One of the most important books I’ve read over the past couple of years is Tommie Shelby’s Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent and Reform. One of the passages that struck me most forcefully at the time is where he discusses the value of self-respect in the face of oppression. “Those with self-respect,” he writes, “live their lives in a way that conveys their conviction that they are proper objects of respect. For example, they resist the efforts of others to mistreat them and openly resent unfair treatment.” (98)
He has a brief, but powerful discussion of this value in and the need to resist if it is to be affirmed:
Oppression can erode a person’s sense of self-respect, causing one to doubt one’s claim to equal moral status. We can understand an attack on one’s self-respect as an action, policy, or practice that threatens to make one feel that one is morally inferior, that one does not deserve the same treatment as others. To maintain a healthy sense of self-respect under conditions of injustice, the oppressed may therefore fight back against their oppressors, demanding the justice they know they deserve, even when the available evidence suggests that justice is not on the horizon. They thereby affirm their moral worth and equal status.
…. Persons with a strong sense of self-respect sometimes refuse to co-operate with the demands of an unjust society. They stand up for themselves, are defiant in the fact of illegitimate authority, refuse to comply with unjust social requirements, protest maltreatment and humiliation, and so on, even when they know that such actions will not bring about justice or reduce theor suffering. Self-respect, then, can be a matter of living with a sense of moral pride despite unjust conditions. (99-100)
This seems absolutely right to me. Resistance may turn out to be futile in the sense that it brings about no lasting change or improvement in conditions, though we hope that it will. Often, as Shelby says a few lines later on, discretion is the better part of valour, both morally and prudentially. But sometimes people just have to stand up to affirm their status as human beings. And when they do the rest of us have to stand with them, and we deny their value, and demean our own if we turn our backs. This is why the many acts of resistance and protest by black Americans and those standing with them are so deeply moving and significant, however this ends.
{ 13 comments }
Leo Casey 06.03.20 at 4:05 pm
“When an individual is protesting society’s refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him.†— Bayard Rustin
Chetan Murthy 06.04.20 at 6:26 am
This was good (and in the same vein as the OP):
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/02/malcolm-x-on-being-american/
I’m typically not such a big fan of Counterpunch, but they have their moments …. like when they replay Malcolm X. Boy oh boy: I listened to this, and it was riveting. He’s riveting. And yeah, he stands up for himself, and he respects himself and demands that you respect him.
Moz in Oz 06.04.20 at 9:28 am
“Those with self-respect,†he writes, “live their lives in a way that conveys their conviction that they are proper objects of respect.
It’s far too easy to read that as “if George Floyd just respected himself more he would still be alive”, because that is the usual way slavers talk to their prey. We hear it all the time, often in the context of whitesplaining to
angryblack people. That’s exactly backwards: the obligation is on the oppressor to demonstrate that they’ve changed and the oppressed have something to gain from cooperation. Right now the reverse is happening.I think Trevor Noah’s clip was much more eloquent than I can hope to be
https://youtu.be/v4amCfVbA_c
An Australian philosopher put it thus: respect can’t be demanded, it has to be inspired. Trump inspires riots…
Chris Bertram 06.04.20 at 2:29 pm
@Moz obviously Tommie Shelby wrote those words in advance of this particular episode, and I think it unlikely that a leading black philosopher is whitesplaining anything to anybody.
Wats 06.04.20 at 5:02 pm
Inspiring rather than demanding respect? Fanon says, ‘I find myself suddenly in the world and I recognize that I have one right alone: That of demanding human behaviour from the other’ (Black Skin, White Masks)
Moz in Oz 06.04.20 at 10:20 pm
Chris: I’m sorry, I assumed you were white. The photo in your linked bio is ambiguous.
Even so, you choosing those particular words to publish after the “rioting and looting won’t get you liberation” backlash starts seems odd to me. I’m struck by the difference between the abstract you linked to which appears to emphasise the need for the oppressor to change and the quote you picked out which puts the responsibility on the oppressed to show self-respect first. I am more inclined to see Trevor Noah’s words reflected in “the urban poor as moral agents responding to injustice” than your need for “self-respect in the face of oppression”.
Your piece came across to me as studiously neutral, skirting around questions of agency and carefully refusing to condemn anyone. I’ve tried to read it positively but I just keep coming out feeling it’s passive and fatalistic. Sure, you’re part of “the rest of us have to stand with them”, but you’re apparently not even at the stage of writing a strongly worded letter, let alone taking direct action.
Chris Bertram 06.05.20 at 7:13 am
@Moz my purpose in writing the post was to encourage people to read the work of a prominent black American philosopher whose words (and entire book) I found relevant to the current situation. I find nothing fatalistic in Shelby’s words, but I find an acute problem in reading comprehension in your comments. Please go away.
mua ban thuoc tay 06.05.20 at 7:13 am
respect comes from the heart, if oppression is greater than respect, it will kill your respect in themselves and that may be true in that situation.
Matt 06.05.20 at 8:25 am
Thanks for posting this, Chris. I think Shelby is one of the best political philosophers writing today. I’ve read a couple of the papers that feed in to this book, but not the whole thing yet. This makes me more sure that I should get the book.
Rob Chametzky 06.05.20 at 9:31 pm
In Duke Ellington’s milieu, the lesson taught was “to command, rather than demand, respect (for the race).”
—-Rob Chametzky
Chetan Murthy 06.06.20 at 12:24 am
Chris, I fear perhaps Moz has misinterpreted you (or maybe I have). You cited:
and to me, this was clear. It wasn’t demanding that the oppressed behave in some “respectable” manner, or “show respect”, or something like that. Instead, it was saying that the oppressed should first respect themselves, and in doing so, demand respect from others, and esp. their oppressors. I don’t see how this is anything other than excellent? Moz wrote
but really, what the quote (and maybe you) are saying, is that you’ve got to believe in your own worthiness, your own …. to use Kant’s word, “being a moral subject, not a moral object” (an end, not a means) before you can force others to yield to you your rights. If you don’t believe in the inalienability of your rights, you can’t get them back.
Shorter (maybe?): To free yourself from oppression, you first have to shake off the oppression in your own mind, in your own spirit, in your own heart. Because live long enough with oppression, and you start policing yourself, oppressing yourself.
Maybe another way of putting it: no oppressor just voluntarily realizes they’re a heel, and decides to change and liberate their victims, elevate those victims to equal status. That’s not how it ever works, sadly. Gotta take your rights. And before you -take- them, you have to believe they’re yours to begin with.
Harry 06.06.20 at 3:03 pm
Everyone should read the book — it’s rich and complex, and original (but very readable). It has gotten less attention than it should, in my opinion, partly because of the reluctance of white philosophers to write about it (and of editors to commission white philosophers to review it — something I have direct knowledge of). Partly, also, probably, because Shelby’s expert engagement with the sociology and economics of his subject is intimidating to those who don’t know that literature. I’ll try to pull couple of posts about it together over the summer.
Matt 06.06.20 at 10:13 pm
Partly, also, probably, because Shelby’s expert engagement with the sociology and economics of his subject is intimidating to those who don’t know that literature.
One thing that I really liked about Shelby’s earlier book, We Who Are Dark was they way it was “social theory” in a deep and good sense, working very comfortably with lots of other disciplines than philosophy, including with literature. I should get around to reading the whole of this book soon.
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