Aspiration and Self-Realization: The Ameliorative Projects of Steve Biko

Abstract

Work on the conceptual amelioration of race concepts is usually negative or critical: it uncovers social features that contribute to racial hierarchies. Much less focus has been placed on how ameliorative accounts contribute to positive change. Using an account of race developed by Steve Biko during South African apartheid, I will argue that we can extract a novel account of positive amelioration in which racial categories can have normative or aspirational force, contributing to positive change.

Keywords

amelioration Black Consciousness Biko race social ontology

1. Introduction

Unlike many realism debates, discussions of social ontology—and social ontology of race in particular—have often been conducted in consort with work in the social sciences. Work in cognitive anthropology, economics, natural and social history, political science, and sociology have informed the development of theories of race.¹

Accounts of race typically articulate what race is either by analyzing our use of race concepts or by studying the purported extensions of racial terms.² These accounts of race can be seen as descriptive in that they reveal facts about our natural and social world. Theories of race can be categorized broadly by whether they deny the existence of race (anti-realism), affirm that races exist in naturalistic terms (naturalism), or affirm that races exist in social terms (social constructivism).

Independent of the much-disputed issue of what races are, if anything, there is consensus around the idea that race concepts and racial classifications are a part of our social life. Studying these practices and properties helps us understand the way that race categories function in society. Moreover, for many social constructivists, these classification practices play a causal or constitutive role in what races are. And, while many might take races to be natural categories, constructivists take this to be a falsity that can be discovered by studying the historical and social functions of race. In this way, social constructivist projects are often supposed to be revelatory: they uncover the social nature of things we might mistakenly take to be natural.

Such discussions of racial ontology might appear limited. They may fail to address the most critical issue concerning race: given that racial classification and distinctions maintain social and economic disparities that limit or extend the possibilities of its members, how might our understanding of race improve the lives of those who face discrimination?

This may appear to be a tall order for any theory. While theories can often correct or change our understanding of how something works, we normally don’t take the theories to fix problems. Of the many explanatory insights a theory of polio provides, it does not propose how to eliminate it.

Nevertheless, this seems to be the goal of ameliorative theories in social ontology. Sally Haslanger's (2000, 2017) ameliorative projects on gender and race concepts can be credited for creating this widespread interest.³ Haslanger’s (2000, 2012) motivation regarding these ameliorative projects is clear “the project is to consider what work the concepts of gender and race might do for us in a critical—specifically feminist and antiracist—social theory” (226).

More recently, Haslanger (2020b, 237) has acknowledged that a negative/critical ameliorative project is not sufficient for social and political emancipation. The negative step does important emancipatory work by providing a descriptive assessment of race (Haslanger, 2000, 2017, 2020a,b). This assessment gives us a better understanding of what race is and how the concept of race is used to create and maintain political, economic, and social hierarchies.⁴ This negative/critical step creates an understanding on which to build a second positive ameliorative step. Haslanger notes that such a positive step “may require both a disruptive moment that targets a set of existing practices and also what we might call a visionary moment that gives us resources to create something better” (Haslanger 2020b, 237). If the goal of a positive ameliorative project is to ‘create something better,’ it is crucial to keep in mind that the emancipatory improvements in political, economic, and social life must be rooted in the improving concepts, meanings, and categories associated with race. That is what makes the amelioration conceptual.

While there is no shortage of works focusing on how to improve the life prospects of discriminated races, these works do not propose to effect such changes through conceptual amelioration.⁵ With respect to providing a positive ameliorative step for a politically emancipatory project for those who have suffered discrimination, I have not found any aside from that which I will propose.⁶

The goal of this essay is to provide both an example of a positive ameliorative project and, in doing so, provide an account of positive amelioration for oppressed racial groups.⁷ More precisely, I aim to show how an account of race—created by Bantu Stephen (‘Steve’) Biko (1946-1977) provides us with an early ameliorative theory of race (both negative and positive). From Biko’s account of race, we can extract what I will call an aspirational ameliorative account. Such an account will provide us with a blueprint of how to modify concepts and conceptual space to motivate racial emancipation.

In Section 2, I will present a general account of conceptual amelioration and present the framework of what I am calling aspirational amelioration. In Section 3, I will investigate Biko’s system of racial categorization and show how we can use it to develop an account of aspirational amelioration. I will also consider criticism of my interpretation of Biko (Section 4) and provide a response that draws on the two aspects of racial categorization that Biko uses to define ‘black.’ I will close (Section 5) with some thoughts about the role Biko gives to racial solidarity for self-realization.

I would like to note one caveat. It is not the intent of this paper to argue for the success or failure of Biko’s conceptual amelioration with respect to his broader political emancipatory project. Such an account would involve a careful examination of the role of Biko’s racial categories within the Black Consciousness Movement. Given Biko’s murder—while in police custody in 1977—and the outlawing of organizations promoting the Black Consciousness Movement, it would be difficult to track the success or failure of this conceptual ameliorative project. While many cite the importance of the Black Consciousness Movement in the development of psychological liberation and a sense of defiance among black South Africans, it is well beyond the scope of this essay to speculate what role Biko’s ameliorative project played in the eventual demise of apartheid.

2. Ameliorations

Improving our concepts for our purposes is known as conceptual engineering, conceptual ethics, or conceptual amelioration.⁸ Interest in conceptual amelioration has recently increased in philosophy.⁹ As the nature of concepts are a tricky matter—including the question of what they are and whether there are any (Machery 2009)—we can follow Cappelen and Plunkett in their more generalized definition of conceptual engineering:

Conceptual engineering = (i) The assessment of representational devices, (ii) reflections on and proposal for how to improve representational devices, and (iii) efforts to implement the proposed improvements (Cappelen and Plunkett 2020, 3).

Cappelen and Plunkett (2020) admit that calling this kind of engineering or amelioration ‘conceptual’ is merely a bit of jargon and that ‘conceptual amelioration’ (or ‘conceptual engineering’) can extend to other representational devices such as words, utterances, and thoughts. In what follows, I will use the term ‘amelioration’ without distinguishing it from what others call ‘conceptual engineering’ or ‘conceptual ethics.’ I will also drop the use of ‘conceptual’ in talking about amelioration as I intend it to cover other representational devices such as terms and categories.

The assessment and improvement of representational devices—(i) and (ii) above—are common to most socially constructed accounts of race. However, we can create a rough distinction between two kinds of social constructivist theories by distinguishing between the primary motivations guiding their development. On the one hand, the primary motivation for many theorists is to provide the most accurate account of race.¹⁰ As we develop our understanding of how race functions in society, we will continue to revise our theories for better accuracy. These theories aim for descriptive accuracy. However, as some improvements in our understanding come from changes in our representational devices, some will take these improvements to be descriptively ameliorative. On the other hand, the primary motivation of some theories is to combat racial supremacy, oppression, and inequality issues. These theories are usually motivated by conditions of accuracy as well: addressing normative issues regarding racial supremacy, oppression, and inequality may prove more difficult without an accurate understanding of race. However, it could be that the ameliorative shifts in our representational devices that best suit emancipatory goals deviate from mere description. In this case, the primary motivation for emancipation might be pursued without aiming for descriptive accuracy. Regardless of the pursuit of accuracy conditions, the improvement of racial representational devices for emancipatory goals must engage in both the negative/critical and positive steps of an ameliorative project. I will argue that the positive ameliorative step is best understood as making a normative or prescriptive claim.

With respect to race, I will propose a framework for a positive ameliorative project. I will not claim that this is the only way to define a positive framework: as emancipatory projects are sensitive to oppressive contexts, the proposed frameworks must be sensitive to the kinds of emancipation that must take place. For instance, the ameliorative framework I am introducing attempts to address the effects that political, economic, and social oppression can have on one’s dignity and self-respect and how, in these cases, emancipatory political projects may require psychological emancipation as well.

I will call this positive ameliorative project ‘aspirational amelioration’ as it is extracted from Steve Biko’s ameliorative definition of blacks as those who identify themselves “as a unit in the struggle towards the realization of their aspirations” (Biko 1971a, 48). We can describe a representational device for race as aspirationally ameliorative if:

1) The ameliorative representational device narrows or both narrows and broadens the extension of that representational device.¹¹

2) Some of those who fall outside of the extension of the representational device can come to fall within the extension through thought and action.

3) The ameliorative representational device has an appeal to those outside of the extension that could eventually fall within its extension through thought and action.

4) The ameliorative representational device is normative and descriptive: it is descriptive for those who perform the requisite thoughts and actions and normative for those who have not.

While I don’t intend such a definition to be telling without some context, in the next Section, I will present a detailed account of an ameliorative project that contains an account of aspirational amelioration as its positive or prescriptive component. I will return to the above account of aspirational amelioration at the end of Section 3.

3. Biko

In this Section, I will (1) demonstrate how Biko’s work engages in both the negative and positive steps of an ameliorative project and (2) extract a positive ameliorative account that aims to provide social, political, and economic emancipation through improvements in representational devices regarding race. Developing this positive ameliorative account requires not only knowing how Biko defines race but understanding what Biko is reacting to. As such, I will situate Biko’s writings in the context of South African apartheid and present the racial classification system of the Population Registration Act of 1950 in Section 3.1. I will present Biko’s racial categories in Section 3.2 and examine the aspects of this categorization system that are ameliorative in the critical or negative sense (Section 3.3). After this assessment of the source of the problem, I will go on to explain what Biko takes to be the effects of racial discrimination in Section 3.4. In Section 3.5, I will explain how Black Consciousness can remedy these effects and motivate the political action required for social change. At this point, we will have a complete example and explanation of Biko’s negative and positive projects. This will put me in a position to present a more nuanced account of aspirational amelioration, pulled from Biko’s emancipatory project, in Section 3.6.

3.1. Background

Bantu Stephen (‘Steve’) Biko (1946-1977) was an anti-apartheid activist and a central figure of the Black Consciousness Movement. The movement was a grassroots movement that began in the 1960s, spurred on by the imprisonment of key figures in the African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) leadership. The all-black student group led by Steve Biko was the South African Student’s Organization (SASO). SASO was a breakaway group of the white-led National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), which opposed racially separate organizations. Through SASO, Biko would develop a novel metaphysics of race by developing a racial system that would encourage self-respect and dignity for those discriminated against in South Africa.

Understanding Biko’s metaphysics of race, and its motivations, requires an understanding of the apartheid racial categorization system that he was rejecting. The Population Registration Act of 1950 required racial classification of citizens. While parliamentary debates preceding the 1950 Act involved argumentation by some hardline scientific racists—claiming any blood mixing ought to result in a non-European classification—those more experienced in enforcing racial classification recognized the practical difficulties of tracking ancestral lineage.¹² Those less committed to ‘blood purity’—and more committed to a practical method of maintaining white supremacy through racial classification—relied more on appearance than lineage. In the debate concerning the Registration act, one parliamentarian claimed, “It is obvious to all we know the native and if we see a white man, we know that he is a white man. We…have never experienced any difficulties in distinguishing between Europeans and non-Europeans” (Union of South Africa, 1950).

Thus, the Population Registration Act No. 30 (1950) focused on the following three races:

1. (iii) “coloured person” means a person who is not a white person or a native; (x) “native” means a person who in fact is or is generally accepted as a member of any aboriginal race or tribe of Africa; (xv) “white person” means a person who in appearance obviously is, or who is generally accepted as a white person, but does not include a person who, although in appearance obviously a white person, is generally accepted as a coloured person(xv) “white person” means a person who in appearance obviously is, or who is generally accepted as a white person, but does not include a person who, although in appearance obviously a white person, is generally accepted as a coloured person;

Additionally, the Bantu Laws Amendment Act (1964) replaced ‘native’ with ‘Bantu.’¹³ Using this definition and the importance of appearance emphasized in the Union debates; we have the following apartheid racial categorization system. (Figure 1)

Figure 1.

Apartheid racial classification system.

The effects of this classification system were all-encompassing and devastating to all but white persons. Educational opportunities, employment opportunities, civil rights, and where one could live were all determined by the apartheid classification system.

3.2. Black, non-White, and White

For the training of SASO leadership, Biko wrote the 1971a paper “The Definition of Black Consciousness.” It begins:

We have … defined blacks as those who are by law or tradition politically, economically and socially discriminated against as a group in South African society and identifying themselves as a unit in the struggle towards the realization of their aspirations. This definition illustrates to us a number of things:

1. Being black is not a matter of pigmentation---being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.

2. Merely by describing yourself as black you have started on a road towards emancipation, you have committed yourself to a fight against all forces that seek to use your blackness as a stamp that marks you out as a subservient being. …the term black is not necessarily all-inclusive; i.e. the fact we are all not white does not necessarily mean we are all black. Non-whites do exist…. If one’s aspiration is whiteness but his pigmentation makes attainment of this impossible, then that person is a non-white….Black people---real black people---are those who can manage to hold their heads high in defiance rather than willingly surrender to the white man (48).

This definition is best read as a conclusion to a multi-faceted argument Biko develops in his writings. I will first provide some details as to how Biko is thinking of these categories. I will then show how Biko’s reconceptualization of races is essential to his positive ameliorative project as it changes the possibilities and aspirations of non-whites.

There are several shifts in terms of meaning and extension of representational devices as we move from apartheid racial categories to Biko’s racial categories. First, Biko preserves the term ‘white’ and its extension. Second, the unofficial term ‘non-white’ (designated by ‘non-European appearance’ in Figure 1) is repurposed into a racial category. While the term ‘non-white’ is not an official designation, its use was pervasive in South Africa as a means of collectively segregating Bantu, Coloureds, and other non-European races.¹⁴ Epstein (2018, 100) helpfully notes that it is this term ‘non-white’ that Biko preserves in his racial categorization system—albeit in a modified form. Third, while the term ‘black’ was not common in South Africa, Biko notes elsewhere that it was rising in popularity due to its association with Kwame Ture’s phrase “Black Power.” As seen in Biko’s passage above, he aimed to reify the connotations of defiance, dignity, and self-respect that were central to the idea of Black Power. Those who fell under the extension of the official apartheid terms ‘Bantu’ and ‘coloured’—as well as other non-Europeans—would be recategorized under the terms ‘Black’ and ‘non-white.’

3.3. The Negative/Critical Project

Importantly, categorization into ‘black’ and ‘non-white’ no longer had to do with the apartheid appearance-based classification system. Rather, blacks and non-whites share the common experience of being “politically, economically and socially discriminated against.” But why reorient our racial categories in terms of discrimination?

First, there is reason to see those discriminated against in South Africa as a unified group. Gordon notes that it is the “reality of their political situation” that unites East Indians, coloureds, and Bantus (Gordon 2008, 84). For instance, More writes about the medical students at the University of Natal that “African, Indian, and Coloured medical students…were forced to share university facilities different from their white counterparts” (Gordon 2008, 55). In contrast, whites share the common experience of not being discriminated against “by law or tradition.”

Second, an assessment of the problem is the first step of an ameliorative program. The problem is political, economic, and social discrimination against non-Europeans. What Biko undertakes is a reorientation of our racial categories in terms of discrimination instead of appearance. Such a reorientation is critical as it makes clear the function of racial categorization in South Africa. While reconceptualizing conceptual space can be confusing, the source of discrimination, i.e., the extension of the category ‘white,’ remains fixed. The term, however, undergoes a transformation in that ‘white’ is descriptively ameliorated: changing the condition for identifying whites to those that have not been discriminated against clarifies the origin of the problem.

These two points clarify the purpose of reconceptualizing race in terms of discrimination. While this first aspect of reconceptualizing race in terms of discrimination is important, it is also insufficient for an emancipatory political project. First, dividing people in terms of discrimination only results in two of the three groups Biko describes in the passage above. Second, I will argue shortly that Biko’s racial classification system requires more than one racial category subjected to discrimination if the system is to provide us with the conceptual components required to engage in an emancipatory project. Third, thinking that one can dismantle apartheid by focusing on discrimination alone is, for Biko, “an oversimplified premise” (Biko 1971c, 27). Biko understands that any emancipatory project must address what he euphemistically refers to as the ‘side-effects’ of discrimination.

3.4. The Effects of Discrimination

The fundamental goal of Biko’s ameliorative project is to achieve political emancipation for the discriminated racial groups of South Africa. But this project was unobtainable without understanding the resulting ‘spiritual poverty’ (Biko 1971c, 28) caused by discrimination.

What makes the black man fail to tick? … Does he lack in his genetic make-up that rare quality that makes a man willing to die for the realisation of his aspirations? Or is he simply a defeated person? The answer to this is … nearer to the last suggestion than anything else. The logic behind white domination is to prepare the black man for the subservient role…. To a large extent the evil-doers have succeeded in producing … a kind of black man who is man only in form (Biko 1971c, 28).¹⁵

The prospects of any emancipatory project ultimately rested on the discriminated. But the effects of discrimination had removed the self-respect and dignity that is constitutive of personhood, leaving only people ‘in form.’

This is the first truth…we have to acknowledge before we can start on any programme designed to change the status quo. It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realise that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality (Biko 1971c, 29).

Thus, any hopes of political emancipation first required psychological emancipation. Biko notes the necessity of returning self-respect and dignity to those who have been discriminated against if there is any hope for political emancipation.

The first step therefore is to make the black man come to himself; to pump back life into his empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth. (Biko 1971c, 29).

Monahan helpfully explains that if Biko holds that “the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed” (Biko 1971b, 68), then “any effective political struggle must entail the freeing of those minds through a process of consciousness-raising” (Monahan 2023). This method of consciousness-raising, infusing self-respect and dignity, is what Biko refers to as Black Consciousness.

3.5. Black Consciousness

Black Consciousness is a psychological and social liberation and is a realization that leads those discriminated against to a state of blackness:

Black Consciousness is, in essence, the realisation by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their operation---the blackness of their skin---and to operate as a group in order to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude. It seeks to demonstrate the lie that black is an aberration from the “normal” which is white (Biko 1971a, 49).

We see two elements of Black Consciousness here that are essential for an emancipatory project. First, there must be a realization that apartheid categorization is not merely a matter of physical distinctions. Rather, apartheid is a method of exploitation and subjugation by the white minority in which Bantus and coloureds are portrayed as degenerative versions of whites. Biko tells us that whites do not occupy a privileged status and that blacks ought to be defined on their own terms. This is why Biko reserves the derogatory term ‘non-white’ for those that experience racial prejudice but continually aspire for whiteness: this group defines themselves in relation to whiteness, thereby lacking racial self-respect and dignity.¹⁶ Second, the realization of the normalcy and equal status of blacks isn’t enough. As the goal is psychological and political emancipation, solidarity is required both for political action and the development of their own culture and value. In a passage reminiscent of an early Du Bois (1897), Biko declares:

Black Consciousness therefore, takes cognizance of the deliberateness of God’s plan in creating black people black. It seeks to infuse the black community with a new-found pride in themselves, their efforts, their value systems, their culture, their religion and their outlook to life (Biko 1971a, 49).

3.6. Completing the Negative/Critical Project

In Section 3.3, I claimed that making a racial categorization system based on discrimination alone was inadequate as it (1) did not result in the three races Biko discussed, (2) did not provide the requisite conceptual components for a positive ameliorative project, and (3) gave no insights in how to conduct an emancipatory project. Section 3.5 addressed the third point: psychological emancipation through the realization of Black Consciousness is a necessary condition for engaging in political emancipation. In this Section, I will address the first point: how do the important distinctions Biko makes in terms of discrimination and Black Consciousness result in the three racial categories needed to engage in his positive ameliorative project?

Black Consciousness results in self-respect and dignity that distinguishes blacks from non-whites. However, Black Consciousness is only needed because of the racial oppression non-Europeans have been subjected to by white South Africans. The implication is that having self-respect and dignity would be the norm in the absence of racial oppression. This means that just as discrimination created a distinction between whites and Biko’s categories of black and non-whites, the presence of self-respect and dignity creates a distinction between, on the one hand, blacks and whites that have these virtues and, on the other hand, the non-whites that do not.

Finding such similarities between Biko’s categories of blacks and whites may seem to be an invitation for incredulous stares. Such stares would be warranted if the presence or absence of self-respect and dignity were the sole conditions for making racial distinctions. Just as using discrimination as our only means to divide races gave us no understanding of how to engage in a positive project, using the presence or absence of self-respect and dignity would blind us to what caused these social and psychological differences in the first place.

By using the presence or absence of discrimination along with the presence or absence of self-respect and dignity, we arrive at the following three racial categories.¹⁷ (Figure 2)

Figure 2.

Biko’s Racial Classification system.

3.7. The Positive Project: Aspirational Amelioration

We can now address the final concern regarding what conceptual components are required for a positive ameliorative project. Building discrimination into the racial categories themselves allowed Biko to ameliorate racial categories in a negative or critical sense. However, among the discriminated, Biko had to divide the conceptual space in order to create the possibility of psychological emancipation. Ameliorating the categories non-white and black provides the conceptual components needed to realize Biko’s goal of psychological emancipation. These categories create the conceptual space needed for non-whites to move to the category black. Additionally, the fact that the category black already has members presents it as a real aspirational goal for non-whites: regaining self-respect and dignity is achievable in the face of severe racial discrimination. Finally, the fact that ‘black’ is partially defined in terms of the positive psychological attributes and dispositions required for collective political action means that to be black is to be aspiring toward political emancipation. To use Biko’s words, “merely by describing yourself as black, you have started on a road towards emancipation” (Biko 1971a, 48). We are now in a position to describe the mechanisms deployed in Biko’s aspirational ameliorative project.

Biko defined ‘black’ in such a way that the term undergoes semantic generalization to the extent that it allows those of non-African descent—who have been discriminated against—to fall under its extension. The term ‘black’ simultaneously undergoes semantic specification as it excludes those who have been discriminated against that do not manifest the requisite positive psychological attitudes, such as dispositions towards emancipatory action. Thus, some who were previously categorized as having origins in Africa could be excluded from the extension of black.

An ingenious feature of his account is that whether the category black counts as descriptive or prescriptive is sensitive to the individual. The category black is descriptive of those who were racially discriminated against and have achieved Black Consciousness. But more importantly, the category black is meant to have a normative pull for those discriminated against who lack the requisite psychological states of self-respect and dignity—and are not unified in a struggle for political freedom. To be black is something that non-whites should aspire to.

Returning to the account presented in Section 2, we can say that a representational device is aspirationally ameliorative if:

1) The ameliorative representational device narrows or both narrows and broadens the extension of that representational device.¹⁸

2) Some of those who fall outside of the extension of the representational device can come to fall within the extension through thought and action.

3) The ameliorative representational device has an appeal to those outside of the extension that could eventually fall within its extension through thought and action.

4) The ameliorative representational device is normative and descriptive: it is descriptive for those who perform the requisite thoughts and actions and normative for those who have not.

I claimed earlier that what I am calling ‘aspirational amelioration’ is the positive component that, along with a critical/negative component, provides a path to emancipation. Of course, providing such an account is no guarantee of achieving political emancipation, as there are forces outside of the oppressed that must also be overcome. But, to use Haslanger’s description, the positive step of an emancipatory project ought to be disruptive and visionary. By adding the performance of collective action and the development of self-respect and dignity, Biko has created a disruptive account of race. Non-whites and blacks don’t have their racial designation by virtue of appearance or even discrimination. Rather, thought and action is required to fit into either racial category. What makes Biko’s account visionary is that his “proposal for how to improve representational devices, and … efforts to implement the proposed improvements” (Cappelen and Plunkett 2020, 3) are both aspects of the same ameliorative theory. As mentioned, the category of black is descriptive for blacks and aspirational for non-whites. Finally, black is defined in such a way that to be black constitutes a commitment to political liberation. To aspire to blackness just is, for the discriminated, to engage in an emancipatory political project.

4. Issues of Interpretation

I would like to address a possible problem in my view. On my understanding of Biko, I take him to claim that the apartheid category of non-white is split into Biko’s categories of non-white and black, neither of which are co-extensive with the former. This means that there are, by my interpretation, three racial categories for Biko. However, Epstein (2018) takes there to be only two racial categories in Biko’s system (black and white). Epstein takes black to be co-extensive with the unofficial apartheid category non-white and takes the extension of white to be the same in the apartheid and Biko’s system. Epstein presents the following passage as evidence for this interpretation: “the term “black” must be seen in its right context. No new category is being created, but a “re-Christening” is taking place. We are merely refusing to be regarded as non-persons and claim the right to be called positively. No one group is exclusively black” (1970, 2). The first passage I cited in Section 3.4 also seems to use ‘black’ in a way that is consistent with the apartheid category non-white.

The editorial Epstein cites was given in the context of what Biko saw as a unification problem. East Indians and coloureds took themselves to have a slightly elevated status and did not want to think of themselves as black, while some Bantu didn’t want to think of these other groups as black. In such a context unifying discriminated groups would be of greater concern for Biko than promoting black consciousness.

I claim that Biko does use the term ‘black’ in a broad or narrow sense, dependent on the context in which he is writing. In contexts where there is no need to derogate those discriminated against for lacking dignity and self-respect, Biko sometimes uses the term ‘black’ to pick out all those who have suffered racial discrimination (i.e., apartheid non-whites). However, in contexts where he aims to both inspire those who have been discriminated against and derogate those who do not seek psychological and political emancipation, he uses ‘black’ in a narrow sense to pick out apartheid non-whites that possess the positive psychological attributes of self-respect and dignity. As Biko states, “the term black must be seen in the right context.”

Additionally, while Biko’s usage of the term ‘black’ is context-sensitive, he cannot do away with the narrow category of black that is in opposition to non-white. Such a distinction is required in order to provide a path to psychological and political emancipation.

5. Self-Consciousness and Solidarity

Biko understood that achieving social equality required a particular psychological attitude. This attitude would both recognize the source of discrimination and not allow oneself to be defined in terms of it. Additionally, engaging in collective political action would lead to the distinctively Black self-consciousness that was a needed precursor to achieving social equality. The process that leads to racial self-consciousness gives oppressed races self-respect and dignity. Informed by critical philosophy and a racially oppressive apartheid government, Biko developed an account of race that demonstrates an understanding of a universal requirement of humanity: members of all races must understand themselves as persons of a race and that personhood must be respected by others. Biko’s revolutionary contribution to the idea of racial amelioration is that one need not be born black to become black.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

I want to thank Kareem Khalifa for an extensive discussion of this paper, as well as two anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback. Thanks also to Brian Epstein, David Henderson, Michael Monahan, Deborah Tollefsen, and participants at the POSS 2022 for helpful conversations on this material.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

David Miguel Gray

Notes

Author Biography

David Miguel Gray is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and an Affiliate Professor at the Institute for Intelligent Systems at the University of Memphis. Gray’s areas of specialization include Philosophy of Race and Racism, Philosophy of Psychology, African American Philosophy, and Philosophy of Mind. His current research focuses and theories of race and racism, racial slurs, philosophy of cognitive psychopathology, and cognitive phenomenology. Gray also has interests in the philosophy of language, African American history, cognitive science, and the ethics of artificial intelligence. More information is available at

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