Charles Mills, The Racial Contract (1997)

Posted: Wed, Feb 18, 2026

Today

  • Feedback on response papers [15 min]
  • Wrap up discussion of two other ideas from Rousseau: [30 min]
    • Establishment of society vs. government [15 min]
    • Freedom in submission? § 2.7 [15 min]
  • Mills: “Nonideal contract theory”—white supremacy is a feature not a bug. [30 min]
    • The racial contract establishes a shared conceptual apparatus through which we see the world (17–18)
    • Contract theorists are remarkably consistent (64ff); the best way to make sense of their discussions of Indigenous peoples is a personhood (free & equal) vs. subpersonhood (unfree & unequal) distinction, created by the racial contract
    • The racial contract is between persons over subpersons
    • Explicit -> implicit racial contract
Screenshot of a Bluesky repost by Jane Espenson, in reply to a photo of a cat sitting across from the dinner table eating pasta and drinking wine on Valentine’s Day: “The thing that makes this extra funny to me is that I think the cat is about to say this is all moving too fast…”

“It is thus indisputable that love itself, like all the other passions, only acquires in society that impetuous ardor that makes it so often fatal to men.” (Rousseau, Second Discourse, p. 300)