Racial Contract

Question 1

Key details

Answer 1

This piece of literature was inspired by Carole pateman’s sexual contract

Question 2

Key ideas

Answer 2

-exposes the male covenant upon which the supposedly gender-neutral social contract rests
- contract theory affirms patriarchy
- sees the social contract as a racist violation of the terms of an idealized contract created the racial contract
- the racial contract is used as a method to analyze the grounds of white supremacy
- white supremacy is a racial contract between whites
- believes that in the social contract, rules do not apply to white people
- social contract is a contract between the privileged “we the white people”
- deems that white people in the social contract and historically have more privilege, the opportunity to better themselves, statutes, holidays, violence, policy, etc

Question 3

Key idea - epistemology of ignorance

Answer 3

• an agreement to misinterpret the world (p. 18)
• white signatories of a delusional world
  *“Racial fantasy land”
• white people know that there are injustices, but they act as if there aren’t
  > they know not everyone is the best.

Question 4

Key idea - epistemology of ignorance (argument)

Answer 4

• “all bites are beneficiaries of the racial contract, while some whites are not signatories to it “ p. 11
  ex: white flight, creation of suburbs
• while all white people may not be signatories, they are benefiting in some way.

Question 5

Key concept -> how is the racial contract maintained

Answer 5

• physical violence: dominant version, especially in early phases (p.83)
  *ex: police violence is as organic in this political system, counter violence: seen as a challenge to the racial contract - so never tolerated and responded with exemplary punishment

Question 6

Key concept -> ideological coercion

Answer 6

A depersonalizing conceptual apparatus produced whereby nonwhites are made to accept their personhood

Ex: denial of education, history, cultural assimilation, inferiority complex

Question 7

Epistemology

Answer 7

• structures we notice/ learn
• acceptance of a given reality, we fool ourselves into making the victims the aggressors
  Ex: criminals are rapists (trump ideology)