2015 W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture with Philosopher George Yancy
White Perception As a Form of Policing Black Bodies
Tuesday, February 3, 2015 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM EST
Research Hall, 163
This year's 2015 W.E.B. Du Bois lecturer is George Yancy, Professor of Philosophy at Duquesne University.
In the recent tragic deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Renisha McBride, and other Black bodies, Yancy explores the phenomenological dimensions of what it means to be embodied as Black within the context of white America. He argues that white perception is a site of policing Black bodies.
Indeed, through the use of an insightful encounter with a white woman on an elevator, Yancy explores the ways in which the white gaze polices and truncates the Black body, returning the Black body as an essence, a racial stereotype, and as a racial problem. Yancy argues that white people, through what he calls "Un-suturing," need to pose the question: 'How does it feel to be a white problem?' He argues that whites need to face their privilege as white, and face a sense of crisis and loss when it comes to their whiteness, to let go of the Black imago (and thereby the need to police Black bodies and their own white bodies) and thereby to constantly "undo" their white identities.
Yancy's work is located primarily in the areas of critical philosophy of race, critical whiteness studies, and philosophy and the Black experience. His first authored book, Black Bodies, White Gazes: The Continuing Significance of Race, received an Honorable Mention from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights and three of his edited books have received CHOICE Outstanding Academic Book Awards. Yancy is co-Editor of the American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and the Black Experience, and is an ex officio member of the American Philosophical Association Committee on Blacks in Philosophy. He is also Philosophy of Race Book Series editor at Lexington Books. He is currently working on 3 edited books and a new authored book. His forthcoming edited book is entitled, White Self-Criticality beyond Anti-Racism: How Does It Feel to Be a White Problem?
This event is free and open to the public.
Sponsored by African and African American Studies.
