This is the ninth in a series of interviews with philosophers on race that I am conducting for The Stone. This week’s conversation is with Emily S. Lee, an associate professor of philosophy at the California State University, Fullerton. She is the editor of “Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment, and Race.” — George Yancy

George Yancy: You work at the intersection of race and phenomenology (the investigation of direct structures of experience). What got you interested in this area?

Photo

Emily S. Lee: Well, I’ve always been interested in how people can live in close proximity, share experiences, even within a family and yet draw very different conclusions from the experience. So when I began reading the French philosopher M. Merleau-Ponty’s “Phenomenology of Perception,” I really appreciated his care and attention to how this phenomenon can occur. Because an experience is not directly drawn from the empirical circumstances; it is also structured by the accumulated history and aspirations of each of the subjects undergoing the experience, Merleau-Ponty’s work helps to systematically understand how one can share an experience, and yet still take away different conclusions.

It was with luck that while I was reading Merleau-Ponty’s book, I was also reading the critical race theorist Patricia Williams’s book, “The Alchemy of Race and Rights.” I found some of her descriptions and analysis demonstrating the chasms of understanding among different “races” incredibly enlightening. I thought an explanation for many of the racial phenomena that Williams described in terms of the inexplicable dearth of understanding among various racialized subjects could be facilitated with the phenomenological framework.

G.Y.: I think that what you suggest above really opens up an important way of accounting for differential understandings of race and racism in the United States. Many white people fail to grasp what it means for people of color who experience living in this country very differently — whether it be people of color undergoing experiences of racist micro-aggression or overt racist physical violence. Is there a way to make sense of this through a phenomenological lens?

As a Korean-American who came to the United States provinces at the age of 10, I still cringe when told that I ‘speak good English.’

E.S.L.: I think that the question and the problem is determining — that is, having people agree — that something constitutes racism and what constitutes a micro-aggression or a macro-aggression. Although I do hope that the latter is clearer by now. I like the phenomenological framework because it highlights the entire lens, orientation or framework through which to recognize something as racist. Keep in mind that expressions of racism have not been static, and hence they creatively change.

Perhaps the following example might help — and it goes beyond the black-white binary. As a Korean-American who came to the United States provinces at the age of 10, I still cringe when told that I “speak good English,” and I must point out that blacks as well as whites have said this to me. Half the time, I want to correct their grammar, to let them know that they should say that I “speak English well.” But so far, I’ve refrained from this. The person speaking to me usually thinks they are giving me a compliment. But I recognize this statement as their inability or unwillingness to understand that Asian-Americans have been living in the United States and have been citizens for well over 100 years. This unwillingness or inability to recognize Asian-Americans as Americans has the result of insistently casting Asian-Americans as foreigners or people who do not belong here.

I recognize this “compliment” as macro-aggressive, not micro-aggressive, setting the stage to treat Asian-Americans as not quite deserving of the same rights as Americans, because Asian-Americans are, after all, only “immigrants.” Considering the controversy even over the Dream Act, immigrants can clearly be maltreated. But of course I also recognize that this “compliment” can only be the result of a specific socially constructed understanding of the history of the United States, so I do attempt to be more understanding of it. Nevertheless, such a “compliment” is problematic.

People may not accept the above scenario as a macro-aggression, but rather think that perhaps I’m being too sensitive, that I’m making a mountain out of a molehill and that the above scenario only constitutes at most a micro-aggression. I am absolutely sure that there are even Asian-Americans who would insist I am being much too sensitive. I think that stereotypes and jokes about stereotypes function much in the same way. They may be about small characteristics, but they are part of a bigger framework. It is in this sense that I think the problem is in determining what constitutes a racist act and what constitutes a micro-aggression or macro-aggression.

After all, to cast something as a micro-aggression is to suggest somehow that these aggressions are not too damaging, that they are not that important, and, hence, “understandable.” And it is here, where people occupy a crossroad, where people may simply disagree and not see eye to eye, that phenomenology can be helpful. Because of the priority of phenomenology’s framework of describing the world, not simply the material conditions of the world, but also the subject’s very ambiguous, contextual, situated conditions of the being-in-the-world, phenomenology can be helpful in describing why or how people can so completely diverge in understanding an event as racist, or aggressive, in a micro or macro sense.

G.Y.: Your point about speaking “good English” reminded me of the “I, too, am Harvard” photo campaign, where students of color at Harvard were tired of the institutional and micro-aggressive racism that they experienced on a daily basis. As a philosophical approach, how might phenomenology help them to make sense of their situation? I’m reminded of Frantz Fanon’s “Black Skin, White Masks,” where he describes the lived experience of black bodies.

Whether I am reduced to the racial features of my body depends on the context.

E.S.L.: I am reminded that Fanon recognized that alienation for the black male professional is different from the alienation of the black male worker. In other words, I appreciate Fanon’s attention to the different forms of alienation because of class. I guess I especially like this because as much as I sympathize with the students at Harvard and their sense of alienation, their alienation is distinctly different from the alienation of the working class. I read Fanon as utilizing and critiquing both dialectical and phenomenological frameworks. And as you hint at here, yes, his work (as well as your work) deploys a necessary phenomenological approach to describe the lived experience of the black man and woman (though when it comes to women in his work it is not without controversy). But I also appreciate phenomenology not only in terms of its descriptive capabilities — in describing the functioning of perception, embodiment and experience — but hopefully in its normative possibilities. In other words, I appreciate phenomenology in making explicit the functioning of these three means through which we engage with the world. With this accomplishment or some advancement in this area, we can move toward making ethical and political decisions with lasting changes.

G.Y.: Speaking of lived experience, I have shared with my white philosophy graduate students how alienating it can be within a profession like philosophy that is predominantly white. What is this alienation like for you as an Asian-American woman philosopher?

E.S.L.: I guess that I’m still not quite sure how to describe this experience of being an Asian-American woman philosopher. Working on the American Philosophical Association committee on Asian and Asian-American philosophy and philosophers, I am very much aware of how few of us there are in the discipline. I’m still left wondering if some of my experiences are from being a woman, especially as philosophy really is still an old boys’ network. Or, I wonder if some of my experiences occur from being Asian-American, in the ways people stereotypically assume that I must specialize in certain areas of philosophy or behave in specific ways, such as being quiet and subdued. At times, it appears if I speak at all, people immediately assume I’m aggressive.

I know these expectations about behavior make a significant difference because, in academia especially, a clear boundary between work colleagues and friends does not exist. I think sometimes at conferences, people just don’t know what to make of me, though at times people seem to react with genuine effort to be inclusive. But I guess to the extent that there is discrimination, I feel it most in two ways.

First, I feel it in the sense of not being regarded as a philosopher, or as a good philosopher, and as someone who just accidentally or barely made it into the discipline. I am always left questioning my intelligence and my ability to think as well as the others who look like they are members of the discipline. The questioning by others in the discipline of whether I belong becomes internalized, making me question myself and second-guess myself about whether I can do this.

Second, I work on feminist and race philosophy. People both within and outside the discipline do not regard these areas as “true” philosophy because they presume to guard the boundaries of what constitutes and does not constitute real philosophy. These presumptions challenge my understanding of philosophy and my legitimacy as a philosopher.

G.Y.: Why are there so few Asian-American professional philosophers in the United States?

E.S.L: The philosopher David H. Kim has written on this. Kim speculates that part of the reason may be because Asian-Americans are primed by their parents to enter more lucrative positions such as law or medicine, or more secure positions like engineering or computer science. He also acknowledges that stereotypes about what talents Asian-Americans possess, that is, the sciences and math related fields, may prime some Asian-Americans themselves not to enter the humanities. However, the burgeoning field of American studies, and the specialization of Asian-American studies, seems to suggest that it isn’t that Asian-Americans are averse to studying and working in the humanities. I believe that Kim suggested that the field of philosophy itself, in terms of the professors encouraging or discouraging Asian-American youth from furthering their studies in philosophy, or other sorts of subtle signals, is discouraging more Asian-Americans from entering philosophy.

Recently, Carole Lee has empirically traced the numbers and attempts to provide an answer as to why there are so few Asian-American professional philosophers. So I think the conclusion is that influences within the discipline of philosophy as well as broader social forces provide an explanation for the paucity of Asian-American philosophers.

G.Y.: In “Black Skin, White Masks,” Fanon describes what it was like for him, while in France riding on a train, to experience his body as a problem when a little white child, in its mother’s arms, exclaims, “Look, a Negro!” When you think about the profession’s policing of the boundaries of what philosophy “really” looks like, do you ever feel as if the profession communicates to you: “Look, an Asian!”? Of course, what comes with this is that sense of being reduced to one’s body.

Related More From The Stone Read previous contributions to this series.

E.S.L.: It’s interesting, because since moving to Southern California, I do not feel the sense of being noticed for being Asian as much as I did while living in New York City and in the northern parts of New York State. There I definitely felt the sense that my Asian features defined me and spoke for me. Even I would note if I saw an Asian person on the street. Here in Southern California the population is so diverse I don’t feel the sense of over-determination of my body all the time. But more specifically within the discipline of philosophy, at conferences, I think at this point in my career, I’ve found enough circles of collegial philosophers — admittedly mostly philosophers of color — among whom I do not feel reduced to my body. So, whether I am reduced to the racial features of my body depends on the context. I am glad to say that I’ve participated in niche conferences such as at Society for Women in Philosophy meetings, at the Future Directions in Feminist Phenomenology, or at the Korean Modernities/Colonialities Workshop where I thoroughly enjoyed myself while engaging in thought-provoking conversations and learning a great deal.

But at some of the larger mainstream conferences, yes, I definitely feel self-conscious both as an Asian and as a woman. I think to some extent I am aware of being a woman more than being Asian. I say this because the Asian racialized identity works in ways I cannot quite pinpoint yet. I am aware that there are claims out there that Asians are becoming “white.” I do not want to fall into this scenario. I think the racialization of Asian-Americans is distinctly different from whiteness, but not so different from whiteness as blackness is — perhaps different but not different enough? The identity functions between denigration and exoticism. Perhaps this difference functions ambiguously enough that I still do not fully understand it.

If anything, I want the difference to be acknowledged, I do not want the sense that my identity does not matter. I do not want acceptance on the condition of reducing my differences away.

G.Y.: There are experiences that African-American, Afro-Caribbean, Latin American, Native American and Asian-American philosophers share as minority philosophers (or even graduate students) in a profession that is still predominantly white and male. What are some shared philosophical themes or topics that you think would be relevant for these minority groups to critically engage as a collective, a collective that would be mutually empowering? And what positive impact do you think that such a collective would have on our profession’s understanding of itself?

E.S.L.: This is a hard question. I want to begin by noting that I know that we have shared experiences; I know this because some of the first books that woke me up to the question of race and deeply rang true for me were Richard Wright’s “Black Boy” and Audrey Lorde’s “Zami.” I don’t know what is the shared experience, in that I do not think it is just feelings of alienation or marginalization. I hope it is more a sense of knowing there is more than the prevailing structures of existence and knowledge.

But in terms of philosophical themes that it would be relevant to critically engage — I’m going to answer by describing my experiences and hopefully it will speak to this concern. I guess I am a phenomenologist: I want to leave open the question of which topics and themes to engage because I do not want to presume to be able to speak for others. I feel like the experience of participating in academia as a philosopher has been similar to teaching a class on philosophy of race. Because in my institution the class is a general education requirement, I get quite a few students who are resistant to the material and as a result attack my pedagogy and my abilities to teach. I have read enough material indicating that this experience is quite common among professors who teach material on race. At one point, it was so difficult that I considered not teaching the class. But then I recalled the students, not many, but a significant number, who personally expressed how important the class was to them. If I did not teach the class, these students might be left in a vacuum. I decided I want to continue teaching this class to meet these students. Now, the class is a pleasure to teach.

I think in the same sense, it’s been a difficult journey getting here and it continues to be challenging, but I must say that the few philosophers of color (and white philosophers who are more “enlightened,” let’s say,, or who at least try) with whom I now engage with philosophically and socially, really makes the journey worthwhile. In a deep sense, I know I made the right decision becoming a philosopher.

Related: Five essays — by Linda Martin Alcoff, Louise Antony, Sally Haslanger, Rae Langton and Peg O’Connor — on being a woman in philosophy.

This interview was conducted by email and edited. Previous interviews in this series (with Linda Martin Alcoff, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky, Joy James, Charles Mills, Falguni A. Sheth, Shannon Sullivan and Naomi Zack) can be found here.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and on Twitter, and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

George Yancy is a professor of philosophy at Duquesne University. He has written, edited and co-edited numerous books, including “Black Bodies, White Gazes,” “Look, a White!” and “Pursuing Trayvon Martin,” co-edited with Janine Jones.