It started quietly enough on the Hendricks thread. At comment 78, “Kria” wrote: “I find it interesting that the racial dimension of these pictures . . . has not been mentioned at all in the discussion.” (A similar remark is made by the way by “Emma B” in comments here.) Not knowing what to make of this, I replied, after pondering a while (at comment 97): “I am a little afraid to ask because of what might emerge—but what is "the racial dimension of these pictures"? I find it difficult to see the relevance of race here.”
The next day, I heard from somebody I’ll call Professor X. (Initially, I thought X was Kria, but it turned out that this was not so.) X wrote:
[X] The pictures depict a self-described "halfblack" man surrounded by fawning, conventionally sexy, evidently "white," female logic/cheerleader students. It is no overstatement to say that the history of race and racism, along the black/white axis, has been largely dominated by an obsession with black male sexuality--particularly in relation to white women. . . [T]his . . . has a racial dimension: a "halfblack" man has made it in the analytic philosophy profession, is smart and dapper as hell, and is now so recognized and respected that, in American parlance, even fine white girls are jocking (i.e., sexually paying attention to) him.
[X] [T]here has been over-the-top moralizing and denunciating about this case, especially now that the pictures are down and VH has vaguely apologized ("I stand completely corrected" does sound to me, in the end, like a sincere apology for something real)--and this moralizing and denunciating cannot easily be viewed, particularly in an overwhelmingly white and racially problematic philosophy profession, as being racially neutral.
Well, my first reaction was a version of the Denmark Defence. (A common theme in comments: in liberal Denmark, these things don’t mean the same as in benighted USA.) I wrote:
[MM] [I]n London and Paris inter-racial couples are completely normal. The same is true in Amsterdam. I don't know Copenhagen, but I can imagine that some photographer got together four models and checked out their pouts and their breasts, but not their race.
X was having none of this dancing around.
[X] Regardless of how things might appear, black male/white female duos are not viewed as "completely normal" in "larger cities of Northern and Western Europe"—if by that you mean that persons, whether in such duos or outsiders, are unaware of or indifferent to the racialized dynamics . . . The fact that black male/white female couples are more common than they used to be in those places (and in the U.S.) hardly supports the notion that such couples usually occasion no racialized notice.
And:
[X] [I]t seems bizarre to ignore or deny the obvious, black/white sexualized dynamics in the context of an overwhelmingly white viewership, especially one that is far from "post-racial." Nor, thus, do I find it plausible that the extent of the moralizing and denunciating about this case, particularly after the vague apology and the removal of the photos, is racially neutral.
Bleeding at the ears, I still tried to resist:
[MM] You can see I am very perplexed by this whole issue. . . I don't know that it is exportable to Europe. Race is, of course, an issue in Europe (just think of the Mohammed cartoons in Denmark)—but it does not (or so it seems to me) have the same dynamic or cultural associations as it does in the US. This is why I am cautious about drawing conclusions based on how things would go down in the US.
X’s response is acid:
[X] Maybe Denmark is largely an exception. I am highly doubtful, for various reasons (e.g., the global and racialized influence of Black American popular culture, and the notional persistence of sub-Saharan Africa as "the dark continent" of human and environmental dysfunction), that there is any "post-racial" society in the Western world--though I have no doubt that there are societies where race is not much of an issue (viz., because there are so few blacks or other non-whites), or the ways in which race might factor into people's thoughts, feelings, and attractions are not particularly noxious.
The discussion closes thus:
[X] I of course can have no idea the degree to which the extraordinary and unprecedented vehemence of denunciation in this Hendricks case is connected to racialized dynamics. But think about whether the obvious racial subtext in the photos might be making any difference at all to the response—especially in comparison to other instances and patterns of inappropriate, insensitive, and exclusionary behavior that disadvantage women (and racialized minorities) in the profession.
The issues I have raised are in no way supposed to excuse Hendricks. . . for incredibly poor judgment in posting such photos in a quasi-professional context.
There you have it. I still have a queasy feeling about this. Is there an implication that Professor Hendricks is more vulnerable because of race than a white man would be? Vulnerable because his transgression is racially marked?
Would it have been better, or would the reaction have been more muted or qualified, if a well-known white philosopher had posted similar photographs with white women? Would your/the moral outrage and disgust have been the same?
I am depressed by these possiblilities. I feel as if the world has soiled me.
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