A bold attempt to determine the conditions of—and the means for achieving—racial justice.
A philosopher imagines how racial activism might be reconceived.
Black dignity, Lloyd explains, involves the uncompromising affirmation of Black humanity against those who would deny it. In this book, the author, a professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova, tests the status of such affirmations in contemporary activism, offering recommendations for reform that draw on Western philosophical methods, the insights of seminal Black thinkers, and the truths revealed by key historical precedents. His approach strikes a balance between so-called “activist rhetoric,” aimed at generating political momentum, and the articulation of “systematic theory” and more formal explications of how specific conclusions have been reached. Blending the practical and theoretical in this way can feel unsatisfying when it comes to some of Lloyd’s most provocative claims: that “anti-Black racism is not just about bad choices, or about people who failed their diversity exam. It is at the center of everything, for everyone”; that Blackness serves as “the ultimate paradigm of dignity” or that “the possibility of assimilation is forever closed to Blacks.” These concepts demand a more thorough and nuanced account than he gives them. Nevertheless, the author presents striking commentary on a number of topics, including the significance of the death of Trayvon Martin, the galvanized thinking of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the productive potential of “Black Rage,” along with its balancing counterpart, “Black Love.” Lloyd incisively anatomizes the failures of multiculturalist ideals and the inadequacy of superficial reckonings with the realities of domination. The author makes it clear that acknowledging the distinctiveness of Black oppression is necessary for combatting it. Moreover, he provides intriguing interpretations of how Black experiences in America might serve as models for other efforts—such as those focused on gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation—to affirm distinctive versions of human dignity.
A bold attempt to determine the conditions of—and the means for achieving—racial justice.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-300-25367-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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SEEN & HEARD
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
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