Philosophy of Language and the African American Experience: Are There Metaphilosophical Implications?

When I first read George Yancy's "Geneva Smitherman: The Social Ontology of African-American Language, the Power of Nommo, and the Dynamics of Resistance and Identity Through Language," my initial reaction was amazement over the submission of his article to such a strikingly different venue than what is normally the case for philosophical works of this kind and orientation. Intellectual tradition in this country and the academic powers that be would have generally dictated such an essay appear in African American Studies journals, where the intended audience are those who have an appreciation for and share similarities with Yancy's core background assumptions. Moreover, this becomes especially evident when we inspect Yancy's culturally anchored method and overall philosophical direction as embodied within an African American ethos.

In his affirmation of African American language as a site for philosophy of language, Yancy boldly throws intellectual tradition, professional custom, and personal caution to the wind and these gestures have tremendous historical significance for African American philosophy specifically and professional philosophy more generally. For instance, I know from my own research that it was not until Carlton Lee wrote his dissertation in 1951—titled Patterns of Leadership in Race Relations: A Study in Leadership Among American Negroes—that an African American would dare to write a doctoral dissertation on Black people and then reasonably expect to receive the coveted degree in philosophy. Lee earned his doctorate at the highly acclaimed University of Chicago, where John Dewey, among others, established a formidable reputation for its philosophy department (McClendon 1981).

I am also cognizant that up until the late 1970s, and on into the early 1980s, there were heated debates about the legitimacy of a Black philosophy. The venerable William R. Jones eloquently wrote in the pages of Philosophical Forum about the dialectics of philosophy as particularity and universality and forged new turf for the philosophy of the Black experience as a legitimate way to pursue academic philosophy (Jones 1977-1978).

In fact not too long ago, within the past decade, I heard one up-and-coming African American philosopher declare that he would write about the Black experience, but only after he received tenure. Therefore, even in the late 1990s fear of reprisal loomed over the heads of African American junior faculty in philosophy, and pivotal to their phobia was whether or not to philosophically investigate the African American experience. Hence, for some, even at this late date, the search to attain a career in professional philosophy was contextually shaped by how close they ought or ought not to venture into the philosophy of the African American experience. Consequently, in an introspective moment, after I read Yancy's paper, I said to myself, "Go on George with your bad self, get down on the good foot. Tell it like it tis." Then I thought, "This brotha is saying to one of the foremost mainstream [read: white] philosophical journals, open up the do' and I'll get it myself." Yes, George Yancy is on the road to another path-breaking move in professional philosophy and we are all the better for it.

My brief remarks in this reaction paper focus on three essential areas in Yancy's presentation. First, his contribution to highlighting the import of African American language for philosophical inquiry: here his exhaustive investigation into Geneva Smitherman's pioneering research about African American language serves as both a springboard and signpost. Yancy effectively demonstrates that Smitherman's corpus offers an important solution to a long-standing sin of omission, the neglect of African American language in the philosophy of language.

Second, and directly adjoined to the first point, is the connection between African American language and culture, where he argues that our conception of African American culture is the anchor (foundation) from which we can develop an apprehension and appreciation of African American...