Katherine Brichacek
Lecturer
University of Southern California
Toward an Antiracist Reading of Arendt
Kathryn Sophia Belle’s Hannah Arendt and the Negro Question is an influential and canonical text in Arendt studies; yet, it is also highly controversial. For scholars who want to recognize the pervasive nature of Arendt’s anti-Black racism and Eurocentrism while continuing to find value in her philosophical and political thought, a distinctly antiracist methodology is needed. Active, antiracist steps must be taken to contend with her anti-Black racism and Eurocentrism. I advance one possible antiracist approach to reading both Arendt and scholarship which is critical of her that draws on antiracist methods in the social sciences, critical philosophy of race, and standpoint theory.