The Annual Tanner-McMurrin Lecture
A reception will be held at the Hinckley foyer after the event. In his forthcoming book, The Afterlife of Race: An Informed Philosophical Search (OUP, fall 2023), Lionel McPherson argues that the perpetual stigmatized, wealthless condition of Black America is best understood as a caste phenomenon. Caste calls attention to intergenerational nature and national specificity of the Black American situation, rooted in inherited slavery and enforced segregation; “race,” by contrast, traffics in flat blackness. As McPherson explains it, race intrigue functions as a distraction—from the subjugation, exploitation, and non-repair of the historical American “Slaves” caste—by (mis)directing focus to some global antiblack racism phenomenon of lesser importance. Drawing on her work on the American criminal punishment system (The Limits of Blame: Rethinking Punishment and Responsibility (Harvard, 2018) ), Erin Kelly explains that the politics of blame tracks American caste. That is, it adheres to the subordination of Black Americans as descendants of American slavery. The stigma conferred on Black Americans works by merging distinctions between act, person, and group, which practices of harsh punishment encourage. The result is normalization of mass criminalization and incarceration, as well as denial of equal democratic citizenship to Black Americans as a group. Presenters:
- Lionel K. McPherson, Tufts University
- Erin I. Kelly, Harvard Law School and Tufts University
Winner of Pulitzer Prize, 2022
CO-SPONSORED BY WESTMINSTER COLLEGE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC Please plan to arrive at the venue promptly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |