Why I Write So Many Books About Race

7 pagesThis is intended to be a “personal essay” about my work as a nonwhite philosopher. I find the premise condescending and somewhat annoying. I would not encourage anyone else who shares my demographics to follow my example, much less emulate me, so the personal example exercise is not a medium for pride. But, I do recognize the need for nonwhite and nonmale academic philosophers to “tell their stories.” Unless they do, the small numbers of nonwhites in our profession and the disproportionately low percentage of nonmales will not change. Even with such stories it might not change, but I would hate to be responsible for even a tiny part of such ongoing exclusivity. The problem is not with either the maleness or whiteness of traditional philosophers, but with their general unexamined attitudes toward, and indifference about, the problems of women and nonwhite people in the world, as well as the academy. So I feel compensated that a task which annoys me insofar as I am making a spectacle of myself might be even more annoying to some of the spectators