Sullivan, quoting Mills, describes smadditizin as "the struggle to have one's personhood recognized" [emphasis in original].
She argues that, no matter whether he embraced Marxism, Black radicalism, or racial liberalism, Mills's work opposed the non-recognition of persons.
[16] Later in his career, according to Tommie Shelby, Mills launched a sustained critique of John Rawls's contractarian theory of justice.
Shelby notes that Mills rejected the Rawlsian turn to ideal theory in political philosophy in favor of an approach that takes careful account of the realities of oppression.
[18] Reviewing Black Rights/White Wrongs in Political Theory, Ainsley LeSure observes that "[t]hough [Mills] acknowledges that racial justice need not be realized through the liberal tradition, he affirms that it can.
[24] In a 2014 publication, Mills stated, "I was a citizen of a small Third World country, Jamaica, which owed its very existence to … oppressive international forces.