Minority Perspectives on Ethics

MINORITY PERSPECTIVES IN JUSTICE ETHICS
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

According to Walker & Snarey (2004), the basic African-American approach to justice ethics most closely resembles a combination of the ethics of care (derived from the ideas of Carol Gilligan) and the ethics of justice (derived from the ideas of Lawrence Kohlberg). These two sources are Carol Gilligan's (1982) In a Different Voice and Lawrence Kohlberg (1984) The Psychology of Moral Development. Both are considered classics in the literature, and there is a substantial secondary literature on the ideas of these two authors. The following table attempts to summarize similarities between the main ideas:

Ethics of Care (Gilligan)

Ethics of Justice (Kohlberg)

1. sensitivity to situations or dimensions of situations that involve abandonment, detachment, hurt, pain, or violations of intimacy
2. need to balance the needs of all parties, make them feel attached, and love people for all their subtle distinctiveness
3. resolve conflicts by emphasizing procedures, consensus, psychological wisdom, the logic of affect, and sensitivity to context
4. commitment to nonviolence, moral values, and the welfare of generations

1. sensitivity to situations or elements of situations that involve inequality, oppression, unfairness, or restrictions on personal freedom
2. need to stress the importance of promises and contracts, especially as related to equal rights and claims of respect
3. resolve conflicts by emphasizing procedures as well as clear decisions which are impartial, use the logic of reason, and produce right answers
4. commitment to universal equality and the welfare of each individual

The implication of African-American ethics being a "combination" of two different ethical systems means that it is a "hybrid" or "unity" system of ethics which is being strived for. This is usually dangerous ground because ethical systems were designed to be mutually exclusive, and difficult to "integrate" or combine. There are certain dichotomies, for example, which are never intended to be crossed; e.g., the differences between religion and philosophy, theology and sociology, anthropology and psychology, etc. It appears that African-American ethics as an ethics of care-and-justice involves the pursuit of tearing down dichotomies or distinctions that have well served thinkers (lumpers and splitters maybe) for years. An analysis of Martin Luther King's (1986) writings seems to confirm this, as King spoke many times about breaking down semiotic barriers among dualistic conceptions in our thinking; e.g. King said that "for a people cut off from their historical and cultural roots, God is both father and mother."

Another, more secular, approach to minority ethics attempts to recapture the radical activism of the 1960s. In what might be called an ethics of emotivism, the aim is to improve decision-making by infusing the process with as much passion and anger as possible, kind of like the "revolutionary spirit" of Marxism. Mumia Abu-Jamal (2006) is typical of this approach, and luminaries such as Cornel West are also representative.

If Gilligan's (1982) ideas are representative of feminist ethics, then the ideas of Cannon (1988) and Collins (1998) can be considered representative of black feminist ethics. One of the characteristics of feminist ethics is that there are no hypothetical scenarios or conundrums. Conundrums are lively paradoxes which have puzzled thinkers for centuries, and involve such questions ranging from "Am I my brother's keeper?" to "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" In feminist ethics, almost all things are possible and solvable. With black feminist ethics, this takes the form of replacing color-blindness with "colortalk," which is the honest, refreshing, and authentic addressing of color. Color-blindness is regarded by black feminists as ignorance, as a kind of retreat into some hypothetical or fictional world where everyone is innocent. To not bring up the subject of color when it needs to be brought up is the worst form of cowardice. Likewise, trying to pretend as if one acts color-blind is unethical. It is far more preferable to aggressively approach colortalk in a courageous fashion. Hence, the importance in black feminist writing on outspokenness and honest anger. While such outbursts may offend some white people as not meeting standards of "niceness," it is far more important that the white people "hear" the black anger. Trust can only develop between the races when each side is allowed to express and use their anger as a powerful source of energy for progress and change.

Biculturalism occurs when an individual exists in two distinct sociological worlds, usually their culture of origin and their culture of residence. The culture of origin is often a diasporan culture, and the residence culture is usually the dominant culture. While race is the most common factor in biculturalism, other bicultural patterns may exist based on gender, age, religious identity, and parent's occupation. However, the most relevant ethical issue in this regard is what to call one's self, and the typical pattern of biculturalism is to create hyphenated names, such as African-American, Mexican-American, etc. According to some polls, about 41% of black people refuse to accept the signifier of African-American (Walker & Snarey 2004), and for good reason. The hyphenation allows the dominant culture to play them like a fiddle, calling them "Americans" when there's a need for it, and calling them "Africans" when there's a need for it. This issue has got nothing to do with racial pride, but everything to do with domination and oppression. The continued practice of hyphenation creates an situation where almost all moral issues are framed in terms of resistance to oppression. To ask, for example, what is the "African-American" perspective on something is less likely to tell you any true opinions on that something than it is to tell you about opinions toward resistance to being oppressed.

Black ethics as resistance is evident with two phenomena: black religion and black music (rap and hip hop). Several examples of black religions should illustrate the problem of taking resistance to such a degree that it clouds ethical judgment. For example, the Nation of Islam, the Five Percent Nation of Poor, the Black Panther Party, the New Afrikan Movement, and Us, to name a few, have been reportedly encouraging young black men to refer to themselves as God and to say things like "I'm my own religion." Likewise, some of the frequent uses of profanity and other profane symbols in rap and hip hop music are intended to only accomplish disrespect for the sake of disrespect. Passing such things off as ethical statements or ethical positions on moral issues is hypocrisy. Resistance is an accommodation strategy, not a form of ethics. There may be inherent values to be found in resistance, but there should be countervailing efforts.

PRINTED RESOURCES
Abu-Jamal, M. (2006). All Things Censored. NY: Seven Stories Press.
Brown, C. (2002). Refusing Racism: White Allies and the Struggle for Civil Rights. Williston, VT: Teachers College Press.
Cannon, K. (1988). Black Womanist Ethics. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
Collins, P. (1990). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman.
Collins, P. (1998). Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.
Elmore, J. & Rose, Y. (2004). Fighting for Your Life: The African-American Criminal Justice Survival Guide. NY: Amber Books. [sample excerpt]
Gabbidon, S., Taylor, H. & Young, V. (Eds.) (2004). African-American Classics in Criminology and Criminal Justice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Gibson, C. (2002). Being Real: The Student-Teacher Relationship and African-American Male Delinquency. NY: LFB Press.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a Different Voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
King, M. (1986). Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. San Francisco: Harper Collins.
Kohlberg, L. (1984). The Psychology of Moral Development. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Mooradian, J. (2003). Disproportionate Confinement of African-American Juvenile Delinquents. NY: LFB Press.
Scott, Y. (2001). Fear of Crime Among Inner-City African Americans. NY: LFB Press.
Shusta, R., D. Levine, R. Harris & H. Wong. (1995). Multicultural Law Enforcement. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Thompson, A. (2003). Career Experiences of African American Police Executives: Black in Blue Revisited. NY: LFB Press.
Walker, V. & Snarey, J. (Eds.) (2004). Race-ing Moral Formation: African-American Perspectives on Care and Justice. Williston, VT: Teachers College Press.

Last updated: Sept. 30, 2006
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