Charles Mills Racial Contract

For all the diversity in the world, racism seems to be one of the few shared attributes. Historically, violence and aggression has been open and shameless, however as civil rights legislation has advanced, racism has evolved as well. Charles Mills introduces the idea of a Racial Contract: an unspoken agreement that some people are born with the ability to contribute to the world and involve themselves in decision making, while others are not. Filling in the blanks, it becomes apparent that this puts black people at a distinct disadvantage. If Mills is able to identify the underlying cause, what is stopping change from being made? White people must benefit enough to want nothing to do with dismantling even an anciently discriminatory system.

In regards to whether or not Mills is correct in expressing the belief that the white “signers” of the Racial Contract cannot possibly understand the racial reality of society, I will argue that it is, for the most part, true. The oftentimes subconscious nature of the Racial Contract, willful ignorance, and white privilege bias are factors which enable white individuals to maintain their social norms. However, it is important to recognize that there can be, and are, white people who are aware of the racial atmosphere, and act accordingly. While this certainly aids in revealing the Racial Contract wide-scale, it does not negate the extrinsic benefits of being born white in a hyper-racialized world. It is one thing to be the voice of the oppressed, and quite another thing to be the oppressed. Mills describes the Racial Contract as a trifold social contract: moral, political, and epistemological. In both moral and political aspects, it provides an explanation for the social hierarchy, governing, and justice systems, as well as “how a particular moral code and a certain moral psychology were brought into existence” (Mills

He is essentially saying that white people uphold these racially motivated beliefs because of their participation in the Racial Contract, which is in turn, due to, and perpetuated by, a broader, racist, social norm. In order to sustain this hive mind, these acts of racism must be either so learned that they are second nature and thus not worthy of note, or carefully and purposefully ignored. This could be in order to protect someone’s own worldview or position, it could be so unintentional that it would never occur to someone that they were being racist, or it could be of malicious intent. Regardless of the reason, Mills reflects this, categorizing the epistemology of the Racial Contract as “inverted”, and one “of ignorance” (Mills 18). He suggests that the Contract “[produces] the ironic outcome that whites will in general be unable to understand the world they themselves have made” as a result of “localized and global cognitive dysfunctions” (Mills 18). In an analysis of this epistemology, it is evident that Mills believes that the combination of being white and living in a white-centric society makes for true comprehension of racism