Hello, I'm JJ Joaquin and welcome to Philosophy and What Matters, where we discuss things that matter from a philosophical point of view. And with me today is Hazel E. Biana and we will explore the philosophy of race. Now people are often grouped in terms of their race and ethnicity. For example, people are classified as being of European, African and Asian descent, since the exhibit features typical of Europeans, Africans and Asians respectively. This way of classifying people, however, invites metaphysical and ethical questions. On the metaphysics side, we may ask whether race and ethnicity are real categories out there in the world, or whether they are categories that we ourselves have merely constructed. On the ethics side, we may wonder whether the oppressions that racial distinctions bring about could ever be morally justified. Now joining us to discuss the philosophy of race and why it matters, we have Lucius D. Alton Jr., W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, the author of On Race and Philosophy, and one of the recognized pioneers of African philosophy. Hello Professor Alton, welcome to Philosophy at What Happens. Hello Professor JJ and Sister Hazel, thank you both for taking time out to engage this old man. I hope that I will not disappoint you. Okay, so before getting into our topic, let's first discuss your philosophical background. What led you to get into philosophy and pursue a career in pandemic philosophy? Interesting question. So a lot of this is actually in the preface to race and philosophy. I had been born and raised in one of the states in the United States that has a reputation to be one of the most pernicious of the states, racially pernicious states in terms of white racial supremacy in the country. And with other consequences being one of the poorest states, even though a substantial number of people in the state are persons of African descent. It is also one of the poorest and most backward states in terms of all of the normal way in which you would measure human well-being in the United States in general. And growing up in the segregated town, Starkville, Mississippi, one of the things that just never made system was racial segregation. I just couldn't make sense out of why it made sense. And part because in school, we were studying United States civics and supposedly what the nation was founded on and what was about. I was also, you know, raised in a, what we'll call now a black Baptist church. My father was actually the degenerate of the largest white Baptist church in that town and I started working there when I was like nine years old. So the notion that, you know, you had black people in one church and white people in another church worshiping God on Sunday but in segregated settings just never made any sense. I couldn't understand why that made sense if God had created all of us. While we had these restrictions that separated everybody and the invidious ways in which, you know, Negro people were being characterized by, you know, white anti black racism as we now call it just never made any sense to me. So when I went off to university, and this university in Nashville, Tennessee, I had gone primarily, I was planning on studying to become a minister, you know, an educated minister I had sort of started that when I was a kid in high school. I was in philosophy classes, and I thought then that I was reading people who were working at making sense of things that being reasonable and highlighting human rationality and working out the terms of human rationality and etc etc. I was like, Oh, here are people who are making sense of making sense. I want to do this. The other thing was, I was at this institution first university that was among the premier institution serving historically black students. And on a significant number of faculty lived around in university. They cared about students. It was a small residential place. Very demanding academically. And I came to a realization that a lot of people working as faculty didn't seem to be doing it as a job, but they were doing it as a way of life that is to say they were faculty members. They were doing the campus. They were engaged with students and campus life all kinds of ways. And I just, this is not just a job, it's a way of life. And it was very engaging intellectually and emotionally otherwise. And I just sat in. I want to have this kind of life and I decided I want to become an academic to become a fundamental to become a teacher I didn't. I had no idea of becoming a scholar. I really want to be a teacher. The scholarship came later, but it was never my principal focus is still is not my principal focus. Teaching has always been my principal focus. And how could I help young people learn to make sense and thinking and reasoning and living in accord with them. So, who are your heroes in philosophy. So to speak where your influences your main influences. That's interesting I mean you know when I was an undergrad, I, I didn't really have any main philosophical info that I said I had no favorite philosophers. The canonical fossils I simply didn't like, I mean I hated Aristotle. Understand. Yeah, I mean I read Thomas Aquinas I didn't like. So I didn't. I had no favorite philosophers when I was as an undergrad, you know, I studied philosophy. But I had no favorite. There were no figures who were particularly influential at all. I studied them did what I needed to do to accumulate what I needed to accumulate to move through the discipline to the next level into graduate school. And it was when I got into graduate school that couple things have one is one of the members of my cohort group has said to me wonder hey, why don't we come go down. Come with me down to Boston University to hear this lecture. Okay, I didn't know who it was. And I trusted him so we went down and we go to the here this lecture and it's in a big lecture hall and it's standing room only. And there's a sort of, you know, rather diminutive not diminutive but rather short, you know, nothing distinguishing about the way this person look physically that would make him stand out. Given this lecture but it was really intellectually engaging.  And I listened. And when I left there, I was like, man, I got to read more what is he written stuff he's a oh yeah that's his book. And that's his book called one dimensional man. And I went and found this book is not reading and it was of course Herbert Mccluse. And I started reading this book and, you know, I had had it as a graduate student I had a seminar on Hegel's phenomenology and so I had. It was talked by Jacques Domenio, Domenio out of Levant, which is the first, you know, really ultra I mean a first rate seminar was really fantastic and so I could. I had already learned the kind of way of how to follow the Hegelian rhythm of Hegelian dialectical thinking. And so reading Mccluse was not very challenging in that respect I mean I knew how to, I knew how to get a step and dance with the way in which he was thinking because I had already been studying Hegel. But then I discovered like, wait a minute, he was part of a group of thinkers there was a mother he had a positive there was some other people that I started searching for the other people who were the other people in the group. And I started getting that books and reading, and that became really influential. Now, another influence was not so much persons, but a movement so while I was an undergraduate at first. I had an emergence, just before my senior year of what became known as a black power movement so my senior year. The upsurge of that black power movement was present on the campus and a lot of different kinds of ways that were very, very influential and started to change my life in ways that I tried to resist early on, but couldn't and by the time I got to graduate a couple of things happened again. There was a lecture at the University about person I didn't know anything about. And I went with the woman I was dating who's now my wife for 5051 years. We went to, we went to this lecture. And I gave this provocative election was so intriguing. And of course there was person selling a couple of his books. And one of the books was a really thick book but the title was absolutely riveting because I had never seen it before as a title of a book and it was called the crisis of the Negro intellectual. And it was a book by Hal Cruz. And it was Cruz who was lecturing. So I got that book and began to read it and that book was really transformative and one of the things was the notion of a black intellectual. I mean the putting of those two together. I had never remembered seeing those two terms come together and forge a certain kind of concept of a black intellectual, but coming through the black power period of cultural politics, there were a lot of calls for thinking black. And if you're in that kind of maelstrom, it begins to affect you in ways you're not even noticing. And then there were pen strains of pan Africanism being raised and people start talking about previous moments of the emergence of black nationalism and pan Africanism and thinking black and like well wait a minute what the hell does this mean, because when I was a kid is somebody called you black you would fight them because it was a derogatory notion. So here was a historical moment at which the negative was being transformed into a positive. Well that just required a certain kind of inversion of thinking that was initially very difficult and psychologically destabilizing. But as you have to live your way through it on a university campus and the political turmoil and getting in sync with certain political currency and stuff and about a time I'm in graduate school and then I'm seeing the crisis of the Negro intellectual that there's something about being Negro different from being properly black and what is that I was into a whole nother sphere of having to rethink in ways that I had never been challenged to rethink in actual philosophy class. I mean one of the things I point out is that from my undergraduate years all the way through my graduate studies I'd never.  Okay, so all of that. Yeah, go ahead. No, no, it's all right. And so those formative periods over this eruption of the call for black power and black thinking and on campuses. There was a lot of demonstrations for calling for more black faculty and black studies programs and I was actually tapped by the university to develop a black studies program so I had to start thinking about this early on and then actually in December, I went to grad school in the fall of 67. And in December 1968 I'm in Boston and I used to go over to Harvard Square a lot. I had friends who were at Harvard Law School and etc and I would go hang out with them but I would also go over and shop for in some of the, you know, world famous bookstores and around Harvard University and Harvard Square. Now when this particular bookstore. One evening, and I noticed over on a rack. There was a new journal I had never heard on before. And it had this black and white cover. And the name of the journal was the black scholar. And again, those two words black and scholar. Negro intellectual. And so, all of a sudden these terms were calling to mind something I never thought about in quite that way except at certain periods done.  And here were texts and things that were that were being devoted to that kind of knowledge production effort. So I literally got bitten by those bugs during those years. Now there were various people who were influential in that but it was that larger that project that became seminal for me and so when I did my dissertation it was actually in that area. Now I was reading people who were very helpful. And he's graduate years that after that period that I stumbled upon and started reading Peter Bergen Thomas Lockham the social construction of reality was a discovery. I discovered the writings of Alfred Schutz. Phenomenology social world, and then his collected papers and I just started reading everything I could get on shoots.  These were all the seminal texts out of which I shaped a dissertation project or hermeneutical black consciousness as a way of getting into studies of black culture. That was my dissertation project and when I told the chair of the department what I had in mind he just sort of looked at me and said okay, you want to be on your own on that one. But then I found a professor who David Rasmussen who agreed to be my dissertation director but he didn't. He had no expertise in this area so I was doing a lot of reading independent studies, he was reading alone but my dissertation project became very much my project and I just had to find the stuff to help put it together. And, you know, I was reading, recently I was reading a book by one of the actual harness on the, you know, plus the recognition book and he's doing a lot of work on hail and then of George Herbert mead and blah, blah, blah. And I started to read the chart of chocolate when I read it because for my dissertation, I had discovered reads discussion of development and coming to identity formations in young people and etc, etc. And then I used me in my dissertation, which was defended in the early 70s. And I read actual honneth and about how significant me is no like, no I figured that out several decades. So I'm seeing your influences here. So you have the Frankfurt School of Harkheimer, that of course Mark Husser, and you have some hail stuff, no phenomenology as well. And of course, the issues about the race. And let's go to there. You have written quite extensively on the philosophy of race and ethnicity. So I think this is an obvious question but why did you specialize in this area in the first place. Well, a couple of things. I don't think you'll find anywhere that I ever use the expression philosophy of race. Yes. That's why there's a conjunction there. That came up years later, but it's never expression that I ever use call philosophy of race. I never describe myself as what is your somebody asked me what are your areas of concentration I never say philosophy of race. It's just not an expression I use because I don't. Expression problematic because it's ambiguous in a way. Oh, so you can have a philosophy of race where you can. But that's not what I was interested in doing I was never trying to develop a philosophy of race. I was certainly trying to explore concepts of raciality as I put it philosophically but I wasn't trying to develop a philosophy of race. So when that people started using that investment oh there's an area called philosophy race I just sort of like yeah well whatever but not a way in which I think about it I don't think about it that way.  As I said, when I was a kid. Racial segregation didn't make any sense. So what I spent a lot of my time trying to do was to understand that which did not make sense to me. I wasn't trying to develop a philosophy of race. I was trying to understand race. But then I was, I had a deeper problematic and this is a an abiding Du Boisian influence Du Bois became extraordinarily influential it remains extraordinary influential. In many respects. But in particular his 1897 the conservation of races. What became and remains an abiding concern for me is. How do we understand the human species. Now, my way of putting it is. We accept even provisionally some of the account of evolutionary thinkers anthropology to a number of other disciplines and sciences. The account is that homo sapiens evolved in a large locale that we have long called Africa. And the population grew and began to my disperse and resettle and disperse and resettle and disperse and resettle and over 10s of thousands of years of dispersing and resettling and adapting. Now, there came about differing populations and those populations. And by surviving created modes of life and pursuing those modes of life in different environments, they evolved culturally and physically. So we take that to be indisputable. Now, if one of the things that human beings have to do, I believe this is a very good luck with infamous is. We don't come into the world pre programmed to survive let alone to endure and flourish. If you take a newborn human being and put a newborn baby on an island by itself and come back six months I asked what will you find. A dead baby. If there's anything left depending on what other animal. Yeah. There's no way that a newborn can survive. Without the assistance of other human beings. Furthermore, human, our species has the longest period of assisted development of any mammalian species. That's it takes a long time. Right to get a human being developed to the point where we can exercise anything approximating what we might want to call independence. It takes close to a decade and a half or more, depending. Especially for millennia. Even for pre millennia. But my point is, and to me so much of academic philosophy. It has been perpetrated around a philosophical anthropology. That does not make human sociality central. It's around this notion of individuality and the individual reason, the free reason or individual. I mean one things that I found problematic is that you know if you just take cons, you know, someone on essay on what is enlightenment. It's about maturation. We've crossed this threshold of maturation into enlightenment blah blah blah. One of the things I find striking is that there is no account of how a human being comes to maturation we don't do it on our own. There is no achievement of maturation without supportive sociality. It can't be done. It can't be done. Excuse me. So, how do we account for human sociality. And how do we account for human sociality in an evolutionary perspective for a species that has been dispersed all over planet Earth. You could have an account of the emergence, the dispersals, the persistence of the of homo sapiens over planet Earth without accounting for population or diversities. Different languages, cuisines, cultures, dress, etc. And different phenotypes. How do you catalog all of human, the human species on Earth without having to take that into account and so you know you have this question well what about categorizations are they constructed are they out there in the world. My notion is there's no such thing as categorizations out there in the world. Categories are not rocks. One of the things that human beings have, here's my way of putting it. Human beings in order to survive have no choice but, but to construct. Because we don't come pre program to do anything. What is it that we have in the way of pre program repertoires by virtue of which the exercise of which we will survive and flourish. None. We've got all kinds of capability, but that has to be nurtured through learning and socialization and nourishment and etc, like learning a language, we have a capacity for language use. But which language, it depends on where you're born into what linguistic community, what language you learn, you don't come pre program to speak any particular language. You have a capability for language acquisition, which language is contingent. It's not necessary. Okay, so.  Yeah, so this is the kind of Bergman-Lachman idea right, Bergman-Lachman idea of social construction. Yes. That we are part of a society we are thrown in a society it's not we can't escape society. So, in a way everything is socially constructed. It's not. That's right. Right, but I mean, but your view has been as Aristotle says, only God's a beast live outside political communities. Right. Gods and beasts. I like gods and beasts. Right. Yeah, but your man is by nature a political animal. Your view has been dubbed as thin constructivism by some. Yeah, I read that. That was the first time I'd heard that. So in the Sanford encyclopedia of philosophy under race, your view has been classified as thin constructivism. So how do you distinguish that from strong constructivism or thick constructivism? My notion. You have to talk to the person who used that characterization. I have no idea what they mean. You have been categorized. I think that the picture is so there are extreme social constructivists saying that everything is socially constructed, even natural categories. But I think your view has something to do with, it's in the middle of the spectrum of realist as opposed to constructivist. So you're saying that. Yeah. No, I think, I think even natural categories are in an important sense constructed. Yeah. Yeah. No. Right. I mean, it's not that we are born. Right. Let's just take the following distinction between Newtonian cosmology and Einsteinian cosmology. Yeah, philosophy of science. Okay. Right. Yeah. Now, is that such a thing as the history of science? Sure. Sure. I mean, if you read something like an old classic. You know, EA birds, the metaphysical foundations of science. I mean, if you look at Newton versus Einstein. Why does Newton have a certain kind of view of the cosmos is because he has a certain kind of view of God, God is God, you know, God is perfect. The cosmos has to be perfect. It's like Aristotle, you know, he's got to work out. Well, what are the cycles of the moon? Well, that's the area the heavens circles are perfect. The heavens have to move in perfect circles. At the same time, he has drawn enough circles to account for the phases of the moon.  Right. Now, as that comes along, how do you get a theory of relativity? You cannot have a theory of relativity in a Newtonian cosmology of absolute space and time. I mean, right, you have to have a very different metaphysical orientation, relativity, compared to the absoluteness of space and time. So my point is, these ways of trying to make sense of the world, humans are inventing now within the context of science, we also try to test the inventions through strategies, but which we think we can either verify or verify a construction in some way. And then this gets even more complicated because you've got a whole group of people who are saying, even in the sciences, we have to approach epistemology evolutionarily. So you've got a whole area of evolutionary epistemology, that the knowledge production of human beings is conditioned by evolution as a species. And the way in which we say, well, a particular way of viewing the world is natural, is real, has a lot to do with what we mean by real. And the terms about which we think we can resolve challenges to the notion of what real means, etc. It's a history of cosmology. It's not like somebody got this right, and there's no further dispute. People are still disputing all kinds of things and realism and anti-realism and this, that and the other. And I'm saying, at some point, head out and let us, we ought to just say, you know what, yeah, this is something that we're engaged in socially. Now, of course, the real ones say, no, it's got to be stronger than that. Well, okay, good luck with that. Okay. Where does race come in? Where does race come in? How do you connect this concept to philosophizing about race? Well, let's put it this way, right? As I said, if you look at the history of the human species, and you try to write a history of the human species on Earth, you'd have to write us, you'd have to tell a story about emergent dispersal settlement, dispersal evolution. I don't think you can tell a story of human beings without telling that complicated story about immersion, dispersion, intermix your evolution, etc., etc. So you're talking about the espora? I'm talking about human species on planet Earth. Now the claim is, Homo sapiens emerged in Africa, and then spread from now over the rest of the planet. And in that spread, people settled in various places for long periods of time and evolved under certain environmental conditions as a consequence of which we get different feature sets that are a consequence of population settlement and breeding under certain environmental conditions on which people evolve. And so we begin to get physical characteristics that are conditioned by evolution in certain kinds of circumstances over long periods of time. Now, one of the things that I was trying to make is that we don't come pre-wired for getting on in the world, we have to make sense of the world, right? So one of the ways, one of the most profound tools that humans have evolved from making sense of the world is language. And one of the tools of language use is categorization. Good, bad, dog, cat, tree, house, etc. And now are houses by nature? No. Houses are human inventions. Do dogs and cats, did they come into the world wearing a sand that said, I'm a dog, he's a cat? No, no. Where did those come from? Clearly there's regularity, that is to say, dogs meeting with dogs, produce other dogs, not birds. So there's regularity in one of the ways in which humans try to make sense out of the replication of regularity. That's part of a whole bunch of the metaphysical stuff that people think is, why do dogs only give rise to dogs and not cats? And is there some way we can name this? And by the way, what are we naming since any given dog would die? What is the name referring to since the dog is growing, aging and dying, but somehow we still think it is a dog.  The only point is that we have to make sense of the world. It's a dynamic, complicated world. We develop strategies for trying to make sense out of the world in order to manage all that dynamic complexity in ways that allow us to survive and flourish. And one of the ways in which we do it is by trying to organize that complexity using the resources of language like logics of categorization and naming, et cetera. But I take that to simply be a human contingent necessity. We have to try to bring some order to the dynamic complexity. And conventions of naming are one of those socially necessary contingencies of human existence. We have to do it if we're going to survive, but there is no necessity that we will survive. Our survival is always contingent. We call them a contingent necessity. We need it if we survive, but our survival is not necessary, but we need it. And so we construct these, we make use of these resources to make sense out of a complex dynamic world in which we live and naming and conventionality and rules and logic is something that we develop to try to make sense out of as part of the ongoing human effort to live in a world that is dynamic and complex and often dangerous. And that we have to devise means by which we can survive and manage and try to order the world in some ways up to some extent. So, and so that means we try to do that regarding different populations. Right, we meet people with different languages, different cuisine, different, we start saying, well, okay, what they have in common. Okay. Let's use a particular term of reference to index all those shared similar features to one term I try to get my students to understand, you know, and I said, Well, you know, it's wrong to be treating people certain ways simply on the base of the color of the skin and I say concepts of race have never ever simply been about skin. They're not about skin. They're not about skin skin color is a prominent visual feature, among other visual features. There's sort of a pragmatic move being made. Okay. People with these skin tones have other characteristics that they more or less have in common. We will refer to them by this prominent feature skin color. Assuming that all the other characteristics also go with that skin color. So when we say black people and white people, we're not talking simply about skin. We're not talking about people with these skin tones who also share a long list of other characteristics, some of which are visible, and some of which we take to be internal that we can't even see temperament moral character, etc, etc. And so the skin stuff is simply an index to the what we take to be the list of distinguishing characteristics of those population groups. And my argument is, there's no way to get on in the world without doing that. I mean example I try to use with my students. If you, if the two of you walked out to a very busy street. And you were going to cross the street.  Now, here's what I'm virtually guarantee you are not going to do. You're not going to say, well JJ, what make in modeling color is the car. That would be in that circumstance. In that, in that moment where her well being and maybe even her life could be at issue. She doesn't need to know whether it's a Ford or Chevrolet, whether it's a truck or car is it a photo car or two to car. None of that is pregnant to avoiding injury or death. Just generic notion. Hazel don't a car is coming. Oh, wow, thanks JJ. That's all she needs to know. All the other details for that moment are utterly irrelevant. She just needs to know it is one of a kind of thing in the world of which they are many millions. The pertinent thing is there's one that may do her serious injury or death. And that's all she needs to know if she were going to buy a JJ come go with me to help me buy a car. And if you were to say, Oh, just pick any car she's going to look at you like you're crazy. Just pick any car. She may have a color preference. She may have enter, you know, there are all kinds of preferences going to kick in. But at the moment across in the street, she just needs to know something we would call a car and it could even be a truck. That's not important. It's going to hit her. That is going to hit her may injure a killer. That's all she needs to know. And at that moment that is utterly critical for making sense of the world. She doesn't need the rest of the detail. She doesn't need all the distinguishing characteristics of age and model and color. How many doors doesn't have a radio. She only any of that for making a decision that can be the difference between her living and her diet. Now, how does that's what that kind of allows her to do. Yep. So how does this relate to, you know, our racial categories. We have to make, for example, okay. JJ, do you have siblings. Yes, I do. Do you distinguish your family from other families. Yes, I do. But that means you must have some linguistic tools about what you do that. Yeah, my surname. Okay. Just think a little bit further.  Nope. So I'm quite attached to my nuclear family. That's right. And that I would suspect you would regard that attachment as utterly crucial to your well being. Yes. Well, think about that across the whole of the human species. And some contemporary thinkers are saying, the primary unit of the analysis of human beings is a family is a nuclear family. But that's not individuals that nuclear family unit is where we have to start. And that's what the analysis, as some contemporary, we said we go from the nuclear family, expanding into the formation of tribes, which expanded into the formation of villages, which expands into the formation later or what we call states that that evolutionary development is characteristic of our species. Now, again, I'm saying the way in which I like to think about it is the following. Across the human species spread out over the earth and begin to develop in different environments. We ended up with certain degrees of genetic and other diversities. And the consequences of that is what we then have is these different populations. East Asians, South Asians, various African populations, populations in South America populations across Europe, indigenous possible population and what came to be called North America and South America. We have all these different evolving populations. And I say that is a tremendous asset to the human species. Why do I say that they've let's just take one. There's a diversity of human beings. That's right. So let's just take one example. Sickle cell anemia. That's a genetic anomaly, correct. Right. That's typical of blacks, I think some black and some Ashkenazi Jewish people. Right. All right. Now, if two people marry and produce children, and those two people both carry the defective gene leading to sickle cell anemia. What are the prospects for their children. Not good. Not good. So now let me ask another question. Is it possible that sickle cell anemia can wipe out the entire human species. No, because it's, yeah. That's right, because it is localized to certain populations. So here's my point. Because we've had this evolutionary history of the emerges and evolution of different population groups of homo sapiens. The genetic as well as the cultural and other differences have given the species as a whole tremendous advantages long term for the species as a whole for the species as a whole to use expression of Mark. If we think about it in terms of our species being the diversities are an asset.  So that's why genetic homogeneity is a tremendously bad idea. Right. So I say, let's take the racial purists the white supremacist racial purists. I say, I say, let's give them what they want. Let's put them away to themselves and leave them there and come back 100 years and see what it looked like. We'll come back and find they've got one eye in the middle of their forehead. Three legs. In other words, mutation. Yeah, if they get their way will get what they do not want. That is to say, they will breed themselves out of existence. If you don't have new genetic information coming into the population group into the gene pool. Then you're going to get all the recessive traits. If the gene if the population is too small, you're going to breed to the recessive trace and eventually going to wipe yourself out. You need new genetic information coming into the group. That's why inter mixture is so utterly crucial to the human species. I like to make sure. Yeah, so I said I like to say what the human species needs is relatively, relatively isolated groups that intermix. We need both things going on all the time to enhance the viability of the species over time. But we need people in the way in which I put it is to think and say well look. Think about different populations of people in different places on the globe, living in different environmental conditions. They have different challenges that have to be met and resolve. Right. So if you say there's a people in Africa.  But there are people who know how to do that.  Well, we've got some people you can call on because they know how to solve the problem of building a house in a tropical zone out of grass, and you can say to the African, oh you're going to relocate to a place where it's cold all the time with ice. I've got just the people to call on because they've already met that challenge and they know how to solve that child and they can teach you how to do it. I'm saying from the point of view of the species that a whole, all these population groups are what I call experiments. They are running experiments in survival and evolution. And if we could get those people to keep perfecting those experiments, but sharing what they have gained in running those imperfect in those extreme, the whole species is better off. But if you say we need to get rid of all these distinction these groups, and we just need to produce a homogeneous group I'm saying, okay, you have now setting up a paradigm about which the species can be wiped off the face of the earth. So it's, it's like that you're making a evolutionary argument here to serve for our species to survive we need diversity, we need diversity, diversity, because these differences will, well, the experiences of these diverse people will give us more materials for our survival. So this is not the main argument here. Yeah, I mean and just think about it. I mean, if you, to me when you read Du Bois in 1897 he's saying, we should conserve the races because each has something to contribute to everybody else. Because of the contribution to the storehouse of human civilization. Right. If you think of music's from around the world being shared with people who can take them up and enjoy them and replicate our cuisines, you know, I tell people, you get people who want to talk about well you know racial don't exist and academics who you know opposed to notions of race. I have never met an academic like that. Who wants to live in any place where there's only one restaurant. That's a very practical argument there. Right. What self respecting what self respecting academic doesn't want to live in someplace where they can go to enjoy cuisine from all over the world, the more, the more they can say they are cosmopolitan. And my response is, you can be a cosmopolite enjoying the diversity of the world's culture. If you don't have people producing diversity in the world's cultures. If you can go to the, go to the, you know, to the enterprise on a star check and walk up to the replicator and just say, give me such a search and a replicator makes it. If you want Chinese cuisine, you better have Chinese around. If you want any food, you gotta have any.  If you want to be a cosmopolite. You gotta have the stuff that makes for a rich cosmopolitan life. Now you can say, well, now they know that we don't need, we need to get rid of that, you know, everybody. You know, I'm like, okay, fine.  Yeah. You want to live in a one in a town where there's nothing but McDonald's. Yeah, but here's a question. So we're dealing with the metaphysics.  We will survive if we have diverse species. Sorry, diverse classes of people. Okay, but I didn't say classes now let's be careful. Oh, sorry. I'm just using the term, I'm just using a shift to the term of population groups. Population groups, a lot better better politically neutral term. Okay, so but why is there oppression between races. And how lots of reason. Yeah, for lots of reasons. Right. For lots of reasons. Now, one of them is I take it is that when you have population groups developing in relative isolation from others. And then they encounter others. One of the things is to figure out how you're going to deal with those who are unlike. Now, one of the things about within population groups, you build up strategies about what you identify those who are to be regarded positively than those who are not, you know, a simple thing between those who are friends and those who are strangers. I don't think it's unusual about that. Yeah binary opposition between he's a friend of mine. He's not a friend of mine. He's from my family is from my family. Unfamiliarity. Yeah, but now that doesn't necessarily mean you get into invidious binary distinctions. Right. Okay. I'd ask you a question, you know, and you said yeah I'm pretty committed to my nuclear family. And here's what I'm prepared.  Nice. The distinction that is being taught to love and support your nuclear family doesn't necessitate hate and destruction of those who are not. In fact, in many ways we learn that certain kind of love we have for those who are nuclear in our family that certain kinds of love we have for those who are not members of our family. We can be taught that. So what brings on conflict. Well, sometimes a conflict that I say the conflict is over resources. Scarcity. If you've got groups trying to secure what they take themselves to need to survive and reproduce. And they encounter competition from others. And they think that those others will acquire the resources to a degree that would put the majority, you're going to have. Now what are the resources, the resources can be anything. They can be material. They can be cultural. They can be for example about females. I think the white supremacist thing about black men and white women having sex. Notice, there is no issue among white supremacists about what white males do with their penis.  Why not, because by the white supremacist logic is the white female, who is the carrier of the purity of the white race.   So she no non white male must be allowed to have intercourse with her. That's where the race is threatened. All this stuff about miscegenation and lynching and cutting off the genitals of a black man.  It's about the white female as a character of the purity of the white race supposedly. And how does your positive metaphysics challenge this kind of racism. Again, the notion first of all is that we are all of the same species. Secondly, the species as a specs for persistence, we have population groups and sharing just about survival. It's about enrichment just think of music. Not that you have to hear music from around the world to survive. You don't need to hear music from around the world to survive. But if there are music from around the world that enhance your experience of being a human being on planet Earth. That's pretty impressive and pretty important. So you want to be able to have that music generated in various places and travel in such ways that you can go and partake of it. You wouldn't want good book stuff only be makes to remain within the borders of the country of the way where anybody can read who's interested because of the benefits. I mean, I think to me, the diversity of our species is one of our greatest assets. And at a survival level it means we have a better prospect from avoiding genetic catastrophe by having possibilities that have slightly different genetic and epigenetic profiles. Not absolutely well the same species, but the differences do matter. That's why I use the example of single sickle cell anemia. Thank you for that professor. I learned a lot about these things. It's the first time I'm actually hearing these things in connection to philosophizing about race. Let's go to Africana philosophy. So you're acknowledged. You're one of the acknowledged pioneers of Africana philosophy. Could you tell us what this is all about. It's the term. Africana is what I have tried to characterize as as an umbrella concept. Right. And what I mean by that, you use the term, you know, Hazel a while ago you invoke the notion of a diaspora. So the term Africana is intended to talk to sort of, if you will, get conceptual arms around diasporic conditions. Right. So we can identify diasporas by population groups, Julius diaspora. African diasporas. There are a number of different cases where people's we identify by points of origin, who go spread out and set up locations, but while maintaining linkages and traditions that stretch backwards to what are taken to these sites of origin. And we refer to these as diasporas. Okay. And then try and go in and say, well, okay, what are the similarities and continuities and what are the different new, the newly emergent creative that have come up in different circumstances. And, you know, it depends, but sometimes you've got long list of similarities and sometimes short list of similarities and long list of new creations and adaptations and etc. But there may be enough to still say, Oh, this is someone of African descent. Now we're not saying that some African essence that everybody shares. No.  They don't necessarily make for the same in terms of cultural linkages but they may give may still have some traces that help making for cultural social political linkages, but they're also profound differences there. It's just a way of saying, I just want to pick out certain disperse peoples in the world that have a certain kind of of ancestral linkages to them. And then go in and start going from way up here 30,000 feet and saying, Oh, those are all people of African descent, keep moving down closer to the ground to ask what's common and what's different. One of the ways in which we can do that is we say, well, there were several hundred years in which folk from Europe who identified themselves as white characterized themselves as different from folk that they characterize as Negro and African and even more and organize large segments of the world to segregate the populations by notions of raciality. And they did that for 400 years. Another way of putting that is races were in fact socially constructed. You just organize populations in such a way that you segregate them and you have reproduction going on under those segregated conditions. You are in fact producing that which you started out claiming already existed. And he's just reproducing it. Now, there's nothing is pure about it, but I'm saying we created these populations, we set up institutions, segregated institutions, segregated communities, etc. Within which there were these breeding populations that reproduce themselves. So in a way, humans created these racial groupings. And so part of what I'm trying to do is say there is a way in which we can begin to conceptually organize a view of those populations into some similar shared characteristics, and then ask ourselves, particularly for certain periods of history, for people who were characterized as being from Africa were treated in certain ways, because they were racialized as being from Africa.  And there will be some similarities and some differences, but it allows us to go ask questions about them, like, Okay, if you're living under conditions where somebody is enslaving you. And here's an example I like to use.    Now, as that female who has come to realize she's pregnant. She's got some serious, serious thinking to do. Does she abort that fetus. Or does she carry it to turn. If she carries it to turn on the plantation. She would not be able to protect that child from being sold if the master decides to sell it. Let's say she works in the house on the plantation.  She's pregnant. Let's say she's noticed that there are ways in which her husband is interacting with this slave woman that suggests that he may be erotically sexually interested in her. Now how is this slave this mistress going to treat the slave woman. Let's say that child is born. And it's very fair of skin. And the slave master's wife sees this child and begins to notice the resemblance between this child and her husband. How does she deal with this black woman. What is this black woman.  What is this pregnant black woman. Who knows her pregnancy is a consequence of being raped by this white man. If she decides to carry this child to turn. What questions is she facing literally every day. About this developing human being in her womb. She has decided to bring into the world. What questions must she wrestle with about whether into what extent she can protect this child. And let's say that it might even be the case. That is she's pregnant. Milk is starting to come into her breasts and it started to flow. She might even be breastfeeding.  I mean one of the things I like to say is to me is very striking.  They never declared war on white people. Black women working in the house could have decided that they could poison the family they were feeding. But didn't. They could have decided to wait to short circuit this cross generational institution of enslavement is to kill all the babies so they can't become adult slaveholders. But they didn't. They didn't do it. Now I'm saying. Is it because they never thought about it. Of course they did. Or is it because they thought about it. And came to a decision. That punishing babies for the sins of their parents was not an ethically appropriate thing to do. The point is, that enslaved impregnated by rape woman had to engage in existential thought daily. How was she going to explain to others in the slave community her pregnancy. If she had a slave man, who was literally her partner, even if not legally married. How is she going to explain the pregnancy to him, especially when the baby was born. If she had other children. How would she explain to the other children. The difference in the physical features of this new baby. Part of the point I try to make it in that piece in the Stanford psychopathy is black people under enslavement. Had to philosophize. Had to. Was it an academic exercise, existence, compelled serious thinking, compel serious consideration of the meaning and significance of life. If you're on a slave ship stacked like wood cargo. You're under the most miserable of conditions. Don't you think that were people who had to consider whether death would be preferred to continued writing in the belly of that ship and those miserable, stinking, horror conditions.  I'm saying. I'm going to wrestle with the most fundamental questions regarding living and dying and the meaning of life about their identities as persons as women as whatever day in and day out. Some of that got expressed in song and dance and music, you name it. My only point was, I think they had to think we don't come pre programmed in the world to survive. Humans have to think human have to construct meaning and slave people had to construct meaningful strategies about which they could endure without being completely broken and destroyed. So for you, Africana philosophy is really about the way of life of enslaved people during that time of how they had to contend with living, having to be thoughtful. Again, another way of putting it is, you don't endure without thoughtfulness. No, because I think you mentioned about Frederick Douglas, sojourner of truth, the boys in the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. No, so what makes them part of Africana philosophy, what makes their work Africana philosophy that they were persons of African descent wrestling with these questions of what does it mean to be a Negro person of African or a slave in these conditions, and how do we endure. And if you know, something like Frederick Douglas what does it mean to be free. What is justice. But they haven't arrested with these deep existential questions. They're expressing the articulate and they're writing they're talking to other people they're trying to build institutions they're trying to sustain this across generations. They have to think. They have to articulate they gave themselves over to thinking trying to think seriously. Clearly to articulate it in word to articulate it in writing to institutionalize it to pass it from one generation to the next to the next to the next to the next. And, and in every case, in every case. They never declared war on white people. Yeah, that's an interesting point. Never. Right. I tell you if you think about what happened in the United States on 911. You have a tax by terrorist teams and 3000 people are killed. The United States declares war and goes to war in two countries 1000 miles away. And here we are still at war. And decades later, from one incident. Well, for incidents on one day in September of 2001 3000 deaths. Now, I've got here testing my computer, just some numbers about the slave trade 12 million people subjected to the slave trade. 12 million. 12 million 12 million 12 million. Millions who died in transported enslavement. millions over several hundred years. They were subjected to various forms of oppression oppression, even after the ending of institutionalized enslavement, millions over still another century. And yet, and yet, still, like people have never declared war on white people. If, as I suspect a great many citizens of the United States were convinced that after those attacks on 911, the universe, the United States was justified in going to war that that was a justified war. And it may make a pretty good case that African peoples on the continent would have been justified in declaring war on European countries. And the United States went to war and then they form what they call the coalition of the willing, they got other nations to join them and going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I imagine that African countries went and got China and India as a mother country to become their coalition partners in going to war against Europe and the United States. I think they would have had a case for a justified war. But notice what we have was a major movement in the quest for justice. Grounded on principles of non violence and love for people like Martin Luther King junior as well. I'm saying. Look at the, look at the two responses. What Cornell West calls, legalization, premeditated unjustified murder is violence visitors upon people. 911.  But black people did. So I think it is worth asking the question. Why not. And I'm not at all prepared to accept this. Well black folk were afraid they couldn't win. Back when we're preparing food in the house, then they have to worry about winning. I'm sure there was worry about poisoning the whole damn family and killing. But why didn't she. I'm saying that she did not that those women did not that those women were willing to breastfeed the babies of white people who were enslaving them. Should be studied. You want to talk about ethics. I'm saying there's an ethical case study. Why didn't they. What was it about the cultures that they were able to hang on to the values they were able to hang on to that they perpetuated even doing enslavement. Where they refused to visit upon babies and children. Retribution for the sins of their parents. What was the ethical scheme. That condition their lives such that they refuse to do that. Why people were selling black children. Yes, you you mentioned Cornell West and both of you have been at the forefront of Africana philosophy. And you also mentioned the women who are working the black women who are working at the holes of white folk. So what do you think about recent feminist writers, such as bell hooks Patricia hill Collins. Yeah, are they a part of Africana philosophy. Yes.  Oh yes. In fact I just finished a couple of months ago reading several writings by bell hooks and Cornell where I mean it was really interesting the more actually the more thoughtful of the two of them and what I was reading was actually Well, he's she hill Collins. He's he's a bell hook scholar. She has. Yeah, I wrote I wrote my dissertation on hooks and I've been writing a lot of articles about her recently. Yeah, she is extraordinarily thoughtful. She's a committed teacher. And she was in miss in many ways I think, you know, like, one of the works was breaking bread, which is a powerful notion in and of itself. The way she talks about relationships, for example, the relationship between and non erotic ratio, it may be right but relationships of friendship between black men and women who are intellectuals, I mean exploring that is really, really, really thoughtful about her notion of relations and families and communities. She's very, very thoughtful about this stuff. And in some ways more so, and thinks more deeply about it than Cornell. It's because I remember you mentioned something about how, rather than going to war, black people, you know, they, they, they used love as a weapon in order to overcome these oppressions. And I think that was the core of hooks ideas as well, especially in her trilogy about love and the community. Yeah. And she's drawing deeply on traditions within black communities from our own home life in Kentucky. And trying to perpetuate that in her own pedagogical practice. I mean, I think pedagogy is something very serious with Bill Hooks. I mean, I learned early on in my teaching that teaching is I learned after the birth of our first son, what love really meant as a parent. And that that's very much what is involved in teaching as a parent I say, I have never met a parent who wants their children to die before them. That as a parent, you do all kinds of things on behalf of the life and the future of your child.  That is, you don't do things for your child only on the condition that you live to see how it all turns out. You do it. Even if you, even if you know you won't be around, you still do it. And that to me is the epitome of parental law doing for your child, even at the expense of your own existence. You don't ever live to see how it turns out. And that's the way teaching is you don't really know.  You don't know in any semester long class whether they're going to really get it. You don't know what they're going to do with it whether it's going to make a difference in their lives. Most cases you will never know. You will never know you don't know if you'll ever know what becomes of your students lives. But you don't give of your best to your students on the condition that they've got to show you return on your effort by the end of the semester. That's not why you do it. Teaching isn't about make sure I get the full return on my effort at the end of the semester. There's paper to show me you understand the paper is an exercise. It's not about giving a full return on it. This may happen. Yes, I got it. I got an email message last week from a young lady I had taught in another institution. I left the institution 20 years ago. She was writing to thank me for having been in the philosophy class. She wasn't performing very well she was very intimidated. I had told her to come to my office and talk to me she did. And I talked to her about why she needed to become more self assured she needed to speak up in that class she had something to offer. I want to hear from her. And she's now in a PhD program and stand out of the blue she writes to me and said, thank you. I just wanted to write you probably don't remember me. I just wanted to write to thank you for that conversation you had with me in your office. I went back and I struggle and I got it and I began to speak up. And then you know what has happened over time and now I'm in a PhD program and step I left that institution, more than 20 years ago, I don't even remember what you're going I remember the name when I saw it. And so here here what 20 maybe 30 years later. She's writing to say it matter. She was going to write to me know that I know she was going to get it, and he ended up in Stanford hell no. But that's, I'm saying, that's the way I mean parenting is like that you don't know you do it, because you care. You don't do it because you want to guarantee that it will work out and you will get the feedback you'll get the return on your effort and teaching is like that that's part of why I think I say bell hooks is such is so much into pedagogy. Because it is teaching is a sacred loving process. That is best. It's not about the content matter personally. It's not about helping other people to become professional. It's not about making clones of yourself to your students. That's a good advice. Not about making disciples. I've never ever tried to recruit students and they're becoming philosophy. I don't try to persuade promising students to go to graduate student philosophy. If you decide you want to go to graduate school philosophy you want to talk to me about it fine we can talk. I don't try to persuade them to become majors, or to go to graduate school. If I could be helpful, fine. If you decide I don't ever want to be like that old man. Okay, good. You probably have much better life. But yeah, I had to add a man at a meeting of the American Philosophical Association some years ago I was asked to be one of the commentators on some writings by Patricia Hill Collins, and it was great to be able to give myself over to reading, you know some of her words and I called her, I forget the exact expression I use but that she was a something like a super intellectual jujitsu one.  Same with Kimberly Crenshaw right so her notion the intersectionality is now a buzzword in academic circles. I'm trying to someone the other day here's one of the curious things about that notion of intersectionality. So, in the mid 1970s, while starting in 1977 I was on the faculty of Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland.  And that group met one year one fall or spring whatever it was, we met in Baltimore. Now at that time. The members of the radical philosopher association who would come together for meetings. Could all be in a 40 person classroom and that would still be empty seats. Now, at this meeting in Baltimore in the late 70s, there was a presentation about there were several women who were prominent over the nation at the time, Linda Nichols. And at that meeting in Baltimore in the late 70s and presented a paper where she explored what she called the intersection of race and class and gender. Okay. So that was the first time that this idea was presented. That was the first time I heard that is it. So here's the way in which I'm putting this. That was a person exploring what was called the intersecting of matters like race and class, etc. and Ferguson, a white woman in the late 70s. Which was years before I ever heard of a Kimberly Crenshaw talking about it. Fair enough. So I mean there's all this attribution that Kimberly Crenshaw introduced a notion of intersectionality. I don't make a big deal. I just say quality to myself. I've heard it before I ever heard of him in a Crenshaw and it's from Anne Ferguson. Okay, so wait. Yeah. Yeah, just to clarify. So what you're saying is to be classified under Africa and a philosophy, you have to have African heritage. Am I correct? No. No, no, no, no, I didn't get to that part. If you look carefully at the at the staff and psychopedia for the article. Not even all philosophers of African descent are interested in Africana philosophy. No, that's true. Right. So they may be doing stuff that doesn't even fall under that just because they have African descent. That means what they're doing is Africana philosophy. So part of what makes for Africana philosophy has to do with what are the thematic foci and issues that are being explored that have to do with people of African descent. Which means then that all of those can be taken up by someone who's not of African descent. That's an explicit part of the account that I try and lay out in the stand for the psychopedia article.  Can you classify Anne Ferguson sword as part of Africana philosophy? No, that wasn't what she was doing. She was part of a group of people of philosophers who were particularly trying to draw off of Marx and Marxian legacies to make certain critical interventions. And what she was trying to do was to bring together notions having to do with race and class because this was a long raging issue. Is it race or is it class? And this had been going on in left circles for many, many, many, many decades. It's a silly argument. And she was trying to say, it's not either race or class, there are matters of race, there are matters of class, and there are matters of gender that need to be brought into the attention and brought to attention because these intersect. We need to be able to think about how all of these come together or intersect. That's what I'm saying. That in hers had to do with a kind of left Marxian inspired critical thinking. This, it wasn't about Africana philosophy. Okay, so in the, in the 1970s here in the Philippines, some philosophers were beginning to think about Filipino philosophy. So this kind of philosophy highlights a concern about Filipino identity values and worldviews. But in your view, what lessons should Filipino philosophy learn from Africana philosophy? Thanks to avoid. Okay. Well, and what I mean by that is, is, for example, you know, let's just take Hazel's question by, you know, Hazel said, Oh, so this means you have to be a person of African descent. No, don't don't try and structure that way because you're going to get into account of essentialism that is going to be a moral quagmire. And there's no need for it. Right. And that's why I say it's about what kinds of issues have been generated by certain kind of people. So for example, you could say, look, the people were identified as Filipinos, then you got to work out who those are and what makes for being a Filipino person. And again, to me, you don't want to try to draw the criteria too tightly. You don't want to have notions, you know, like Wittgenstein talking about family resemblances. You don't need essentialist notions. You can deal with resemblances and similarities. Right. And you can say, I've got a list of 10 criteria. Does somebody have to have all 10 criteria characteristics? You can say, No. Some people have 10, some have eight, some have seven, some have six, some only have two. Those two may be pretty salient, and they may be salient under certain conditions, but not others. Well, what about mixed people? Sure. They may be concerned about characteristics from one context on one hand and characteristics from another on the other, and we should allow plenty of room for that. Right, that you don't try to build the essentialist category. That's why, you know, to fail to construct notions of raciality out of biological characteristics alone is just fruit. This is just not going to work. And there's no need for it. You don't need it. That's why the notions of raciality to me, because I think about them in terms of evolutionary history. And that history is contingent, never necessary. Then we're always dealing with frequencies of probabilities. And contingency. Never. And contingency. Always, always contingencies. Always. And so, I would say, don't try to draw the distinguishing characteristics of those who don't try to anchor them in something that's going to give invariant security to the anchorage of the concept. And in the house for evolving human beings, there is no such thing as invariant characteristics. We are beings of historical contingency and evolution. That's why for me, I have been spending so much time on the last few years, trying to read my way as deeply as I can into notion into evolutionary theories and stuff. What do you think is Africana philosophy heading? What's the future for Africana philosophy? Well, you know, that question to me is like, you know, people asking Marx to give them a specification of what socialism would be like. In the future. Right. So think about he's saying, look, the conditions of socialism should in some ways involve freedom from capitalism maximum free freedom that releases the creative capabilities of human beings as human, you know, that's all humanistic Marx. So you say, well, okay, socialism will be a set of structural conditions and maximize human freedom and creativity. Okay. What would come out of So if you say to me. Well, what's going to come out of Africana philosophy in the future.    Here's what's going to be created 50 years from now. It's easy to look backwards.  That's easy. But if you say human beings are adaptive, evolving creative beings. What will they produce 50 years from now out there. Within a sense, try to specify what that's going to be. Yes, I mean just think of all the contingencies. Right. So was it going to be in the future. I don't even begin to know. I can. Okay, that's fair. That's fair enough. Okay, so going back to Africana philosophy so you mentioned what not to do. But what should Filipino philosophers learn from. What should we do in building our own philosophy. Well, you know, again, you know, that's, that's not for me to say. Right. Here's what I mean. Yeah, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to be evasive about this. It's really, it's really an ethical matter for me. Right. If you say, I'm a person outlaw. I'm going to try to figure out what it means somehow to be. Philippine philosophizing as persons Filipino. Tell us what we should do. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, maybe it's a background of why we're asking these questions. No, I mean the person's appropriate. I'm just trying to tell you about my response to the questions. I understand the questions. But I'm trying to understand my refusal to answer in certain kinds of ways. Right. And the simplest one is, I'm not Filipino. No, because we try. Why would I try and why would I then try to say to you, here's what you should do. Right. I said, here's some things I hope you will avoid doing, but you might say, I'm going to do those anyway, because this is what it means to me to be Filipino. Well, what am I going to say?  I might think, well, it may not be the strategic, but okay, you want to go try that. Okay. Go see how it works out and you may get, it may work out for you. Right. I mean, so what I'm trying to do is to say, these kinds of matters should be wrestled with by those for whom these are the salient issues. Right. You can tell me and say, well, now, I've got this particular issue. Professor, what do you think? Do you have any advice? Well, if I have some, I will, but to try and develop an enterprise of Filipino philosophy, Africana philosophy cannot be a blueprint that I hand you because so much of that is internal to those of us who think of ourselves as being of African descent. So you don't limit it even among us. So part of it is working out in concert with others, what that might, what the framework might be that will allow for maximum participation by people who have sometimes greater or lesser differing notions of what that means, and it's going to be a challenge. Right. Not all people who identify identified as Filipino will have the same way about those identities and meanings and therefore what the project should be about. Right. And so there's going to have to be a lot of working out, I hopefully as democratically and peacefully as possible that you do that. I mean, one of the things for a lot of the young black, not so young anymore, black fossils, when a bunch of us got started working on this, you know, 40 years or more ago, some of us were basically made a pack with one another. And that pack was that we were going to do our very, very best not to get into fratricidal professional competition with one another. Right. And how it has worked out fine. So, for example, in the 1970s, the late 1970s, I was at a research center in Philadelphia on a postdoc. Leonard came through and I told him about it and he applied. And I said, Hey, now you should apply for that. He applied and got one of the postdocs and he came in the second half of the year that I was there. And so we were spending a lot of time together. And on the postdoc, I was, I was immersing myself in trying to read and think about and start to write about more about the Franklin school, right? Before going there, I had been working with someone else. We have been trying to figure out how to put together an anthology on black philosophy is what we call it at the time. And Leonard was part of a young cohort of young African American fossils coming and taking up this black philosophy, you know, mantle, trying to figure out what the hell we meant and how we could make something out of it. And so he came to the research center on a postdoc way I was. And so he and I were talking and he was interested in trying to do a book on black philosophy also. So, and we became roommates. I had an apartment in a house in a section of Philadelphia. He needed a place to stay. I was there alone. My wife had been there in the summer where she'd come back to Nashville where we live with our son. And so I had this extra room. So I said, Hey, why don't you just come share that share this apartment with me? Because that's an extra bedroom. You can have it. So we lived together for a portion of a year. And part of what we did during that time together was to, I said, well, look, you want to work on a book on black philosophy. I had started working on that. Right now I'm working on Franklin school because I'm particularly interested in social and political philosophy. So I said, okay, why don't we divide the labor? You do the book on, on black philosophy. I'm going to keep doing the social and political. Let's not compete. So I said, okay. Here all the files and stuff I have on what I have been doing with somebody else to try to work on a book. If you can use anything you take it. I won't do that. I won't work on that.  I'm going to work on social and political philosophy. And let's not compete. And let's not get into any retro saddle back stabbing with one another competing on it. And we did that with several other guys, Howard McGarry and Bernie Boxill and some others. And so we did. We, we, we didn't get into who's, who's the top black philosopher in the United States. We just have never played that game. We were very deliberate and saying to one another, we will help each other, but we're not going to compete with each other. And as young people started coming in, we reached out and try to help all those that we could if they wanted our help, including black women and whatever. Otherwise just stay out of the way. And that was, and we did that in part because we were looking for other disciplines where there was some real serious factor sad going on. And I just said, I don't want to be a part of that. Hey guys, let's not do that. Okay. And we agree not, not to do that. And that has prevailed across now nearly 50 years. And we don't always agree about everything. Given that, what's your advice to those who want to get into professional philosophy? You have any tips? Well, I think, you know, if you want to get into professional philosophy, I think one of the first things is to try and be as clear as you can about who you are and what you are after. Number one. The other I would say is to be very, very clear about from whence you come. Now, what I mean by that is, as you know, JJ and I had an exchange early about relationship family. I think that is very, very important because professional academic life can be very damaging. I think that is very important on family relations. That if you decide you want to be a very successful professional academic philosophy, philosopher, depending on your notion of what constitutes success, you may not ever have an ongoing relationship with another person. And possibly no children. What it will take, depending on the institutional context, what the requirements are for success. For example, if you're someplace at one of the top research universities, you must publish only in certain journals. You must do certain number of books only by certain publishers, et cetera, et cetera. What you will have to do in terms of governing your life to meet those criteria may call for some very, very strenuous sacrifices. And so you have to decide who are you? What kind of life do you want to have? And at what cost? And at least to me, if the costs are too high, you must be willing to walk away from them if need be. There are others who are prepared to pay the price. Women who, I mean, I've had colleagues who are very, very prolific book writers and are childless and are deeply, deeply, painfully regretful of the foregoing of having children. And I say, my wife and I have two sons. Now, one of my things is one plus one equals 12. How do you get one plus one equals 12? 12 grandchildren? No. So my wife and I have three sons. The three sons are married. So that's three daughters-in-law that makes for six. Two of the sons and their wives have two children each. Okay. So that's three sons, three daughters-in-law, six, four grandchildren makes for 10. And me and my wife. I'll get together and marry and producing three sons has led to a family, a nuclear family of 12. Would you say the your career is rated? My career is what? Warranted? Your academic career? Oh yeah, because I made the family first. But I had to learn that I didn't start out that way. I actually started out intending on becoming very prominent. And the marriage didn't matter to me. It was only, I ended up actually doing that post-doctor year. I began to have some severe anxiety crises. And all of what got me through was the love of my wife and our baby son. And that was when I realized they were more important to me than professional success. Now I still had some professional success, but one of the ways I put it is of my three son, neither of my sons has ever told me he loved me because of those two books with my name on them. Ever. They have never told me that I love you because you publish such and such. They don't even really know what I publish. I mean, they know about the books, but they don't know about what essays I publish or where. I learned earlier when I was, you know, early on I would go off somewhere to be invited to give a talk. And there were occasions I would give a talk and at the end I would get applause and sometimes even standing ovation. And I would either drive or get on a plane and come back home and I'd walk in the house.  And my wife would say, oh, dance home. Hey dad, hey dad. And go right back to playing and she'd say, oh, by the way, could you take the trash out. Well, I just spent somewhere and had a standing ovation of people asking for an autograph. Yes. Can you come in the house and can you take the trash out there. Now, I've known people for whom, you know, it is one thing that was really so when I was teaching a course on Mark years ago to another institution. Now I was reading this biography. And the biography recounted how Marx was, this is what to the hit move from Germany to, to England. They were in an apartment and Marx was in a, in a bedroom working on one of his books that we think is a prominent work. Here's a working on the manuscript. And the backwards said, in a bag bedroom, one of his children was dying of consumption.     And I just like, okay, no, no, no, no, no, this, this is not that damn serious. And I've got, you know, I am sometimes hard on my good friend Cornell West. And as I say, Cornell has all kinds of ideas about how to remake society. He's been through for failed marriages. Why should anybody listen to him. Okay. No, I'm serious. If the family is the nucleus of society right. That's right. If you can't take care of your own family, then why, why should we listen. As a young folks say, I'm just saying. Okay, just saying. Well, on that, so, so Hazel, Hazel, does that get, does that get to your question. Yes. Yes. I say, you know, be, be clear about you. Be clear about from whom and from which you come. And what it is you want to be about in this world and if you can keep, if you can stay grounded in terms of who that you are. You can still have those from whom you out of whom you came and to whom you are still linked with love and responsibility. You can still have a wonderful professional career. But that love will help sustain you. When the academic stuff is so air it. And so politically poisonous. I wonder why you had it and you can say, well, I can get my bearings again. I know where love is to be found. Yes, I know from once I came. Because sometimes you ask yourself, why the hell am I writing or why the hell am I doing research right at the end of the day. You always ask yourself that. Okay. So on that note, thanks again, Professor Adlo for sharing your time with us and your expertise on this one. This was a terrific interview. Thank you very much. Well thank you and thank Hazel for picking me out of the world and spending so much time with me. I'm honored by it and I hope it's been worthwhile for you all. Okay. So for you guys, join me again for another episode of philosophy and what matters where we discuss things that matter from a philosophical point of view. Cheers.


Those that don't know what CHIP does, please, could you maybe just explain to us what the company CHIP does? Yeah, thanks, Mbali. I can make it quite a long but I'll keep it short. CHIP is a global supply chain logistics company. Good evening, welcome to the Private Property Farming podcast. My name is Mbali Nwokor and thank you so much for joining us on today's episode 119, a 119th episode of the Farming podcast. Soon approaching 120 and hopefully in a few months we would be approaching episode 200. So it's been quite an incredible journey speaking to all the guests onto the show and having you at home ask questions around various topics that we've been having each week for the past couple of months. Today we're going to be speaking around trends in agriculture, sustainability, technology, artificial intelligence and we have Kharat Stander, who is the director of CHIP that's going to be in conversation with us this evening. So if you have any questions around trends in agriculture, any terminologies or methodologies that you're not quite sure of and that maybe you want to hear us talking about this evening, please feel free to comment on the chat or comment section wherever you may be watching us whether it's Facebook, Instagram Live or YouTube Live and we'll be happy to respond to some of your questions. But yeah, I think also continue to like, share and comment in each of our podcast episodes and if there's any topics that you would like us to explore and have a conversation around on the podcast please feel free to do so and send us a direct message on our social media channels whether it's Instagram, Facebook or YouTube. So let's get straight into it and also not forgetting Twitter. So let's get it straight into it and introduce our guest for this evening. His name is Kharat Stander from CHIP and he's the director at CHIP. Kharat, thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing? Hi there, I'm Bali and thanks and thanks for having me today and doing well. Thanks. Awesome.  So this evening our topic is around trends in agriculture. But for those that don't know what CHIP does, please could you maybe just explain to us what the company CHIP does? Yeah, thanks and Bali, I can make it quite a long but I'll keep it short. CHIP is a global supply chain logistics company and in short we actually supplying a lot of supply chain logistics platforms to our customer base, mainly pallets. Pallets is our big product out there. And then there's also in the agriculture industry small crates and then also what we call bulk bins. We've been in South Africa for almost 40 years and we actually operate in a few countries in sub-Sahara Africa. Awesome. So now moving straight into our topic this evening, you know, technology is a huge player in the agricultural space and obviously agriculture or farming is quite an age old industry. And as the years have progressed we've obviously had to adapt whereas whether we're farmers or industry stakeholders like CHIP. So how has, based on your view, how has artificial intelligence, machine learning and technology shaped the way we see agriculture today? Yeah, thanks and Bali. In the farming and agriculture sector, artificial intelligence technology allows businesses to automate a variety of processes, free up employees' time and help improve productivity. AI can help farmers locate irrigation leaks, can't believe it actually, but optimize irrigation systems and measure the effectiveness of crop irrigation approaches. AI systems are helping to improve the overall harvest quality and also accuracy. Pre-arvesting machine learning is used to capture the parameters of soil, seed quality, pruning, genetic and environmental conditions and irrigation. Focusing on each component, it's important to minimize the overall losses in production as well. The agriculture industry is generating more data than ever at the moment on everything from the weather to logistics to market price volatility. Yeah, that's very true because with data that's where we make the insights right. And, you know, there's also another term called digital twinning. How does this allow producers to create value within the agri-sector? Yeah, a digital twin is a digital representation of a physical object, process or service. I know it sounds rather complicated, but digital twinning allows producers to create value by applying digital and analytical technologies to new business models and product offerings before launching them in the physical world. Using the data that they capture, agriculture players can build digital twins of their physical supply chains, virtual replicas that allow them to run simulations and find the most efficient ways of moving crops through the system. Digital twinning can also process this data to determine the most effective strategy for procurement, production, inventory, transportation and as well as point of sales. Businesses can model functions to optimize their operations and their profits. Logistics organizations such as ours are supporting this industry evolution through sophisticated tracking trace technology that also generates data and can further optimize supply chains for both efficiency as well as for sustainability. Yeah, you know, Gerard, I can't think of a competitor in this space. That is really competing with CHIP and I'm thinking as you explain this digital twinning model, my follow-up question was to say does CHIP currently make use of this model or this practice and how do you keep abreast of the various products that you're selling to the market because a lot of farmers consume your product, a lot of processes and retailers consume your product. How do you track where your product goes across all the different provinces? Yes, I mean, as I mentioned before, we're part of a global company so we try and make sure that we keep abreast of what's happening across the globe. So we are in the process at the moment to actually trial this through different projects, through our customer base, to make sure that we keep abreast and make sure that we are assets all. In the agriculture space we are actually busy with a very exciting tracking trace model to make sure, especially within certain provinces because mostly in the agriculture industry our asset stays within the different areas, mostly in the north as well as in the south, in the western Cape and the eastern Cape. So far it's very exciting at the moment that the whole space. You mentioned that you're a global company, obviously various sites across the world and having been in South Africa for quite some time as well and also just being dominating in the space. What's CHIP's secret to staying abreast of the supply chain and being a sustainable business year in year out? Yes, with organisations and individuals across the planet looking to embrace sustainability wherever they can, it has now become really almost non-negotiable that supply chains be built on sustainable principles. At CHIP we have been sustainably developing platforms for agriculture supply chains for decades throughout our share and reuse system of pallets, crates and been pooling. The next frontier for sustainability is to both regenerative back more into the environment that we take out. In our business we are making progress to achieve this vision through initiatives such as our vertical integration strategy whereby we plant two trees for every tree we use in the manufacture and repair of our pallets. We are actually very proud of that. The goal is to restore replenish and to create more value for society and the environment then the business takes out. This vision is articulated in our 2025 sustainability targets. Your product is mostly consumed in the first project space, let's say horticulture. From your experience, how have your customers, the customers, the people that you deal with within the first project space, how have they adapted to new consumer trends and requirements given the speed and rate in which we have to consume technology, adapt our businesses towards technology and be in this e-commerce space? So how has the fresh produce industry from your experience kept abreast of all the consumer trends and demands and also infusing e-commerce into their operations as well? Yeah, very good question. In the agriculture sector, fresh produce logistics require speed, like you've mentioned, reliability and availability of platforms that meet the specific needs of the product. We provide solutions based on our customers' needs. One such is the need to have visibility of their produce from farm to farm. Keeps track and trace solution allows for this whereby our customers are able to carefully monitor their products from the time it leaves the orchards to the backyards until they get into the fresh produce supply chain. Yeah, and CHEPS model also, obviously it's two ways, right? Your customers can own your product or rent the product. Where have you seen the demand from a CHEPS perspective? Yeah, sorry, Malia, I just need to mention that we're actually renting out on our products, so they never earn it. It's always the property of CHEPS. Oh, okay, because I think I've seen some bins that can be sold, but basically, so basically on the rental aspect, why was the rental option much better as opposed to ownership? Yes, increasingly producers are coming to accept that platform statistics is really a specialist competence and that there are real efficiencies and sustainability benefits to be gained from engaging organisations with the right equipment for their needs and the business model to manage it efficiently. A rental palette and container pooling model for instance offers lower, more transparent costs than having to purchase pallets or containers. CHEPS share and reuse model, like I've mentioned, means that pallets and containers are rented to customers and are returned to our service center across the country to be washed and reconditioned and there after put out into the supply chain again to be reused. The trend is increasing for growers, farmers and agri-processors alike to engage with specialist platforms, suppliers for their logistics needs so that they can focus on their own area of expertise producing the fruit that really feeds the world. Yeah, it seems like you've perfected this model around logistics and supply chain and especially being in fresh projects, we do deal with delicate products, short shelf lifespan, for example, I can also think of products like strawberries for example that are quite delicate, blueberries, how does CHEPS ensure that throughout the logistics and transportation or supply chain process, how does CHEPS ensure that with your product, how do you give that 100% guarantee to customers to ensure that by using CHEPS, the delicate produce or the delicate fresh produce could still be intact, especially transporting goods across various provinces, etc. Yeah, absolutely. Being a farmer yourself, you have realized that the importance of CHEPS. Increasingly resourceful logistics firms are producing platforms that can accommodate and protect delicate produce, you've mentioned blueberries, strawberries, I can add apples, bananas, peaches for example, which require reusable plastic containers, we call them RPCs that are robust but also flexible lightweight and well ventilated, which is so important. For the highest produce grades, sensors might also be installed to measure and report on the temperature, humidity and integrity of the produce throughout the journey from farm to farm. At CHEPS, we really proud ourselves on being able to cater to these kinds of requirements for our agriculture customers. We do this by of the unique requirements of each produce category, which can also be customized to cater to our customers' needs as required. Yeah, and in this industry, we always talk about sustainability. It's the buzzword sustainability at farm level, sustainability at processing level, sustainability at retail and distribution level, etc. How does CHEPS ensure their own sustainability levels within the agricultural sector? And what impact have you guys made for the number of years that you've been operating within South Africa? What impact have you made in the sector around sustainability? Yeah, and absolutely sustainability is definitely a buzzword at the moment. And CHEPS business model, which is a circular reuse model that I've mentioned, is inherently sustainable. Our large network involving 7 million pallets, 4 million crates, and about 500,000 bins available at 85 service centers across Sub-Saharan Africa makes a just-in-time system possible for optimal efficiency and the precise number of platforms required as and when they are required. I mean, using CHEPS platform means that our customers do not have to outlay capital to use their products. Pallets and containers are entered from us and returned to us. We then wash them, reconditioning the platforms and they are ready to be sent back into the supply chain again. This proves operationally feasible to many customers as they do not have to keep equipment which frees up the space in their backyards as well. Wow, you definitely sound like an expert in your industry and you've got quite vast knowledge around the agricultural industry and fresh produce and I think it speaks to the work that CHEPS has done throughout South Africa, especially in our agri-space. One last question, Gerard, that I just want to find out. There's a lot of concerns regarding to high prices around fuel fertilizers, farming is becoming more and more expensive. What's the discussions that you are having with a number of stakeholders that you interact with on a daily basis because I can only presume the more farmers grow, the more the need to have a business like CHEPS. What is your view on the South African outlook around agriculture? Are we going to be growing in the next couple of years to justify CHEPS existence or are you guys also just becoming concerned maybe with maybe a lot of imports that we're having now? There's farmers producing. What in your case or in your view do you see the outlook looking like for the next couple of years? Yeah, absolutely. I think we're all concerned. But I must be honest, the agricultural space is so exciting.  For me, that's very exciting. So I personally see a fantastic future for agriculture and we as CHEPS like to grow with the farmers out there. That's why we've made sure every year we spend an enormous kind of money in order to make sure that all those unplanted trees that they plant out there, that we have the equipment available to our growers and customers out there to actually move them throughout the supply chain. I think we've proved over the years that inside Africa we will overcome everything and we are concerned about the pricing. I mean, CHEPS will be there. We will try and make sure to absorb most of the cost that we do get. But in order to make sure that we have the equipment ready for our customers whenever they need them. Yeah, I must agree with that comment that we are South Africans, we overcome everything, we are a resilient nation. So it's quite positive to hear you being positive as well about the industry. But thank you so much, Gerard, for your time this evening. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and how you unpacked very difficult terminologies and jargon, which sometimes we don't ask ourselves, what exactly does that mean or how can I become sustainable? How can I ensure that my business exists tomorrow over and above all these challenges that we're faced with? But I think you were able to unpack that quite simply for us to understand. And yeah, all the best with your business is CHEPS. And let's hope more farmers can keep growing so that we could obviously have CHEPS in our operations. But thank you for your time this evening. Thanks a lot, Nbadi. It was really a pleasure and it was nice meeting you. Thanks. It's a pleasure. That was Gerard Standard, Director of CHEPS South Africa. And we were speaking about trends in agriculture. We spoke about AI, artificial intelligence, technology, e-commerce, supply chains and logistics and how the organization CHEPS as a company goes above and beyond just assisting other companies with their logistics and supply chain. Over and above the product that they're selling within the industry. And I think it was such a nice note to close off this conversation this evening where he expressed his positive outlook in terms of what he sees on the ground in the agri industry, farmers planting more trees, over and above the challenges that we're currently facing as farmers. And so I hope you enjoyed our chat this evening. And if you missed it, please go onto our YouTube channel. That's where you could catch this conversation. And keep supporting the farming podcast. And I'll see you next week with another interesting episode. Take care.