TAKING IT TO THE PEOPLE:
TRANSLATING EMPIRICAL FINDINGS ABOUT BLACK MEN AND BLACK FAMILIES
THROUGH A BLACK PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY
Dr. Tommy J. Curry @DrTJC
Texas A&M University
Dr. Gwenetta D. Curry @afropuffz
University of Alabama
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Abstract
Public philosophy has often meant a practice of thinking and commenting on the realities of the world that exceed the original boundaries of philosophy as a discipline. For Black scholars, however, scholarship has always been public and engaged the realities and sufferings of Black people and the world at large. Rather than debate the merits of whether or not philosophy should be publicly engaged, especially when considering the matter of race, this essay argues that a Black public philosophy is needed to correct the spread of misinformation, racist propaganda, and ill-informed theorizations given to the public under the banner of the Black public intellectual. The authors believe that Black public philosophy, a practice that offers theories to the public rooted in empiricism, historical findings, and an analysis of Black people’s political circumstances in the United States, is necessary to socialize Black Americans away from the pathological accounts offered to account for their deviance and disadvantage.
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Dr. Tommy J. Curry @DrTJC
Dr. Gwenetta D. Curry @afropuffz Dr. Tommy J. Curry is a Professor of Philosophy at Texas A&M University. His research interests are 19th century ethnology, Critical Race Theory & Black Male Studies. He is the editor of The Philosophical Treatise of William H. Ferris: Selected Readings from The African Abroad or, His Evolution in Western Civilization (Rowman & Littlefield 2016), the author of The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood (Temple University Press 2017), and a forthcoming manuscript entitled Another white Man’s Burden: Josiah Royce’s Quest for a Philosophy of Racial Empire (SUNY Press 2018). He now serves as editor of a book series, Black Male Studies: A Series Exploring the Paradoxes of Racially Subjugated Males, on Temple University Press. His research was recently recognized as being among the Top 15 Emerging Scholars in the country by Diverse in 2018, and his public intellectual work earned him the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy’s Alain Locke Award in 2017. He is a past recipient of the USC Shoah Foundation and A.I. and Manet Schepps Foundation Teaching Fellowship (2017), the Ray A. Rothrock Fellowship at Texas A&M University (13-16), and the past president of Philosophy Born of Struggle, one of the oldest Black philosophy organizations in the United States.
Dr. Gwenetta D. Curry is an assistant professor in the Gender and Race Studies Department. She completed her Ph.D. in 2016 from Texas A&M University in Sociology. Her dissertation, “The Relationship between Education and Obesity among Black Women in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Cycles 1999-2010,” revealed that education does not improve the health of Black women in the same manner as their white counterparts. Her current research focus on improving the health of Black women and the Black family overall. Dr. Curry’s research areas include: Health Disparities, Africana Womanism, Black Family Studies, Food Insecurities, Food culture, and American Racism. | ||
