Abstract

Like most forms of Western philosophy, Frankfurt School critical theory belongs to a literary canon that is completely racialized by the very absence of race. That is, in the Western philosophical tradition white males have been presented as the bearers of philosophical knowledge. It is the white male who best understands and describes the human condition. The absence of race as a serious topic for philosophical discussion in the midst of race-based brutalization of people of African descent produces a discourse that by its very attempt to conceal the centrality of race in Western society makes it all the more visible.