The yassification of "TO FREEDOM" (Nicki Minaj) as Standpoint Epistemology by Dr. B

Happy Black History Month!!! The ability to imagine is one of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of the oppressed to combat their oppression. This is the major takeaway that I took from Dr.B's paper. 

The function of ideology and the reason it's so pervasive its in its ability to naturalize. Racial ideology naturalized the inferiority of Black people and the superiority of white people. This purported an unbased and incorrect belief about our social reality to be factual and objective knowledge which has continued to shape our society. Black people are seen as dangerous, untrustworthy, unintelligent. Due to this Black people have continued to be the target of racial injustice. Tamir Rice, George Floyd, Breanna Taylor- just to name a few of the many Black people who have been killed by the police. A common argument I hear when talking about police brutality is that in their line of work, police officers have to be on high alert which leads to shots being fired. And yet despite being only about 13% of the U.S population, Black people are almost 3 times more likely to be shot by the police than white people. This alarming statistic provides grounds for investigating why. We can first trace it to the overpolicing of Black neighborhoods because of racist beliefs that we are criminals (even though higher crime rates have been linked to higher levels of poverty which loops back to slavery, segregation, and continual racist practices prevalent in institutions that keep Black people in lower socioeconomic tiers.) Overpolicing (especially by white officers who do not live in those communities) means that Black people encounter police more often. These encounters quickly go south when officers work on implicit biases and beliefs that Black people are dangerous which makes them quick to pull the trigger. Often times these officers fail to see the beliefs and structures that are working on them that causes this to happen. They think they made the right action call in the heat of the moment and this sentiment is seen echoed by white people especially. It's clear then how racial ideology has been naturalized and worked its way into our belief systems and institutions. 

Further we can look at tools like standpoint epistemology to break down this ideology and its infected institutions. We must first understand that as Dr.B and Marx points out, ideology is developed by the ruling class to protect its interest. We can see how this is true when we consider that racism was the basis for the creation of policing in what was called the "slave patrol." The slave patrol was one of the earliest conception of a police force in the U.S and their main job was the protect the property interest of slaveowners by capturing runaway enslaved people. After the emancipation of enslaved Africans, the slave patrol evolved to control freed enslaved people and enforce things like Jim Crow. Understand then that the U.S system of policing was created to function as it currently does: to control Black people. Why then should we think that white people want to get rid of it if doing so isn't in their interest? They do not have the motivation and so often choose to remain willfully ignorant to the problem. You know who does have the motivation? Overpoliced Black people. Because of their reality, Black people are in a better position to speak on police brutality (a reality which white people do not face.) Black people are thus have what Dr.B calls privileged knowledge on over policing and are epistemically superior on the subject. 

Thus, Black people are better suited to understand what's wrong with the current framework of policing and in turn the racial ideologies that keep this framework stable. We are also more motivated to do away with this system and so are in a better position to understand that it isn't the natural way of things and that it can be reimagined. This is why for white people who are epistemically poor on the topic, ideas such as abolishing the police is unimaginable. 

One thing I'm still confused about is the interplay between Marx and Hegel in the paper. From what I understand where Marx falls short is in his ability to imagine and by that I mean his inability to recognize the power of ideology and the value of alternative epistemologies. This is where Hegel comes in because he conceives that we need the development of ideas to change society. And so you conclude that "ideologies arise in response to our material conditions; but, accommodating the intuitions of Hegel, I grant that to change our social condition we must deconstruct the ruling ideologies." (pg 13.) And you question why our social conditions haven't changed if our material condition has, as Marx said it would. My question then is that wouldn't Marx see this dialogue being had about alternative epistemologies a product of our material conditions calling for a destruction in the current ideology? Wouldn't he see this as the natural progression towards the revolution?