Trevor Noah Shows Why We Need More Black Voices in Philosophy

Trevor Noah is a comedian, but in a deeply personal and thoughtful video released 30 May 2020, he is a philosopher and an astute observer of our times. His unrehearsed speech is wonderful. Seriously, it is a brilliant piece of philosophy. You can view it here and even if you don’t read another word of this article, watch his video and listen to him.

I will delve into the specific brilliant points Noah raises but first, his talk reminded me of something I witnessed a few years ago in a philosophy symposium that to me, speaks to what Noah is talking about.

A whites on black symposium

I won’t mention any names to protect the innocent, but the symposium was discussing a paper written by a black philosopher. The black philosopher’s topic was critical race theory and the symposium participants were all white university philosophers, mostly professors with a few PhD students. Full disclosure: I am a white American philosophy professor.

The discussion had reached a point in the paper where the black philosopher was discussing what critical race theory can contribute to broader philosophy, specifically the branch known as “critical theory.” As philosophers often do, the conversation turned to the question of what the author meant by a certain concept in his critique of…