Making Sense of Shame in Response to Racism

Abstract

Some people of colour feel shame in response to racist incidents. This phenomenon seems puzzling since, plausibly, they have nothing to feel shame about. This puzzle arises because we assume that targets of racism feel shame about their race. However, I propose that when an individual is racialised as non-White in a racist incident, shame is sometimes prompted, not by a negative self-assessment of her race, but by her inability to choose when her stigmatised race is made salient. I argue that this can make sense of some shame responses to racism. My account also helps to highlight some of the emotional and cognitive costs of racism that have their root in shame as well as a new form of hermeneutical injustice and distinctive communicative harms, contributing to a fuller picture of what is objectionable about racism.

Coughing While Asian: Shame and Racialized Bodies

“…13 As the philosopher Aness Webster notes, shame arises because an individual experiences a 'loss of power over when her stigmatised racialised identity is made salient' . 14 A common harm of racism, she argues, is the 'emotional cost of feeling shame … and an ongoing vulnerability to shame' . 15 In this way, racist violence and verbal abuse frequently result in shame, fear and insecurity, not just for direct victims but for members of the targeted group as a whole.…”

“…14 A common harm of racism, she argues, is the 'emotional cost of feeling shame … and an ongoing vulnerability to shame' . 15 In this way, racist violence and verbal abuse frequently result in shame, fear and insecurity, not just for direct victims but for members of the targeted group as a whole. The taunts that Mok and the takeaway owner endured rehearsed well-travelled cultural tropes over migration and contagion, brought out even more forcefully in the whispered invective to Sheen.…”