Human-caused climate change didn’t emerge out of a political or social vacuum, and the solutions won’t either. In this conversation with Museum Director Miranda Massie, philosopher and writer Dr. Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò walked museum visitors through the ways in which the conditions of climate change cannot be separated from the ongoing history of “global racial empire”—Táíwò’s term for the dominant economic and political systems of the past several centuries. He explained how an expansive understanding of reparations is a critical tool for dismantling the forces powering both global racial empire and global heating, guided by a constructive approach to politics focused on building a new world together.

Táíwò’s most recent book, Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took over Identity Politics (and Everything Else), was available for purchase and signing.

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. He is the author of two books published in 2022, Reconsidering Reparations and Elite Capture. He has published widely in both academic and popular journals and magazines, including The Guardian, The New Yorker, and The Nation. He holds a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles, and BAs in Philosophy and Political Science from Indiana University.