Reflections on Cultural Racism: The Theoretical Task of the Black Ethicist

Abstract

Since the publication of The Kerner Report on civil disorders, the issue of racism has been dramatized — receiving widespread attention in both public and private sectors — as a moral cancer in the bodypolitic of white America.1 The issue is of special relevance to the Black American, especially in light of this pivotal juncture in the Nation’s history — the eve of the bicentennial. Of course in the sixties, the civil rights and black power movements were catalytic forces in heightening our awareness to the deleterious character of racial prejudice and its effects upon the American social system. The Kerner Report states emphatically that “race prejudice has shaped our history decisively ... white racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II.”2

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