Interview with Professor Tommy Curry

Abstract

"Politics? What I face can be most accurately described as racism. I teach at Texas A&M University, an institution known for its contemporary conservatism and its racist past. The culture of such an institution is designed to ostracize and discourage work on racism. Black scholars, especially Black men, are often driven out of the university, while Black women are poorly mentored and often leave. Because such institutions are committed to preserving the conservative legacy and its majority white demographic, Black scholars often confront censorship, intimidation, and death threats for their work. My experiences have been no different. My first year I was put on a conservative watch list. My emails have been requested twice. I have received death threats for my work on racism, and been threatened by other faculty. In such an environment, teaching and publishing become a resistance strategy against daily microaggressions and overt racism." -- Tommy Curry

"In the United States, Africana philosophy is understood as a general rubric; a cluster of problems so to speak. With very few research institutions hiring Black philosophers and a lack of institutional support for the recruiting and development of programs in Africana philosophy, Africana philosophy flourishes in organizations like Philosophy Born of Struggle or the Caribbean Philosophy Association, but not as vibrantly within disciplines or institutions. There is no canon so to speak of Africana philosophy, nor various time periods one who claims Africana thought as their area of specialization must master or dedicate their research program towards. Africana philosophy currently is a constellation of contemporary political problems rather than associations and generative accounts of Black thought." -- Tommy Curry

"The paranoia of the shrinking white republic requires the Africana philosopher to provide ideas that organize the public and clarify the conditions of the present. The transcendental project whereby political ideals are offered to the most disenfranchised and dehumanized mocks the suffering of those of our time. Philosophy, instead of describing the world as striving for utopia, must recognize the dystopian realities before us, and make those relations the objects of study." -- Tommy Curry