I had started writing a little essay on the issue of Kant's alleged racism in the light of all that discussion that took place last year, especially in the German/Swiss newspapers. For personal reasons I've put this aside. At some point I will (hopefully) finish it.
At any rate, I thought it worthwhile to post images and links of some of those articles, especially also for the English-speaking world of Kant scholars and students, a majority of whom seem to tend towards the belief that Kant surely is a racist (on a contemporary definition), and that the textual evidence does not leave any room for doubt about his racism. This is not just a claim about Kant the person who held prejudiced views about non-white peoples. It is rather a claim about Kant's philosophy as such, and not just those essays which have race as their central topic, and the Anthropology and Physical Geography lectures. Even, incongruously, the very pillar of Kantian thought, his moral universalism, is said to be racist and colonialist. I think this latter position is evidently untenable, but still this view seems to be gaining ground, even among serious Kantians.
To be sure, there have been some interesting and on the whole balanced articles in the recent past (see Kleingeld [2007][2014][2019], Allais [2016][2019], and especially Ameriks and Eberl) but I find that most other pieces that I have seen are predisposed to finding confirmation for an entrenched partial, one-sided view based on selective quoting and a taking out of context, without a solid understanding of or even plain disregard for chronological and intratextual factors and the rationale of the writings at issue.
Anyway, I think the jury is still out. As is always the case with Kant, things are never as simple as they seem to be at first blush. Indiscriminate quoting, or Zitatmontage, without studying the larger context in which the quotation appears and without proper knowledge of the chronology and philological status of the texts (esp. the lectures) won't help us establishing the truth about Kant's alleged racism.
It was both refreshing and necessary that three prominent German Kant scholars (Volker Gerhardt, Otfried Höffe and Michael Wolff, the latter in direct response to Marcus Willaschek, who represents the view that Kant is indeed a racist) countered the current apparent communis opinio on this loaded and often emotional issue, which does not appear to accept contradiction even if for the sake of academic balance.
But since these pieces were published in German in newspapers, rather than in English-language scholarly journals——in the current discourse deemed the only legitimate channel for debate, to ensure a hearing and, no doubt, gatekeeping——I have an inkling that most English-speaking Kant scholars haven't taken notice of these pieces, or maybe if they had seen it just thought 'why would I take older white men seriously on precisely this issue?'.
So by way of a free service and for the sake of balance, here below are the pieces, either as image or link, that were published in four German/Swiss newspapers in the summer of 2020 and afterwards, i.e. in Die Welt, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Die Zeit, and in the historical journal Public History Weekly, in chronological order.
I have also linked a piece by Patrick Bahners, editor responsible for the Geisteswissenschaftliche section in the Frankfurter Allgemeine, in which he also referred to the historian Michael Zeuske, who claimed, in a radio broadcast on 13.06.20, that Kant was the 'Mitbegründer der europäischen Rassismus'. Also included are pieces by Daniel-Pascal Zorn on the philosophical purport of the race essays, Omri Boehm on why Kant's universalism is still hugely important, and Dieter Schönecker who explains how he changed his mind and came to regard Kant as a racist.
Volker Gerhardt -- »Kant ein Rassist? Lest ihn bitte genau«, in Die Welt, 17.6.2020 [link]
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Patrick Bahners -- »Kant und die Stammtischwahrheiten«, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20.06.2020 [link]
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Marcus Willaschek -- »Kants Rassismus. Ein Kind seiner Zeit«, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 24.06.2020 [link] [website normative orders]
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Michael Wolff -- »Kant war ein Anti-Rassist«, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 09.07.2020 [link]
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Marcus Willaschek -- »Kant war sehr wohl ein Rassist«, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 15.07.2020 [link]
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Michael Wolff -- »Antirassist aus Prinzip«, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 30.07.2020 [link]
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Daniel-Pascal Zorn -- »Kant—Ein Rassist?«, Public History Weekly, 21.08.2020 [link]
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Omri Boehm -- »Sie wollen ihn stürzen sehen«, Die Zeit, 25.11.2020 [link]
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Daniel-Pascal Zorn -- »War der große Philosoph doch ein Rassist?«, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 26.01.21 [link][scan1][scan2][scan3] {this is part 1 of a report on a Tagung on the topic of the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften}
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Michael Wolff -- »Wer Kant als Rassisten bezeichnet, müsste ihn erst einmal lesen: Wie eine wissenschaftliche Akademie den Aufklärer an den Pranger stellt«, in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14.04.2021 [link]
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Dieter Schönecker -- »Amerikaner seien «zu schwach für schwere Arbeit». Und Schwarze faul: Wie ich lernte, dass Kant Rassist war«, in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 16.04.2021 [link][PDF]
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Daniel-Pascal Zorn -- »Zum vorläufigen Frieden«, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18.05.21 [scan 1][scan2] {this is part 2 of a report on a Tagung on the topic of the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften}
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Manfred Geier -- »Immanuel Kant, ein Rassist?«, in Süddeutsche Zeitung, 22.02.21 [link]
Manfred Geier -- »War Immanuel Kant ein Rassist?«, in Preußischer Allgemeine, 22.07.2022 [link]
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Peter Trawny -- »Beitrag zur wichtigen Diskussion darüber, ob Kant ein 'Rassist' war«, on personal blog, 10.07.2020 [link]
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