first to argue race is a social construct that does not correspond to biological reality, an idea commonly taught in scholarship today.

He critiques the idea of Afrocentrism and examines multiculturalism in his writings.

“Appiah challenges our uncriticized assumptions of race and morality,” said Nellie McKay, UW professor of Afro-American studies and English. “He is our foremost thinker in African and African-American philosophy and liberal theory.”

Appiah explored how liberalism has long celebrated individuality and what identity means to individuals.

“Identities are ethically important because they are among the most important elements we use in making our lives, for we make our lives as men, as women, as black, and as white,” Appiah said. “The root idea is each of us are in command of his or her own life.”

He explored the state’s role in an individual’s identity, stating the state should intervene at certain times.

“Our limited rationality raises the possibility that the state may have to evaluate at least some cases and engage in soul-making based on these evaluations,” Appiah said.

Appiah defines soul-making as the political process of intervening through state action in the ways people construct their identity with the purpose of improving prospects of success.

An example of this is the state’s acknowledgement discrimination is morally wrong and its attempt to change such practices with the creation of antidiscrimination laws, Appiah said.

“This can be one way of reforming social conception of the racial identity ‘black’ with the aid of improving success of the lives of black people through the reform of their identity,” he said.