Intimate Injustice, Political Obligation, and the Dark Ghetto

Abstract

In “Justice, Deviance, and the Dark Ghetto,” Tommie Shelby argues that blacks in urban centers do not have the same set of civic obligations that bind people within the wider society. That argument is based on his claim that meaningful citizenship—defined as equal political power relative to members of the wider society, equal access to employment-oriented skill acquisition and to employment itself, equal treatment within the criminal justice system, and freedom from racially motivated police scrutiny, intimidation, harassment, and violence—does not obtain in this space. In this article I consider how an account of racial injustice like the one Shelby presents, revised with attention to the experiences of black women, their traditional activities, the institutions that regulate social reproduction, and race-gender-based harms in society, might change an account of obligation within the dark ghetto.

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