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jmcsquared t1_j03a2t1 wrote

Reply to comment by unripenedboyparts in Existence is infinitely richer than our descriptions of it. So, rather than cling to reductive explanations that only ‘close’ life’s possibilities, we should ‘open’ reality by seeing ourselves as perpetual students | Interview with Black Existentialist Lewis Gordon by philosophybreak

That's quite different than what I was assuming it meant. In reality, it practically has nothing even to do with ethnicity, which in a sense makes it a kind of misnomer. I'd certainly not include modern immigrants or even other dark skinned ethnicities under this specific meaning, as I suspect that doing so introduces quite a lot of obfuscation into the discourse on this subject.

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unripenedboyparts t1_j03b8sy wrote

Like I said, it's controversial. It is much harder to define "black" and "white" than it is to define "Asian" or "Mexican." Yet these constructs won't go away and the more they impact society and the individual, the more they become things in themselves. I don't think there's a perfect solution.

Gordon definitely seems to be operating from a less practical, tangible vantage point, which makes him harder to engage with than most people who draw this distinction.

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jmcsquared t1_j03ekit wrote

>Yet these constructs won't go away and the more they impact society and the individual, the more they become things in themselves.

I mean, they're here because we create them and allow them to influence us.

With the advent of true equality under the law, families with mixed ethnicities, and the natural progression of human consciousness beyond simplistic constructs, I'd like to think that we can hopefully come to cast aside such limitations, rather than further ingrain them into our collective psyche.

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