"How to Think Philosophically About Black Identity," Why Radio episode with guest Tommie Shelby

10:18PM Nov 10, 2020

Speakers:

Announcer

Jack Russell Weinstein

Tommie Shelby

Keywords:

black

philosophy

questions

community

people

philosophical tradition

solidarity

blackness

philosophical

conversation

shared

identity

race

talk

part

philosophical questions

tend

tradition

philosophers

calling

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Why philosophical discussions about everyday life is produced by the Institute for philosophy and public life, a division of the University of North Dakota's College of Arts and Sciences. Visit us online at why Radio show.org

Hi, welcome to why philosophical discussions about everyday life. I'm your host jack Russell Weinstein. Today we're talking with our guests Tommy Shelby, about how to think philosophically about black identity. Like many people of my generation, I grew up watching The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. The show that made Will Smith a household name in it will play as an African American teen whose mother sent him across the country to live with his rich relatives because he got into as the song goes, one little fight. The show advertises itself as a fish out of water rags to riches story, and in all fairness, it does spend a great deal of time focusing on these themes, but this is largely subterfuge. What the show really is is a six year exploration of what it means to be a black male. Many of the show's jokes involve will tease and Carlton has rich cousin for not being black enough, culminating in the famous Carlton dance the exuberant celebration of the music of Uber white Tom Jones, but the show also features Phil banks Carlton's father, a former dashiki wearing activist turned judge who defends his own authenticity as a black man while working within the system. Now, it is absolutely not my place to take sides on what it means to be black. But it is noteworthy that part of what made the Fresh Prince unique is that it took this very controversy and put it in front and center for all of America regardless of their race. Only two years earlier in 1988. Some black critics objected to Spike Lee's movie school days doing something similar, calling attention to a cultural preference for lighter skin in historically black fraternities and sororities. They claim that Lee was wrong to air out the black community's dirty laundry for everyone else to see. Interestingly, the fresh prints in school days are a radical contrast to The Cosby Show, which thoughts off his modeling and legitimizing middle class black America with little attention to economic and cultural variation. There are at least two important premises underlying all of this. The first is that there is something that qualifies as authentically black, that there's a right and wrong way to be African American. The second is that there is something called the black community that all black people are a part of, and that whatever community it is that its members share, excuse me, whatever commonality it is that these members share, it's unique to being black. These are not unprecedented questions. philosophy has long concerned itself with personal and cultural identity, from notions of citizenship to kinship criteria, to self image to moral obligations, who we are and who we regard ourselves as being go a long way to define our experiences and expectations. As far back as the dawn of philosophy, people use the word barbarian to mean literally non Greek. This allowed the Greeks to treat others more cruelly than they did their ethnic fellows, Jews, Christians and Muslims all shared similar dichotomies at one point or another, as did various tribes and Europeans. American law and its de facto consequences are also rife with different treatment, especially of whites and blacks, even though the law strives to be colorblind. So we'll in Carlton, we're asking questions that had roots in Aristotle, Leviticus and people law questions that have no clear settled answer, but nevertheless inspire many of us to act as if they're both resolved, and certain. We analyze the preferences of black and white voters, we racially profile we live in largely segregated communities, one simply cannot understand the United States if one refuses to consider race as a relevant factor for analysis. The question before us then is, is any of this philosophically justifiable? Are there theoretical reasons to think of people as unified groups? And if so, do the way groups describe themselves have more authority than the way groups describe others outside their circles? Our guest today, his first book, we who are dark, this focused on justice, the philosophical foundations of black solidarity, he'll help us navigate these complex and fraught questions. But I have something to add. That's really important here. In the last two days, there have been two high profile black deaths at the hand of police. What now appears to be a retaliatory ambush, killing five police officers. These are more needless deaths added to a string of others that have inspired Black Lives Matter activists, and both Democratic primary candidates out in Sterling falando casteel, not to mention Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray and others were killed because they were black. Or maybe I should say that many people, including myself, are convinced that they wouldn't have been killed if they had been white. In other words, these identity questions are not just conceptual explorations, they have impact Men's real world repercussions. And this means that in a certain respect, the traditional philosophical approach is turned on its head. We're not asking questions because they're interesting, hoping that the world will adjust to our conclusions. Instead, we're asking questions because we have to, because the world demands it.

To help us through all of this, we turn to our guest, Tommy Shelby is the Caldwell tipco, professor of African and African American Studies and a philosophy at Harvard University. He's the author of we who are dark, the philosophical foundations of black solidarity, and the forthcoming book, dark ghettos and justice to set and reform. Tommy, thank you for joining us on why.

Nice to hear you, jack. It's wonderful to be here. Thanks for having me.

We're pre recording the show. So we can't take your questions live. But if you'd like you can join our listeners in our chat room at y Radio show.org. And you can always post on our Twitter feed at y radio show or on facebook@facebook.com slash white radio show. So Tommy, I mentioned the violence of the last few days, public response has been so emotional and so open, frankly. And so I have to ask you, does your work feel more urgent when you hear about these cases?

I suppose it does, in some ways, they certainly remind me of the practical relevance of my work. They definitely motivate me to dig deeper, for the truth that might shed some light on these kinds of problems. But as opposed by philosophical work, tends to take the long view attend to both backwards and forwards, I tend to look backwards toward, you know, slavery, its legacy tracing its consequences to the present, but also tend to look forward to think about the future where black peoples are truly free and equal, which might be a long way off. And to kind of philosophy I do, doesn't generally have sort of immediate practical application, since it doesn't prescribe their specific policies or marching orders for activists tries more to provide clear thinking, think identify principles to might guide action that that sort of thing

is there. And we're going to talk about what this means in just a second Africana philosophy. But is there an ivory tower for Africa philosophy, and I have to say, I've never really thought about the phrase before but of course, ivory right comes from elephants, which are on the African continent, so so there's a certain connection there just just etymologically already it. Can there be an ivory tower for this these kind of questions?

Well, I think there is in the United States and elsewhere. The Academy has, you know, had people engaged in philosophical thought not all of them identifying themselves as philosophers or professional philosophers, but often they have I mean, even in here in my own institution, you know, Alain Locke was, you know, first PhD, black PhD in philosophy here at Harvard, and went on to start the philosophy department at Howard University, historically black college. So both in historically black colleges and in we might go historically, white colleges, there is philosophical work on black issues and work in African philosophy and has been for some time now.

But there is something about Africana philosophy that is, I would say, inherently connected to the real world set in a way that maybe analyzing Khan's transcendental deduction, right might not be orders, or am I misunderstanding the boundaries of of the discourse?

No, you're right. I mean, I think that people who do what some people call Afrikaner philosophy or what might be called Black philosophy, maybe a less, euphemistic way. These are people who, you know, they might take up traditional philosophical questions, but they usually do it in the context of thinking about, you know, various aspects of black life. And, you know, they might draw on, say, very familiar conical sources and Western philosophy or even non Western philosophy but they also tend to be engaged with debates that have been going on in a broader black intellectual tradition and they sometimes strong you know, vernacular sources like black music and black folklore, the kind of debates you might hear in a black hair salon or black barbershop, so it is sort of can be, you know, grounded in every day by communal practice, but also can be grounded in if you'd like, thinking about, you know, the big questions And philosophy to people have been thinking about for for millennia.

So what then, is Africana philosophy? And let me preface that question by asking, you said, some people call it Afrikaner philosophy you call less euphemistically black philosophy? Is there a preference for one or the other? Is there a preference for? Is there an accepted preference for African American versus black? Or is it generational? I know that that Latino versus Chicano in the Latino community is very generational. Are these loaded terms? Or are they just personal preference?

I think it's personal preference. I mean, I think African philosophy is kind of become a kind of designation within us academic philosophy. And to refer to work done by sometimes done by black people, but usually not just about black people, but but taking up traditional questions with black life, where that white Africana is meant to cover both work done by by Africans, but also were done by people in the broader diaspora, whether in the US, or Canada, or the Caribbean, sometimes even in Europe. So it's kind of a catch all to capture a lot of philosophical work that's done by people of African descent, here and else in here and elsewhere. Black, I suppose, when you put, you know, black in front of philosophy in that way, maybe it sounds, you know, a little more militant, no, maybe a little bit more provocative when you put it that way. So maybe, so maybe there's a kind of preference for African philosophy in that way, because it seems maybe more academic, and less sort of, like loaded politically or less, calling, conjuring up ideas, say from the Black Power era or something like that. But I tend to say African philosophy, but I'm perfectly fine calling a black philosophy.

It's interesting that you use the word militant, because at least as I understand it, like with early feminist philosophy, Africa, kind of philosophy wasn't welcomed with open arms in the in the academy, right, there was there was suspicion there's, there was concerns, is it is it hard to get this kind of philosophy accepted in by mainstream traditional philosophers.

I suppose it is, in some ways, um, some of that maybe has to do with a dominant conception of philosophy as a standing outside of all intellectual traditions, or is not circumscribed by time or place or as, you know, the kind of thing that's sort of fully general and its answers about the human condition. And so maybe tying philosophy, philosophical questions to a given people or set of peoples and their experiences might seem, you know, at least to some people, as say, insufficiently universal, or timeless or general to count as a real philosophy.

So so when we ask questions about what is a person to do, we're supposed to ask what all people are supposed to do, not what men are supposed to do, or black people are supposed to do, or, or or Chinese people are supposed to these should be universal questions,

right? I think some people think of philosophy in that in that way. And that might lead them to be resistant to the to that idea. Not always, though, I mean, people do speak pretty freely about, you know, the German philosophical tradition, or French philosophy, and so on and so forth. And so people, I think, do recognize your different traditions for approaching philosophical questions. And some of the questions kind of arise from thinking about the particularity of the lives of those people in in a certain place in time. So I, you know, I think there is that broader conception, or dominant conception, I might say, that doesn't like to sort of see philosophy, no tie to any people place or time in that way. But I, I think most people, when I reflect on it, they realize that philosophy is sort of connected to particular political traditions, and many of his questions do arise and particular moments, given certain things that may be happening at the time

when we talk about things like black identity and black community, and we use these phrases that I introduced in the monologue, and that we're going to be talking about for a significant part of the show. Do these have direct connections to the Africana philosophers? Can we trace them back to Malcolm X to the boys to other folks who one might consider as part of this lineage?

Yes, I'd say definitely. I mean, lots of people have certainly an African American tradition. A Broader Afro Caribbean tradition, I certainly have been thinking about these issues of black identity and black solidarity for a very long time. In terms of, you know, written work, you might be able to kind of pour over like philosophers like to do, you can see a lot of this trace back to, you know, the 19th century with, you know, figures like David Walker or, you know, black nationalist figures like Martin Delaney or a figure like, you know, probably more dominant, well known figures like Frederick Douglass. And so people have certainly been thinking about these questions for a long time and writing about them even writing books about these sorts of questions. And I think for those of us who do Africana philosophy, we don't think of ourselves as just sort of just taking, you know, traditional philosophy, just kind of applying it to black problems, think we think of it as something that springs from a broader, long standing tradition of black thought, that takes us back at least to slavery and encounter of Europeans with African peoples and European colonization. So we don't have Africa. So I think we certainly sort of see our work is rooted in a broader intellectual tradition, a set of debates, a set of ideas and sources, rather than just something to just sort of sprang up in the last, you know, 50 years or something like that.

So it's not like well, all of this work in European philosophy has been done to create moral principles. And there's utilitarianism, and there's the categorical imperative. And there's the virtue ethics, let's apply this to black circumstances. Instead, it's not applied philosophy. It's its own branch of philosophy with its own discourse and its own history and its own discussion, although it may overlap at times.

Yeah, that's basically how I would describe it. I mean, not to say I don't want to say that there are some people who do Africana philosophy, who who may think of themselves as simply applying what they've learned from some more familiar Western philosophical tradition or doctrine. To to black life, people do do that. But I guess the way I understand it is, is something that is more than that. It also includes sort of respecting black philosophical discourse and debates that have been happening for for quite a long time, as you say, both independently and in conversation with a broader philosophical tradition.

So we have we have circumstances like we've had in the last few days, we've had circumstances like we've had in the last couple years, and then we've had circumstances that we've had for half a millennia. Is there trying to figure out how to how to ask this question. Where do we start? Where do we look at Afrikaner philosophy for some kind of, I don't want to say solace, because I don't think philosophy provides solace, but rather some sort of analytic tool for us to have the ability to talk about what's going on without shouting at each other without without us hating each other. Unless that's the appropriate response. Um, where do we start? Who, what thread do we pull?

It's a hard question. I mean, I think in some ways, it's hard to without, you know, kind of contextualized in the question, if you're talking about a particular problem, or racial injustice, you know, maybe these questions about, you know, what it means to be black is not really the most relevant thing. But if we're interested in questions of like, when we see by people bound together and engaged in, you know, collective direct action, you know, hitting the streets marching, and so on, you know, maybe that other kinds of tools might be might be appropriate. So it's hard, maybe somewhat difficult to answer an abstract, maybe we should focus it a little bit.

So are you suggesting that there are times when the question of black identity is more of a red herring, that we use it? We sometimes used to avoid the real issue? I'm thinking of some conservatives who will respond? Well, President Obama isn't really black. He's the product of a mixed marriage. And so his interest in in racial injustice is artificial. That seems like Well, that's not an appropriate moment when we talk about black identity. There are other sources in Africana philosophy, there are other threads to pull that will be more constructive.

Well, I I tend to think about black identity I like to make a distinction between thin blackness and thick blackness, which I have found to be helped me in thinking through some of these issues. So when I when I talk about thin blackness, it's The same kind of category within a sort of socially imposed classification scheme. Familiar scheme we use to sort people into these categories of black, white, Asian, Native American, and so on. And the category sort of serves to, to mark off a set of individuals in, say, in the US on the basis of they're having Sub Saharan African ancestry, and sharing certain visible inherited physical characteristics, things like dark skin, or tightly coiled hair or something like that. So this thin blackness is a kind of a kind of mark or it's a kind of silient, social fat, right and often carries a certain social stigma. And so when when thin blackness is the thing that's an issue, you know, a person can't really choose whether to be black or to stay black, right? I mean, it's a category that's just kind of applied apply to them. Thick blackness, on the other hand, is, I think there's a kind of social identity might be an ethnic or cultural identity. And it's something that could be adopted or altered or lost, even soften embraced as a kind of positive dimension of a person's self concept. so thick black identities are generally components of a broader conception of human flourishing conception of the fundamental aims or purposes of a good human life. And given a thick conception of blackness, it might make sense to say encourage somebody to stay black or to hold firmly to his or her Black Heritage, or someone's not really black or something like that. And it might be, you know, coherent, though, I would say not always fully justified to say that, though someone say looks black, or even just unambiguously looks black bar social criteria, that he or she is not say, really black. If you if you're talking about about thick blackness, and many of the issues that I think concern people, racial justice issues, have to do with thin blackness that is with how people are perceived and classified, using familiar conventions for sorting people into these categories. And on the basis of that people can be treated well or badly.

so thin blackness, has the person's familial history, a person's outward characteristics. This, certainly in the United States, has often been regarded as a negative trait, and one of the movement one of the goals of the Black has beautiful movement in the 1960s and early 1970s. was to say, No, these physical traits are positive, they're wonderful Malcolm X ray row, or Alex Haley, has Malcolm X write about this in his autobiography, I'm thick blackness is, is the cultural traditions and and how one identifies what one wants out of life. And so this is this is it sounds like you're suggesting that that there is a either formalized or informal notion of really life choices, that is akin to even what say Aristotle would offer or a Catholic would offer that this is how you see yourself, this is who your community is, this is what kind of choices you make. And so these two distinctions, one is maybe a fact of the matter, although it's socially constructed, and the other is a matter of choices.

Yeah, I think that's right. So I was the thin and thick, thin thick, thick distinction is meant to distinguish, say the unchosen aspects of blackness from those dimensions that are least somewhat subject to individual will. So distinctions. Certainly not meant to deny that say unchosen factors with a biology or culture or something are shaped who we are, then that's clearly the case and only we were born into our race, any of us are socialized into, you know, a kind of practice of cultural blackness from birth, if you like. And these facts about us, we can't change those facts. But of course, we we can decide what significance we're going to attach to these facts. And in particular, I think we can choose whether to positively identify with and say you affirm our blackness as a component of our self conception as on an ongoing conscious practice. I think that's something that we can, we can choose.

When we come back, we're going to dive deeper into this. And we're going to start talking about the question of black solidarity, what it means to be part of a community, and then make our way to your more recent book and talk about how social structures, ghettos and other things, interact with all these ideas. You're listening to Tommy Shelby and jack Russel Weinstein on why philosophical discussions about everyday life We'll be back right after this

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you're back with wide philosophical discussion with

everyday life. I'm

your host, jack Russell Weinstein. We're talking with Tommy Shelby from Harvard University, about black identity and how to talk philosophically about this and other related topics. And I want to talk about a photo I have, and it's sort of hard and complex to do. So for reasons that are not really worth getting into. When I was a kid, about 11 years old. In sixth grade, I shared a room for about a year with a guy named Tony Jackson, he was about 40 years old, he I was described him as a seven foot five black man, but he, he was probably about six foot five, black ex convict was a drug counselor, because he had been in jail for drug related issues. And that's often what people do. And he passed away shortly after, and I loved him deeply. And I know he loves me. And I have a photo of him and his wife on my piano. And his wife's white, a name Mary. And it's a weird photo, because it's an older photo, it's very dark. And when you first look at the photo, you see Mary very distinctly, she's very, very white. But Tony, who was very dark skinned, really fades into the background. And he when you look at the photo for a while you see him come out, you see him in his 1970s, sunglasses in the 70s shorts. And it's a really important photo to me. But when I describe the photo, I have to describe it in those ways. And it makes me really uncomfortable. It makes me really uncomfortable. Because I'm describing it in language that recalls the minstrel tradition, it recalls the racist stereotypes and cartoons of black men being hidden in the dark and only seeing their eyes and their teeth. And it makes me uncomfortable, even though the photo is of great meaning to me and my history with Tony is great personal importance. And so Tommy, I guess I tell the story, because I want to ask you, we're having a deep and important conversation about an emotionally fraught issue. And you're a black man, and I'm a white man, if you count Jesus white, and yet, I know that I'm going to say insensitive things, or I'm going to be sometimes perceived by some members of the audience as saying insensitive things, or I have to use language that is imperfect. How does the discourse change? How does the conversation change? Not because you're on a flashy radio show, which of course changes things. But when, when the conversation involves different races, different histories, different traditions, and I don't even, you know, different sensitivity levels.

Certainly changes, I'm not sure that merely the difference between white and black. I mean, that has, there's a factor, but many other things are going to play into how the conversation will unfold. Right? I mean, you mentioned things like, you know, having, sharing, you know, sharing space with some intimate space with someone of another race. It's something that not a lot of white people do, and black people do it either, you know, in terms of sharing that kind of intimate space, that kind of deep familiarity with white people want to want to kind of intimate basis where you really trust them, and you open yourself up to them. And, but but some do, and that'll make a difference to how conversation unfolds. You know, obviously, you know, just having knowledge of sort of the history of race in America, by people's experience here makes a big difference in the kind of conversation that that people can have. And I think it's one of the things that I always recommend that people do is, and it's hard in America, people don't like to look that interested in American history doesn't seem but um, to spend some time reading that history, I often suggest to people even just reading some of some of the more famous black autobiographies or give you a kind of feel of the texture of black life. And those go back from the slave narratives on up to more recent More memoir, sorts of works like, you know, the kind of thing that Tony coats done in his recent book. So I think there are lots of ways of bridging that, that gap, some of it by just finding more opportunities to interact with people of different races on in, in, you know, less fraught spaces. And some of that just a matter of just gaining background knowledge, which I think can be gained through through the reading.

I have a very vivid experience of being in early High School. And I mentioned Malcolm X earlier, because the Autobiography of Malcolm X was was profoundly important to me, both in terms of the ideas, but I remember I've very, very vivid memories of being in that room reading that book, and coming to the assassination scene and realizing that Malcolm X was killed four blocks from where I lived. And that made it real to me. Does the black philosophical tradition does it connect? I'm trying, I'm trying to, again, figure out how to ask this question. Is there an element of real connections that one might not find in the most theoretical works? And I asked this in part because, again, feminism has been really adamant about inserting narratives in their philosophical work and personal connections and trying to, to to minimize the authority of the the disconnected voice, the God's eye view, is there anything similar that that in the tradition that we're talking about, that allows people to to connect the conceptual work with the, with the actual practical experience?

I think so. I mean, a lot of people who work on these sorts of issues, find themselves engaging black literature, black music, like drama, like autobiography, like film and so on. Probably because a lot of the philosophical reflection that's gone on in the backbench electrical tradition has taken, you know, been engaged in and knows genres. And of course, this is not not familiar in the broader Western philosophical tradition, which, you know, people do often write in different genres, or use different media to get across philosophical ideas, including autobiography, but also dialogues course. And Plato's we know, you know, the fictional sorts of pieces, novels, and so on. So I think that's certainly true in in African philosophy, people. Sick prior to its kind of academic institutionalization, if you like, the mode of expression often took these other these other forms.

is, I mean, I know that that one of you co edited a book on hip hop and philosophy, as well as your two single authored books. Is hip hop, sophisticated enough to be a vehicle for philosophical exploration? And I would ask this of rock and roll and jazz and classical music as well. Or is it an entryway, gateway drug, so to speak, to philosophical ideas, which is often how I use these sorts of things on the radio show and on my blog. Is hip hop, part of the or some hip hop part of the Afrikaner philosophical tradition? Or are there distinct divisions in pop culture, and conceptual, intellectual academic work?

Well, I guess I tend not to, I mean, professional philosophers, so as I do, but I tend not to make a sharp distinction between the kind of everyday philosophizing that most people do most people who are reflective about these kind of fundamental questions about human existence in life. You know, I mean, that happens, a lot of people do this all the time, you know, my eight year old daughter does it so so there is you know, an obviously there's a difference in sophistication from the the professional who has time to sit and really work out these things and in great detail and taught by a lot of people who have a lot of time on their hands to think through these things and in great detail. But But I so I wouldn't say it's merely sort of inspiration. I think people are actually engaged in philosophical reflection grappling with philosophical questions in everyday life and in these other genres of expression apart from the philosophical essay or treatise. But yeah, there is certainly some difference in systematicity and and precision and sophistication. And background knowledge what other people have done on those same questions. those differences certainly are, are there but I certainly have found it helpful in my own thinking. Whether listening to hip hop or reading a novel or seeing a good a good film is often helped me to think through things and given me ideas, different way of looking at things that maybe, you know, allow me to make progress on the things that I've been been reflecting on for some time now.

So part of what I've been trying to do in this episode so far is to is to give a overview or or have you described for us an overview of the tools that we use to to ask these these harder questions. And so let me then go directly to a particular difficult question. And ask about thick blackness and ask, okay, is there a clear idea of what it means to be black? What does it mean to be black in the sickest sense?

I don't think that I mean, that people have answers, you know, I'm not sure there's, it makes sense to think of, there's being like one answer to that I think that people will find different ways of being picky black that are that are satisfying for them and perfectly defensible. And some of those ways might diverge from the way that other people do that. So I don't, when I ask the question, you know, what does it mean to be to be black in the fixed sense, I don't think could possibly have one answer. That's not to say that some of the answers that people provide might not be confused or problematic or rooted in, you know, vicious sentiments, and so on. And that can that can happen, too. So it's not to say that there are forms of thick blackness that, you know, should be criticized or rejected. It's just to say that I don't think that we should imagine that there's some one way of being black that everybody must conform to or else they are inauthentic or, you know, somehow self hating?

Are there. Are there a few major answers that get the most attention? I'm thinking of, say, Afro centrism or black nationalism or attempts to assimilate? Uh, what are? What are the the main contenders?

That's our question. I mean, not sure, I would say that Afro centrism is one of the main contenders. I mean, I I differently, people who I think have an afro centric worldview and orient themselves, according to those ideals. But lots of other people, I think, you know, find, you know, meaning in, in ways that are not so ways of being black, they're not so tied to the, to the black nationalist tradition, it most people I, most black people, if they had been raised in black communities, and have a lot of interaction with with black people. So black institutions, will certainly be be shaped one way or another by black nationalist ideas, or by Christian ideas or by Muslim ideas, because those ideas have been very influential and, and circulate quite freely within black within black cultural, cultural practice. So most people are certainly familiar with those ways of orienting yourselves in the world, and will have adopted certain pieces of those ways of looking at things. And they're going to be you know, certainly if someone, you know, talked about being a, you know, a black, you know, atheist humanist life will be more marginal, if you like way of being back in the world. But it's still a perfectly I think, legitimate one.

So, I'm going to ask a question inspired, in part by Augustine's City of God, where for our listeners, Augustine argued that you are a city of of your citizens citizen of the city that you ultimately believe it if you believe in God and the Christian way that you were a member of the City of God and you could live next to a person who wasn't a Christian and then you were a part of a different city even though you are geographically located. In black America, given the history of migration of the great migration of slavery of economics, black communities tend to be densely connected and segregated. Is is G geographical location, therefore an inadequate way to describe what makes a black community are there Dozens of overlapping communities within a black neighborhood say that really have nothing to do with each other. It's just that politically, we think of this neighborhood is black, or this, you know, this area is the black area. And that that's that's an artificial imposed notion, or is there something about living together in a in a segregated and often forced segregated way? That means that the neighborhood is itself by definition of community?

That's a good question. I mean, I certainly, you know, for much of blacks history in the United States, blacks have been kind of forced to live together in the same communities lots of, but by law, you know, because of the threat of violence, if you don't, and that that's something so you for a long time, you know, the idea of a black community is sort of situated in space, that is, people being in the same, you know, neighborhood community living together, separated from from from whites. You know, by the late 60s, early 70s, this starts to change, partly due to the black freedom struggle, so rights movement to open things up and cut down on discrimination in housing, and opening up spaces for blacks to enter higher education and energy professions. And so you, you, you have, you know, sort of black professional class enabled to, to, to, to move and live where they want, because they have the means to do so often, and are better able to to get the rights respected, then more disadvantaged blacks. So that that change, certainly, I think, affects the character of black communities in that there. You don't have black class, all black classes sort of represented in the same neighborhoods, that's pretty rare to have that what you have is a concentration of disadvantage, a working class and poor blacks, usually in and around major cities in the US. And so we, I guess, one can sort of those are certainly black communities. And I think it will be a mistake to think that there is no black community beyond that. I do think there's a sense of black community that transcends neighborhood. And that is something that shared even when people don't, don't live in the same live in the same neighborhoods, but there's no question that that has been transformed in some ways, by the ways things have opened up in some ways for those who are able to take advantage of educational opportunities.

Could we use the terms are thin and thick that you talked about in terms of black identity to apply here and say, something like a place like Ferguson, or a place like Detroit, are thin black communities, because that's just the geographical and the demographic structure. But a thick black community is a community of people with shared values, who have shared outlooks and who really see the their life and their living circumstances and their space as a shared project with wood that transfer those those ideas?

I think so I think I tend to make a distinction between black community and black solidarity, I don't think of them as is quite the same, though they do overlap. I mean, the sense of, you know, the idea of black community doesn't necessarily have to be sort of politically loaded, people can enjoy living together, because they share some common experiences, they're comfortable with each other, they have certain cultural practices in common. Their their heritage might be such that it leads them to want to be together and treat that as a kind of common background knowledge and interactions. And, and none of that needs to be motivated by any kind of political campaign. So I think of that is kind of think of that as sort of black community. By solidarity, I think is is different. I mean, it is political. It has to do with people making a joint commitment to each other, to to fight for some cause, usually, like a box to fight for. Justice for for black people here and elsewhere. And I think so I think that's black solidarity, I think has a different character. And there are different things I would say about that than I would then I would say about the idea of black community.

So are there and I'll steal from the title of your book, are their legitimate philosophical reasons? What are the philosophical foundations of black solidarity? what justifies it? This connectedness other than the accidents of history and, and biology.

I mean, let me take that, and maybe in two in two parts, um, it might help just to say a little bit about kind of what I have in mind when I talk about solidarity. So maybe they'll say something about that. Sure. So I tend to think of solidarity, this is quite General, right as having, say, five core components. On the one hand, there's a kind of mutual identification of the group members that kind of openly empathize with each other, they publicly identify with each other. Second, there is a kind of special concern that is that these members are disposed to say come to each other's aid, right? Especially the worst off in the group. And, and they might do that even when it calls for some kind of personal sacrifice. And then there are this common values and goals, right. These are the set of values or objectives that are sort of widely shared in the group and are generally known to be widely shared in the group. And fourth, there's, there's loyalty. So the group members, they tend to, they stick by each other, they abstain from actions that are going to undermine your group's basic aim, say, and finally, there's trust, the group members are there confident that others in the group, or at least a sufficient number of others will do their part, to defend the group's values and to advance to the group's fundamental goals. So I think of those five elements as comprising a type of commitment, this is one that an individual can freely undertake, or they can refuse to undertake abstain from, it's a kind of pledge or vow, let's say, a way of sincerely binding yourself to other people and a cause. And so once you've kind of made that pledge, and it's fair, then for others who have solidarity, to rightly hold you accountable for that commitment that you that you've undertaken. So I think of that as a if you'd like solidarities, general form, and that will be true for other forms of solidarity, you could give, I think, a similar analysis for solidarity in the working class, or women and so on. And so I think all all forms of group solidarity have those characteristics, when we're talking about, but then they're different types of solidarity, right. And here, I think it's important to there. To distinguish these different types by two things, one, the the criteria, we'll be talking about this already the criteria that we use for determining membership in the group. And second, the specific values and goals that the members of the group are, say jointly committing themselves to. So we can think of those two things category for group membership and a specific values and goals as constituting the content of solidarity and the five characteristics I gave characters because I gave before as as describing its form. And if that's helpful, and frame

headings, it is because it helps us understand I think that, that there's this general case of solidarity, but it also allows us to see all of the choices in solidarity and and I really like the notion of that with these choices, then comes responsibility, then comes accountability. So I'm going to ask a leading question, and it's a leading question, because I know you've, you've done some work on this. There's some people who will say, okay, you see yourself in solidarity with other people in your community with other African Americans. And yet, you take welfare, and you don't work. And that is a betrayal of that solidarity. Is this is there a moral obligation, to the community, to, to the solidarity to the community, to abide by this standard of, of work, and to be the best you can be and be a go getter? And, and, or, or so. So because, and we have to talk about this in a couple minutes, because economics and race is so intertwined. And because at least the perception of the black community is that there's there's both a significant unemployment and significant lack of personal responsibility, and I am not assenting to that premise being true. Though that criticism that people who are not working are betraying that solidarity. Is that a fair criticism?

I think No, I mean, I think I often think back to work that Martin Luther King did in some of his later writings after the Voting Rights Act, and 65 was passed. You know, he tended to focus his work on what he called Black slums or black ghettos where unemployment tends to run very, very high and has now you know, some 50 years been on quite high. Some of that joblessness, is, of course involuntary and is something that King would emphasize is that somebody has to do with features of living in a society that organizes its economy and account in a capitalist way, that you know, it is a tendency to, to keep labor costs down and to develop technology in a way that is you can increase productivity. And one byproduct of that is that often people find themselves either thrown out of work on unable to find work, or only able to find insecure work or temporary or part time work. And, you know, that's a feature of life. So some people, some black people are going to be unemployed, because of that some are going to be unemployed just because of racial discrimination, which continues unemployment, both in in the private, private labor market and as well documented. But some people of course, might not be working, because they they're basically refusing to work, they refuse any work, because of the conditions under which they are expected to work, the kinds of jobs that are available to them the type of pay that you're likely to get, they might refuse, because of each sort of situation, they might need to take care of our young children, and it might be difficult for them to do that adequately, and also occupied concert jobs that are available to them. So I don't think it's it, I think it would be unfair to criticize a black person is not living up to like expectations, or, you know, being a good, you know, comrade amongst black people, if they don't if they're not working, because both because of these involuntary sources of unemployment, but also because sometimes voluntary unemployment, choosing not to work can be justified, given the kinds of options that might be available.

Is there a reason to not work? That is about personal values, independent of choices. And I'll give you an example of what I mean, I was, I was a guest speaker at a leadership class on another campus. And a student brought up this question of, you know, basically what we're talking about now, which is people who are unemployed and not contributing to the community. And I was thinking of, against by please do the right thing. And also, some of the characters in Harlem shuffle and some other movies, where they didn't have jobs, but they sat on the corner all day with each other, and they knew everyone in town on the block, and they and they, and they watched and they communicated and they spread news, and their presence, there was a kind of stability and a kind of social control, in some sense, might want to say that these folks are actually contributing more to a community, then leaving working 55 hours a week, never being home, never talking to their neighbors, that that that capitalist model that you refer to that that Martin Luther King talks about, it presumes that labor is the best thing that you can contribute. But isn't there a place for people who are present in the community and who see their job as connecting people socially, even if it appears to be to not have labor and to not have productive value?

I think so. I mean, I think in the US, it's we tend to think of, you know, work in this in the sense of making a positive contribution to society dependent, completely depends on whether the market will reward your your activity, right. And, but there are lots of forms of work ways of contributing to the common good, that the market won't pay, you know, and we know this, right, we know that this because a lot of the work that's done in, you know, caring for the young, caring for the old caring for the infirm is done by women and it's not paid, and, and couldn't be more important. And some of the work I think, that people could do are, you know, maintaining stability in the community, as you suggest, or there might be forms of work that the public sector should support because it would be be good you know, for the for the society as a whole. So I think part trouble with the focus on people not working is that people feel the only measure of the value of their activity is, is whether they earn a living, doing it and earn a living by way of the market, rewarding it but there are many valuable things that are worth doing. The market won't reward and there are many things that the market will reward that is not worth doing.

Is it possible to detach economic injustice in the United States from racial injustice in the United States? Are they necessarily intertwined?

I think they're pretty tightly connected. I mean, I think it's clear that there are some economic and justices that affect people of all races, though they tend to affect affect blacks and Latinos sort of disproportionately. So, but they're clearly tied and been tied since the beginning of black people come to this country as slaves, right. So the the connection between, you know, race and economy, race and economic citation, racing economic disadvantages is pretty tight. And I don't think it can really make a lot of progress and thinking through the problems of race that we find ourselves dealing with. Unless we theorize these two things together.

I, I think, again, about the neighborhood I grew up, I grew up in Washington Heights, in upper upper Upper Manhattan, which was the crack distribution center of the east coast in the 1970s and 80s. And one of the there were a couple reasons why this was the case, it was an Latino immigrant neighborhood, mostly Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Cuban, but, but it was infrastructurally. It's the one place in the East Coast, where all of the major highways interact. I live right almost below the George Washington Bridge, and all of the highways intersected and so it became an outstanding place for drug trafficking, and actually sex trafficking. And, and, and so the the oppression, the violence, the fear, the poverty, all had very, very specific economic connections. And people when they talk about Washington Heights, which is now a much better place to live, and they talk about ghettos. They tend not to talk about these causal effects. And so I guess the question, which I was leading to, was, uh, do we have a healthy way of talking about ghettos? Do we have a when we talk about it economically? Is it fair to the social aspects when we talk about it socially? Is it fair to the economic aspects? Are you satisfied with the way that the public discourse thinks about talks about an argues about the existence and the way we should respond? The ghettoization of people?

No, not really, at all. I mean, I think that people tend to moralize about the behavior of disadvantage by people concentrated in around our cities. focusing on what what are perceived as their irresponsibility or imprudence. And and I think that if you if you just focus on if that's the only way you can frame things, and you're not even beginning to understand what's at the heart of black disadvantage in these sorts of places, and I think that even extends to some of the work that I people in the social science and social policy community. I mean, I think even there is a tendency to not fully see people, as agents as moral and political agents as making decisions about how they're going to respond to injustice as reflecting on what's an appropriate response to their condition. And I think when you frame things that way, is a tendency to be, you know, either paternalistic or, or punitive. And that's basically what we've seen, you know, since the 60s, when the the ghetto becomes kind of a topic of, you know, public discourse, and in law and policy, and that there are numerous books written on that, you know, so for over 50 years, I think, we we've been discussing these questions that they go either in a highly moralistic way, or in a way that's rooted in a scientific study of social structure. But it doesn't really fully appreciate our capture the ways in which, you know, in some ways that the ghetto denizens were talking about the their philosophical orientation to their condition, right, that is their reflection on what they're up against. What's a dignified way of responding to that, when it's appropriate to dissent, what forms of dissent are justified, given the circumstances that you're facing? You don't get a lot of careful serious analysis of that. Even I think in the social science and policy community,

as an example of sort of the way that we moralize and ignore the dignified nature of responses. I'm thinking about There's been a change in tone about protests in the last 15 years or so maybe 20, that protests are now referred to first and foremost as peaceful protests. And the implication there is that most protests are either on the verge of violence or are violent, and that you have to remember that this is a dangerous circumstance, and that it can blow at any time. But these people were the good people, and they were peaceful, instead of just calling it protests and then calling a violent circumstance, something else a riot. Or even just a violent protest making the norm the non violent is, are there other examples of ways that we, unconsciously or perhaps consciously for some people, poison the well, when we talk about otherwise dignified responses to injustice in the ghetto? Yes, I

mean, I think, me to try to be charitable, I mean, I think to some of these responses. I mean, one of the things you see you say, to return to King for a moment, no king writes about the watch Riot and 65. And no, and there were subsequent riots that happened before he died, and of course, numerous ones after he was assassinated. And so you know, these things familiar to people and scary to people, and some scary to some black people that you can have a very combustible situation where people are deeply disadvantaged, feel unjustly disadvantaged, a frustrated with the rate of progress, so frustrated, by the way, they're treated by public officials, particularly the police, but not only them, they feel like they don't have a voice. They can't be they can't be heard, we know that under these kinds of conditions. violence can erupt. That's not a figment of people's imagination, it can happen. So I think that's something that to be on, on on guard about. But I'd say also with Nicolas to peaceful protests, you know, those can take different forms to mean one of the things that I think King was pushing for toward the end of his life was ways of using nonviolent direct action in and ghetto communities to try to make progress forms of civil disobedience, you know, breaking public order regulations, in order to draw attention to injustice, being willing to, to go to jail to draw attention to the the serious and justices that are happening in these communities, using economic pressure or boycotts. Operation breadbasket was one thing he will you can target, you know, corporations, businesses that say, are refusing to hire black people, or treating them badly, or otherwise exploiting black communities, you can target them for, for boycott in order to to get some kind of relief to get them to change course. So there are forms of political protest that are non violent. But that can be aggressive, that can be militant, uncompromising, they can make people uncomfortable. And I think that could be that could be effective. So I, the I think there's a lot of space between, you know, a riot and what some people I think, think of as a kind of peaceful march, where people just saying and, and, and hold up signs.

You know, it's funny, this is the second time in our conversation, at least, that you've used the term militant, and when I was much younger, and an activist, I probably thought positively about that term. But then I really forgot about it for a long time. I don't want to say that negatively. I just didn't really think about it, but it's a tremendously useful term. And it's, I think, very positive in a lot of respects. Would you talk a little bit more about this idea of what makes something militant and, and and why a militant response to something might be a positive response?

Sure, I'll try. I mean, when I say mythen I really just mean maybe a couple things, one that you know, an insistence on change now. I think King always pointed out at the time for justice is always now rather than this sort of focus on incremental it'll vent things will eventually work themselves out kind of thing, right? You know, things must change. Now you have gross, serious and justices that are burdening people, those things should be addressed. Now. We shouldn't have to wait. And also a kind of uncompromising Seeing spirit of sort of unwillingness to just kind of give in to injustice, to submit to it, to just kind of take what you can get, but rather this insisting on what you take justice to really require. And that might mean to take to add a third thing, it might mean that, you know, tactically, you will have to do things that some people will regard as outside the bounds of legitimate political activity, right doesn't necessarily mean that you're calling for violent response. It but it might mean being being very aggressive in the things that you do in order to draw attention to the things that that that matter, again, pointing to things like disrupting events, planning things like using language films that are provocative and that kind of shake people up and make them get a certain amount of discomfort. boycotts that put economic pressure on I mean, doing things that are aggressive and not just sort of merely symbolically vocalizing, you're vocalizing your dissent and expressing your displeasure. But using tactics that that might, at least in some people's eyes, seem seem unacceptable.

Aren't the standards of what constitutes aggressive though racialized in themselves, and and the bar for aggressive for someone who is black is much lower. I'm thinking both of Beyonce and the performance she did that the Superbowl last year, which was, you know, non threatening, in any bodily sense, just a work of art. But the reaction was so vehement against it that Saturday Night Live has been made fun of it by creating a fake movie trailer called the day Beyonce turned black, and then and then, and then the whole analysis of of President Obama's demeanor and how many political analysts would say things like he has to avoid being looking like the the angry black man, and that set of emotions is not available for him. So isn't even the term aggressive itself loaded and hard to pin down?

No, you're certainly Right. I mean, I do think that many people are put off by any form of black self assertion. And so there are and has been for some time that you know, a sense of the good black, what it is to be a good black person, a person doesn't make trouble they fit in, they don't speak out. When injustice occurs, they do basically just follow follow norms and expectations. And people who step outside of that, and it may not be stepping very far as you point out, are often seen as troublemakers as problematic as people who need to be put in their place and constrained.

Right, Henry Louis Gates, your colleague at Harvard, was stepped out of that bounds when he was unlocking his door because he was wearing a backpack coming back from a trip, right, that led to the famous coffee summit in the beginning of the Obama administration, the permissible semi semiotics level of clothing, what they wear, and people wear and all that kind of stuff, that itself is incredibly narrow, right?

That's right. I mean, we've saw that with controversy around Trayvon Martin an idea of the, the hoodie is something well, at least one black people wear hoodies all the time and doesn't seem to be a problem, but when black people especially black men, and black boys wear hoodies, it can be seen as threatening in itself, right, um, you know, clothing styles that are, you know, many cases just a matter of fashion, right and making a statement. And people have a long tradition of using clothing and fashion as a way of expressing themselves and, you know, creating beauty in the world as they see it. And some of that can be seen as aggressive and transgressive just styling your hair, you know, you know in a what people call it, you know, natural hairstyle, rather than say, straightening it in some way or putting it in the way that looks resembles the way that say why people wear their hair that can be seen as as as threatening. So it's true, no, those these things, of course, can be be turned to good use in the sense that they are the willingness to perform these, if you like, modes of unacceptable blackness can be ways of signaling to other black people of that as we like to say you're down for the cause, that you are a person to be trusted in a collective struggle that we're engaged in to try to bring about justice here and elsewhere for for our people. So sometimes those modes of expressions, you know, signal something Important sometimes they're they're meant to register, you know, public political dissent. And one could take advantage of the fact that you're stepping outside, you know, what's acceptable step stepping outside your place, as a, as a mode of political protest, though, sometimes, it's just because it's beautiful.

And I accept that right. And this is one of the we don't have to have this conversation. But this is one of the deep philosophical questions in things like cultural appropriation. Right? If If, if a Caucasian person is going to wear a dashiki, because it's beautiful, are they are they transgressing in some negative way? Um, but but that I don't want to put that can of worms. But um, but um, I think to a certain extent, we've gone full circle, right, in the sense that when we first started talking, we talked about African philosophy and its place in the philosophical tradition, and its acceptance or rejection by will say the more conservative or traditional elements of philosophy. were, we were having the same conversation, weren't we? The the the unacceptable blackness, extended to unacceptable black philosophy. And so in a certain sense, part of what your work is doing, is not just analyzing the freedoms that that African Americans should have and what the best we can do and what a non ideal society, but also reasserting that blackness in philosophy itself, isn't that right?

That's correct. I certainly have, you know, tried, in my own work to, to do just that. I mean, I'm interested in traditional philosophical questions, many philosophers, but but I certainly been trying to push the boundaries to, you know, I write about black thinkers, which is something that, you know, a lot of philosophers Don't, don't do really, I mean, there's not, I don't think anybody. I mean, all through my training in graduate school, I was never assigned a single test text by a black writer, you know, in all my time in graduate school, so I try to change that I will teach courses on on Dubois, or I'll teach a course on Richard Raider, I'll, I'll teach a course on black nationalism and things of that sort to bring those sources into the conversation to bring those debates into the conversation. You know, I might write something about hip hop, or, or engage aspects of inaccurate culture, in order to show that, that the black people in their everyday lives are engaged in philosophical reflection, and that those voices are worth hearing as well. So it's certainly a part of, you know, if you'd like motivic blackness for me to make these choices, and in the kinds of things that I work on, and the ways I write about them, when I tend to emphasize it in my work.

Somebody asked one, one last question. It's a little bit of an inside baseball question, but but I think that all of our listeners will understand the connections, the conversation. When I teach political philosophy, particularly contemporary political philosophy, I'll include, for example, the Charles Mills, who's a contemporary, a black contemporary political philosopher who works in the social contract tradition. But if I'm teaching a philosophy, one on one class, and I want to bring in some black voices, and I bring in, let's say, Frederick Douglass, or as many anthologies do, Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham Jail, How do I know the line between wanting to be inclusive? And tokenism? How do I know as a responsible teacher and as someone who who supports pretty much every idea of racial justice, whatever, I conceive that to be, um, how do I know what I'm what I'm really including voices in a constructive fashion, and what I'm fetishizing or making someone a token, and I guess, to enlarge that to people who don't have to teach intro to philosophy, I guess I you know, we all know that the television show that has the one black character out of 50, or the one Asian character or the one female character, and that there's a sense on university pamphlets where, you know, every picture is a multicultural ideal, regardless of what the the current student makeup is here at UMD. We struggle with that. Where's the line between experimenting with inclusion and having a token choice to make myself feel better or take the easy way out?

That's a hard one. Um, I mean, you know, when it comes to a syllabus, you can only put so many things, right. So it depends on what you're doing. I mean, so there's a way in which everything is kind of token representation and many and in Minnesota by we find ourselves, putting a little bit of this, a little bit of that to introduce students to things that we know there's so much more. So I often recommend to people that part of what you what you do is is even though you can only teach, you know, this one essay or something like that, in your, in your, in your class, given other things you're trying to cover. That doesn't mean that's all you read me, you may know, you know, take the time to read a lot, a lot more about the figure often feel that way about the voice. I mean, Dubois wrote was a speech became an essay, the conservation races and it's 97 famous became became kind of famous partly because of the debate that sprung up that the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah sort of started in the 80s. And

he was actually a guest on the show with a wonderful episode. He, our listeners know him,

quite fun to film, he had a big impact on me and my philosophical development. And that essay of his on Dubois and conservation of races became very influential in in academic philosophy, lots of lots of people wrote responses to it. But I think what I often often feel like people, when they think about the boys as as a thinker, they tend to limit themselves to say, reading that essay, and maybe reading some part of the Souls of Black Folk, but of course, even it's also black folk, pop 1903. I mean, you know, the boys live 60 more years, right, and wrote tons and tons of books and all kinds of essays and wrote on pretty much every conceivable genre and had a very philosophical cast of mind was an undergraduate philosophy major here at Harvard, and study with William James and others here. And I think it's one thing that one can do is spend some time with with, with some of those other writings. And so in the context of teaching, say that token piece, you can bring out the, the many other things, they have to contribute other ways in which they are engaged in the great discussion that we call philosophy. And in that way, at least, from the standpoint of feeling like you're doing this in good faith, you know, you're, you're showing that you're really taking the thinker seriously and willing to spend time in their mind by by carefully reading more of your corpus.

And I think that's a wonderful place to end the conversation, because I think we can extend that notion of good faith, to most of our race oriented thoughts and discussions and in general, what it's like to deal with, with otherness. Take that mind, seriously, try to spend some time in that person's mind and try to think of them, excuse me, holistically, as opposed to just this one tiny slice that you interact with. Tom, Tommy, Shelby, thank you so much for joining us on on what could have been a very, very difficult front conversation but was wonderful and accessible and really instructive for me, and I'm sure for our listeners as well.

Thanks so much for having me, jack. I appreciate it.

You've been listening to Tommy Shelby and jack Russel Weinstein on wide philosophical discussion about everyday life. We'll be back right after this.

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You're back with jack Russel Weinstein on why philosophical discussions about everyday life. We were talking with Tommy Shelby asking the question, how do we talk philosophically about black identity, a fraught topic a complicated topic, a sensitive topic and one that of course, I approached with particular care, because I don't want to offend anybody. And it's funny because philosophy itself in some senses is inherently offensive. We're forcing people to ask questions and to consider things that they take for granted and bring race into the equation and it becomes more complicated. We saw that we saw that with the early reception to African philosophy, the notion that black thinkers are not necessarily part of the discussion in philosophy and The world is forcing us. I think happily, that we're being forced to think about it, all of the circumstances in which we're forced are awful. And so when we ask about black identity and African philosophy, we start to get a nuanced, more philosophical view, we have this notion of thin identity, which is the identity that's pushed upon you by your history and by your skin color. And then you have thick identity, which is the choices that you make the values that that you espouse the connections that, that you hold the loyalties that you are committed to. And when we talk about block identity in this country, we so rarely talk about the second, we only talk about the first but that's not fair, because it doesn't treat African Americans like whole people. It only takes the African American as someone whose identity is foisted on them, by circumstance, and by biological and historical accident, and not by the choices that they make the learning that they've engaged in the experiences that they've had the love, the sharing the anger, the the frustrations, the full range of human emotions, because it is still radical to suggest that people of every color and every race are equally human. philosophy has denied it, politics have denied it, and the violent incidences of the last few days certainly have denied it. Philosophy allows us to see that there's nothing wrong with being militant, that sometimes being militant is unnecessary and a moral response. Because you don't want to wait for change. Sometimes change has to happen. So the notion of community the notion of solidarity. These are all philosophical ideas that are built on this notion of identity and until we take black identity with the seriousness that it deserves. We can't have a full conversation. This is an urgent issue. This is a question not just of intellectual interest. It is a question of justice. And I am tremendously grateful that Tommy Shelby was here to share these ideas with us and to show us with such clarity, where we have to go from here. You've been listening to jack Russell Weinstein on live philosophical discussions about everyday life as always, it's an honor to be with you.

Why is funded by the Institute for philosophy and public life, Prairie Public Broadcasting in the University of North Dakota is College of Arts and Sciences and division of Research and Economic Development. Skip wood is our studio engineer. The music is written and performed by Mark Weinstein and can be found on his album Louis soul. For more of his music, visit jazz flute Weinstein calm or myspace.com slash Mark Weinstein. Philosophy is everywhere you make it and we hope we've inspired you with our discussion today. Remember, as we say at the Institute, there is no ivory tower.