Charles Mills’s “Black Trash”: Reproducing Race, Pig Waste, and Ecological Resistance

Abstract

The reception of the work of Charles Mills has mostly been restricted to responses to Rawls, social epistemology, and Black feminist critique. All overlook the sustained analysis of space, race, and waste, which this article argues is its most valuable contribution for critical philosophy of race today. This article claims that that in addition to “cognitive resistance,” an analysis of Black trash suggests intimate ecological resistance as a fundamental aspect of the political self-assertion of racialized “subpersons,” and argues that this challenges any qualified fidelity to the basic tenets of liberal political philosophy. Focusing on waste from the pig industry in North Carolina, the article returns to Mills’s essay “Black Trash” to demonstrate the importance of ecology to the racial contract and its renewed relevance. Building on Shatema Threadcraft’s critical engagement with Mills in Intimate Justice, the article concludes that a Black trash feminist approach that foregrounds intimate matters is necessary for ecological resistance.