Charles Mills

Published in 1997, "The Racial Contract" is Charles W. Mills' most famous philosophical work, arguing that modern Western political systems are founded on an unspoken agreement to establish white supremacy. He posited that this underlying racial hierarchy contradicts the supposed universal equality of traditional Enlightenment philosophy.

Mills challenged classical social contract theorists like John Locke by arguing that their theories of moral equality were implicitly restricted to white people. He used the "Racial Contract" to expose how the supposedly neutral state was actually designed to privilege whites while subordinating non-whites.

In his later work, Mills formulated the concept of "white ignorance," an epistemological framework describing how white individuals are socially conditioned to misunderstand or ignore the realities of systemic racism. He presented this as a cognitive dysfunction built into the standard social contract that prevents true racial equality.

Over his career, Mills held professorships at several major academic institutions, including the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern University. He later joined the faculty at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center as a Distinguished Professor.