You raise a very important topic today, and an interesting topic any day. Maybe it would help for me to respond with some questions that I have on this issue: Why should what's striking to students matter in determining curriculum? Is what's "striking" a sound criterion for either professors or students in selecting texts and topics? What makes you think philosophy is about what's "striking"? Should we ask what reasons a teacher might have for telling a student to scrap their work, if and when that happens; or is it sufficient to note their racial identities? What are the "personal elements" that "always" come with writing? Are they relevant to philosophy? How? Is the claim that "writing always comes with personal elements" personal for you but not others in philosophy? If it's just about you personally, what bearing does it have on philosophy and writing more generally? Why should anyone else care? Should maths be "sensitive to racial, class, gender, or personal, perspectives"? Should the (other)...

Yes, I think we do--generally speaking. For this reason, one of the purposes of philosophical interrogation of the concept of "race" must be to undermine it. In my teaching I try to do this where possible, and in ordinary conversation I have been experimenting with either trying to avoid racial terms altogether or using "lighter-skinned" and "darker-skinned" as descriptive terms. These terms, unlike "black" or "white" are comparative and suggest gradations and continuity (which I think accurate to the biological facts of the matter). Ethnic terms like "African" are useful, too, but don't quite bear the same force of inclusion and continuity. Nevertheless, I don't think their use terribly pernicious, except when their use is exceptional. That is, using ethnic rather than racial terms may sometimes still serve to "other," separate, subordinate, etc. when members of other groups are not desgnated with ethnic terms. There are situations, however, where using the concept of race can serve morally...