Darker than Blue: On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture - Paul Gilroy

Authors

Shiera S. el-Malik, DePaul University

Abstract

In this work, Paul Gilroy charges academics including scholars of the African and Black Diaspora with inadequately addressing ethical questions of racial hierarchy. He posits that academics apply a uniquely American framework of racial hierarchy to their analyses of places other than the U.S. The result, according to Gilroy, is that American conceptions of blackness (and whiteness) then substitute for social structures regardless of people’s lived experiences. Further, this globalised spectacle of blackness operates in the service of the U.S. imperial war machine. Gilroy argues that the current moment of geo-political restructuring offers opportunities for rethinking the connection between racial hierarchy and moral economy. His hopeful conclusion is that “peace, love and harmony” have the potential to outshine the morally bankrupt and anti-human politics of late-20th and early-21st centuries (177). He aims to resurrect utopian conceptions of society that are still accessible in the work of decolonisation theorists like Léopold Senghor, Amilcar Cabral, and especially Frantz Fanon, while also bringing attention to bear on the humanism that drove musicians like Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix.

Recommended Citation

el-Malik, Shiera S. (2011) "Darker than Blue: On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture - Paul Gilroy," International Dialogue: Vol. 1, Article 9.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32873/uno.dc.ID.1.1.1009
Available at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/id-journal/vol1/iss1/9