The abolition of all privilege: Race, equality, and freedom in the work of Anténor Firmin

Abstract

Anthropology has done much to challenge the idea of the natural inferiority of races, but at times this challenge has ignored the problem of racism. This article explores an important but largely ignored foundational text about race and equality written by Anténor Firmin, a Haitian intellectual who in 1885 set out to critique the categories and concepts of nineteenth-century French anthropology. I show how Firmin’s critique of race thinking and the doctrine of racial inequality were rooted in a broader critique of colonialism, racism, and inherited privilege. Drawing on Firmin’s argument that the end of racism would facilitate the abolition of all privilege, I suggest ways in which the discipline of anthropology might build on his critique to develop a more powerful response to the reemergence of ideas of innate difference and inequality.