Chapter 3: “Ladies First” by Queen Latifah

One of the conversations I remember being exposed to in graduate school was about the homogeneity of classical philosophy. It is important to note that philosophy has grown a lot in the last 50 years or so to include women and People of Color. However, the vast majority of philosophy, and what is often offered to students as philosophy, is dominated by white men. Most of what I was encountering in graduate school positioned white men as the authority on philosophy, and all other theories seemed to be an enhancement or challenge to classical philosophy. For many of my colleagues, some of whom were People of Color like me, philosophy was written from a predominantly white male perspective. Even when theory was focused on People of Color, it often lacked any resemblance to our lived experiences. Mostly, we just felt like we were not represented by, considered in, or a part of the philosophy to which we were exposed. The sense that philosophy was dominated by and intended to represent only white males led us to a conversation about finding the philosophical or theoretical voice of oppressed People of Color. This is an old and ongoing conversation in philosophy. In our case, we ended up with Hip Hop as a counter model to classical philosophy. We found Hip Hop to be philosophical, inclusive of all kinds of people, and representative of many of our lived experiences. For me in particular, Hip Hop became a way to engage students in conversations about social and political (socio-political) philosophy and Black feminism.