1.   A major theme of this chapter is how the Racial Contract works to separate out whites from nonwhites, provide some sort of justification for this, and then to allocate privileges in a racially biased manner.

2.   Mills claims that there are two versions of the state of nature being employed by philosophers – one being savage, the other "a garden gone to seed". Which version of the state of nature is hypothetical and which was claimed to be real? How do they apply to the Racial Contract?

3.   Picking up on his earlier comments about racially motiveated epistemology, Mills details cases where nonwhite achievements were ignored, downplayed or denied. What role does this ‘epistemological ethnocentrism’ play in the Racial Contract?

4.   In what one would think a difficult epistemological move, whites have often characterized the same space as both peopled by savages and as virgin land, unpopulated and ready for colonization. How does this doublethink come about?

5.   Mills says that in time, natives come to be seen as ‘foreigners’, not real inhabitants of the land that was formerly theirs. Is this true in America? If so, what does it say about American history?

6.   While mainstream theorists casually use the word ‘person’ or ‘human’ to mean ‘everyone’, Mill argues that the concept of personhood has been very narrow throughout history. Trace this narrowness, starting with Aristotle, through the Wild Man of mediaeval Europe, to the non-European nonbelievers to the modern idea of race. From the point of view of the Racial Contract, why was each step an improvement over the last?

7.   Mills makes one of his strongest claims on pp. 56 and 57. Here he maintains that racism, far from being a ‘regrettable deviation from the ideal’ is in fact, the ideal of social contract theorists. What is his argument?

8.   The advent of Darwinism and ‘racial science’ allowed for a new era of the Racial Contract. Why was this? What sort of political and cultural programs did they empower?

9.   Against the idea that there are objectively categories of race, Mills suggests that race is a construction. What does he mean by this and how does he think it gets constructed? What historical evidence does he produce?

10.   Mills spends a significant amount of time examining the racism inherent in the writings of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant. The reason is that these represent four of the most influential figures in modern political philosophy and most of the material written today relies on the groundwork these four have laid. Be familiar with his indictment of all four.

11.   Mills notes that the Racial Contract is continually being rewritten (p. 72). What does he mean by this? Why does this strategy of revision make racial questions more difficult to deal with?

12.   Mills contrasts two periods of the Racial Contract – the earlier period, in which racism was nakedly endorsed and the later period (extending into the present) where racism has "been written out of formal existence". What does this mean and what is its significance?

13.   The social contract is supposed to be stable because it is entered into willingly. Obviously, this is not the case with the Racial Contract. Here whites can willingly endorse the Contract but not nonwhites. How then is stability obtained? (Notice that Mills’ response has much in common with Marilyn Frye’s.)

1.   "The frustrating problem nonwhites have always had, and continue to have, with mainstream political theory is not with abstraction itself (after all, the "Racial Contract" is itself an abstraction) but with an idealizing abstraction that abstracts away from the crucial realities of the racial polity." (p. 76) What is the scope of this challenge to writers such as Rawls? How difficult would it be for mainstream writers to amend their work to be satisfying to Mills? What would be required?

2.   "Racism as an ideology needs to be understood as aiming at the minds of nonwhites as well as whites, inculcating subjection.. If the social contract require that all citizens and persons learn to respect themselves and each other, the Racial Contract prescribes nonwhite self-loathing and racial deference to white citizens." To put this in Taylor’s words, the Racial Contract breeds misrecognition. Does this then license seemingly radical programs such as Ebonics or native self-government in order to counteract this ‘subjugation’? Justify your response. (Be sure to deal directly with the argument Mills presents here.)