Theorizing Racial Democracy
type: CreativeWork
description: The critical philosophy of race has shown recent growth, but it tends to focus too much on the United States. This leaves many race-related concepts and phenomena from other parts of the world underexplored. I help to fill this gap by exploring the idea of "racial democracy" in Brazil, which is a form of racial ignorance that is prevalent in that country. Specifically, I am interested in the epistemic aspects of this mechanism of creating and propagating racial ignorance. To achieve this goal, I begin by introducing Charles Mills' concept of white ignorance and other influential works in social epistemology. Then, I provide the necessary sociological and historical background to understand the concept of "racial democracy" in Brazilian racial thinking. From there, I explore how techniques typically used in the philosophy of race can be useful in studying the Brazilian context. In Chapter 5, I introduce my approach to "racial democracy" and highlight its epistemic components. I connect it to the epistemology of ignorance and social epistemology to provide a deeper understanding of this form of racial ignorance. Additionally, I compare "racial democracy" to color blindness, which is a form of racial ignorance that is prevalent in the United States, and show how these two forms of ignorance differ. Finally, I demonstrate that my theorization contributes to a better understanding of seminal works by Abdias Nascimento and Sueli Carneiro, two black Brazilian intellectuals whose work I analyze in the last chapter.
abstract: The critical philosophy of race has shown recent growth, but it tends to focus too much on the United States. This leaves many race-related concepts and phenomena from other parts of the world underexplored. I help to fill this gap by exploring the idea of "racial democracy" in Brazil, which is a form of racial ignorance that is prevalent in that country. Specifically, I am interested in the epistemic aspects of this mechanism of creating and propagating racial ignorance. To achieve this goal, I begin by introducing Charles Mills' concept of white ignorance and other influential works in social epistemology. Then, I provide the necessary sociological and historical background to understand the concept of "racial democracy" in Brazilian racial thinking. From there, I explore how techniques typically used in the philosophy of race can be useful in studying the Brazilian context. In Chapter 5, I introduce my approach to "racial democracy" and highlight its epistemic components. I connect it to the epistemology of ignorance and social epistemology to provide a deeper understanding of this form of racial ignorance. Additionally, I compare "racial democracy" to color blindness, which is a form of racial ignorance that is prevalent in the United States, and show how these two forms of ignorance differ. Finally, I demonstrate that my theorization contributes to a better understanding of seminal works by Abdias Nascimento and Sueli Carneiro, two black Brazilian intellectuals whose work I analyze in the last chapter.
author: de Souza Carmo Reis, Teófilo
keywords: Philosophy, racial democracy, philosophy of race, social epistemology, white ignorance
date published: 2023-09-01T07:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:00:13Z
provider: City University of New York - Graduate Center
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York