Race Philosopher Chike Jeffers Lectures at University of Saint Joseph
Written by Samuel Turgeon
On April 17th, Dr. Chike Jeffers presented a lecture on race and philosophy in the Crystal Room at USJ. The lecture was attended by a fair amount of philosophy students and a number of USJ professors. Dr. Jeffers’ presentation was given virtually, as he resides in Canada.
Dr. Jeffers is a renowned scholar of Africana Philosophy and teaches at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. He has been published in numerous articles and books and worked to edit Listening To Ourselves: A Multilingual Anthology of African Philosophy. Listening To Ourselves is a groundbreaking philosophical work that presents arguments in indigenous African languages before providing English translations. Dr. Jeffers also served as an integral part of the book What Is Race: Four Philosophical Views. What Is Race provides different arguments regarding the modern understanding of race and racism, each from the viewpoint of a different philosopher. Dr. Jeffers is one of four philosophers who contributed to the book, alongside Sally Haslanger, Joshua Glasgow, and Quayshawn Spencer.
During his lecture, Dr. Jeffers discussed the initial sections of his chapter in What Is Race. Dr. Jeffers’ section deals with social constructionism: The notion that race is a concept that is constructed socially and has little to no biological basis. Dr. Jeffers distinguishes this from other racial philosophies, such as traditional biological essentialism and anti-realism. Traditional biological essentialism associates distinct traits with each race. Jeffers points out that this line of thinking is entirely baseless and has never been scientifically proven. Anti-realism holds the idea that race simply does not exist and argues that differing appearance as a result of ancestry is not enough to prove that race exists. Instead, Jeffers argues for the social constructionist position, suggesting that although racial differences do not necessarily lead to differing traits, they can still significantly impact how society treats an individual.
Jeffers touched on a few other issues of race and philosophy in his lecture, such as the different variants of social constructionism and the concept of replacing the word “race” with something that does not carry the same negative connotations.
