Abstract

In this chapter, the author finds problematic the distinction between “public philosophy” and philosophy done within the classroom or within academia, especially where this distinction implies an incommensurable difference, a pure separation, a clean break. The “public” is always already operative within the academically cloistered spaces of the classroom, and philosophical thinking is always already occurring outside the walls of academia. Philosophy is more than engaging in abstract thought experiments. The irony is that Euro‐American philosophical domination and canon formation take place within the context of white hegemony and racist terrorism, the enslavement and brutalization of Black bodies, and the history of white colonialism. Philosophically engaging such issues as, say, whiteness, is not an add‐on to a syllabus that is otherwise raceless. Warren understands the importance of active racial coalition‐building but reminds progressive and liberal whites that white racism is always insidiously operating in their lives.