Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform

by Tommie Shelby

Why do American ghettos persist? Decades after Moynihan’s report on the black family and the Kerner Commission’s investigations of urban disorders, deeply disadvantaged black communities remain a disturbing reality. Scholars and commentators today often identify some factor―such as single motherhood, joblessness, or violent street crime―as the key to solving the problem and recommend policies accordingly. But, Tommie Shelby argues, these attempts to “fix” ghettos or “help” their poor inhabitants ignore fundamental questions of justice and fail to see the urban poor as moral agents responding to injustice. Drawing on liberal-egalitarian philosophy and informed by leading social science research, Dark Ghettos examines the thorny questions of political morality raised by ghettos. Should government foster integrated neighborhoods? If a “culture of poverty” exists, what interventions are justified? Should single parenthood be avoided or deterred? Is voluntary nonwork or crime an acceptable mode of dissent? How should a criminal justice system treat the oppressed? Shelby offers practical answers, framed in terms of what justice requires of both a government and its citizens, and he views the oppressed as allies in the fight for a society that warrants everyone’s allegiance. “The ghetto is not ‘their’ problem but ours , privileged and disadvantaged alike,” Shelby writes. The existence of ghettos is evidence that our society is marred by structural injustices that demand immediate rectification. Dark Ghettos advances a social vision and political ethics that calls for putting the abolition of ghettos at the center of reform.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, African American, Race, History, The United States Of America

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Tommie Shelby is Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy at Harvard University. He is the author of Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform (2016), We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity (2005), and coeditor (with Derrick Darby) of Hip Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason (2005). He is also a former editor of the magazine Transition.

Reviews

[Tonstant Weader · Rating 4 out of 5]

With Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform, Harvard philosophy professor Tommie Shelby brings the disciplined reason of philosophy to the ghetto. He examines core ethical principles and values through the ghetto lens. He sticks to the ghettos associated with urban black communities rather than white slums and Latino barrios because those “dark ghettos” are what most people think of, reflexively. The ghetto is a place, geographic and cultural, a center of entrenched poverty where just about everything is suboptimal, to say the least. From schools to public services, job opportunities to social capital, ghettos reveal the utter failure to meet even the most basic requirements of just society.

Often discussions of urban poverty and ghettos either blame the problem on the people who live there and advocate for some form or personal responsibility and moral reformation. Others focus on some sort of “fix” that will mitigate the inequities without fixing the problem, though not all fixes are fixes. Charter schools for example are promoted as a way to address substandard schools, but the evidence is in that charter schools fail poor, urban, black students even more than public schools.

Shelby is not interested in tinkering. He wants to abolish the ghetto and by that, he does not mean gentrification. Abolishing the ghetto requires restructuring our society, not the buildings. It means creating a basic structure that is egalitarian, where ghettos do not exist because the racist structures that create them do not exist.

Justice is the heart and soul of this book. Shelby frequently refers to John Rawls, though he only takes some of his ideas from Rawls, though Shelby is less utopian. He does rely on Rawls’ idea of the basic structure and how it affects our lives and our outcomes, which gives us the right to demand fairness. He works from core fundamentals of fairness to construct an ethical framework that demands the abolition of ghettos and the restructuring of society.

Here’s the cool thing about philosophy, it can get truly radical without even breaking a sweat. Shelby does not shake his fist. He does nor raise his voice. He cooly, deliberatively, constructs some shared agreements that nearly anyone would accept as true. From them, he takes us on a logical and philosophical examination of what justice requires, what level of injustice is tolerable, and just what should be expected when injustice is intolerable.

Shelby examines the most problematic and fraught issues from defining justice and injustice, from ghetto “culture” to questions of reproductive freedom, defining family, and valuing the work ethic. He examines crime, punishment and dissent. He questions whether we have the right to criticize the life choices of ghetto residents when their basic structure is intolerably unjust. He challenges us all to our moral duty to work for justice.

I borrowed this from the library, but I plan to get my own copy as soon as there are some used ones on sale. I have already urged friends to read it. Asking whether I like it, though, misses the point. How do you like a book that demands so much of its readers? This book is challenging, demanding, and does not come with human interest stories. There is one exception, when discussing hip hop as a form of impure dissent, Shelby writes about Nas and his Untitled album which was controversial and subject to critique on several levels as impure dissent despite its political content.

Dark Ghettos is important and it answers arguments I have had with myself as a white person living in a racist society. I think it shows a way forward, though I am not hopeful that people will listen. There are many more appealing arguments that protect the status quo and soothe white racial anxiety. Those arguments often win out even when they are ridiculous on their face and unjust. After all, the current regime argues that feeding children and seniors is a waste because it has no effect on them. Racial justice has never been a priority for White America. It is even less so now.

There is one thing that would really improve this book, at least for me. Shelby defines certain principles and terms. You know he’s doing it because they are in italics. I wanted a glossary at the end, where I could find them all in one place. A lot of them are terms of art, so to speak, as Shelby defines them very specifically, separating self-respect from self-esteem, for example, and what obligations self-respect places on us. He parses the hell out of condemnation. With a glossary, we could look back at the definition to remind ourselves of the specifics when they came up later. There is a good index, but looking for a term in the index and trying to find it is less efficient, and less likely to happen, than flipping to a glossary.

I think you should read this book. I want everyone to read this book. It’s not entertaining. It’s not easy. It’s challenging, difficult and demands so much, not just as a reader, but as a human being. But it’s important. We have fundamental problems and tinkering is not the solution.

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[Bernhard Nickel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tommie Shelby's book does two things, and it does them very well. The book is organized around 9 aspects of the ghetto, aspects that have drawn forth different assessments and policy responses (crime, residential patterns, family organization, employment, etc.). For each, Shelby reviews pertinent philosophical debates with subtlety and nuance. He also discusses the various policy approaches to that issue from a broadly liberal egalitarian perspective---a perspective associated with Rawls. And in these discussions, what stands out is the absolutely unblinking clarity of ethical vision. Shelby draws out the consequences of very basic commitments to liberal egalitarianism for the situation of the dark ghetto. It is a powerful indictment of the present system of basic injustice of which the dark ghetto forms a part, but which implicates all of us who are part of the system in any form.

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astoundingly good.

[Darcy Hamlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I were a philosopher and/or steeped in academia, I might have liked this book better and rated it more highly...but I’m not, and I didn’t. Shelby makes some really great points, but you’ll have to wade through loads of unorganized stream-of-consciousness rabbit holes to find them. This may be par for the course for a philosophy book published by Harvard Press, but it was very tedious and frustrating to read. I found myself often zoned out or downright irritated at his writing style. I had to skim/speed read entire sections just to get through it. I read this for an EDI book club, or I would have abandoned this book hundreds of pages ago. I’m not sorry I read it, but I’m *ecstatic* to finally be finished with it.

[Andrew Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Shelby and I agree that poor black people do not share a "culture of poverty". But that won't be the case as long as Shelby can help it! He'll force the culture of poverty right in there!

[Aggrey Odera · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm down with Shelby's project: abolishing ghettos requires restructuring society in various fundamental ways. Let's get with it. I'm also glad for the careful line he strikes between a discussion of personal responsibility and systemic oppression (which are the two political divisions this issue often brings out in the U.S).

What troubles me is his decision to subsume all his theorising under some ideal analytical category of "justice" (though he insists that what he's engaged in is "non-ideal theorising", unalike Rawls, the ideal theorist, whom he nevertheless substantively draws from). Thus under Shelby's "justice", we are more concerned with Kantian and/ or contractual ways of viewing the ghetto (and the society that produces the ghetto broadly), and of restructuring our society to be in line with "justice". Not so much with consequentialist concerns about "getting rid of the ghetto", for those do not get to the heart of the problem.

What this leads us to, according to Shelby, is a version of the tradition of "black radical egalitarianism" - Michael Dawson, or "black radical liberalism" - Charles Mills. This is a normative theory of state power, drawing from Marxist, feminist and black radical thought. Such a theory helps us tease out our (theoretical, I think) commitments to justice as a society (covering all those affected by injustice and oppression - women, gays, blacks, poor people of all races, etc.). Apparently we just can't get on with addressing the "ghetto issue" until we work out these philosophical questions.

I disagree. This is the kind of book that could only have been written by an analytical philosopher. At its heart is the assumption that what we lack (and need) is a true understanding of what that immaterial category of "justice" requires from us. Once we get that, through rigorous analysis, then we can better tackle these issues. The problem is that even philosophers are bound to disagree on the very idea of justice itself, and on what our commitments under it are (See, for example, Amartya Sen's discussion of Condorcet's work in his book "The Idea of Justice"). You don't really "show" or "prove" anything about immaterial categories, as analytical philosophers - Shelby included - like to think. You simply make arguments and hope they convince. And oftentimes they don't. So holding "justice" as central just seems to me to be a bad way of going about it.

What we need, instead, is the pragmatism that Shelby sees as inadequate. Starting from the fact that we mostly agree that the ghetto is a problem, we move into continuous public discussion and experimentalism on how to address the problem. This is messy and does not cut directly to the heart of the issue. While it may eventually lead to a fundamental restructuring, it is slow, and it is full of the usual contestation that is characteristic of politics. But it seems to me the only practical way of going about the issue. And philosophers can indeed be very helpful in this project; they may help refine our public discussion and remind us of the various epistemic and moral consideration we may overlook. But in the end, this is a public and political programme, and should be approached as such, not through philosophical theorising.

[Sienna Swimmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tommie Shelby shines a new light on the problems plaguing ghettos and both the mindset and solutions society should have in response.

His argument is as follows:
1) The medical model is inadequate to resolve the problems plaguing the ghetto poor because ghettos are an example of structural injustice; the social model should be applied instead. The medical model originates from disability studies, and it treats the disability by addressing its symptoms. For example, someone born deaf would receive hearing aids under the medical model. However, there is another model called the social model, which instead assumes that society should adjust to include the person with the disability. In the above example, the deaf person could find a community that knows ASL. A real-life example is Gallaudet University. Applied to ghettos, Shelby argues that current policy makers focus on the ghetto poor with the medical model. They use targeted policies to increase education and employment within ghettos (e.g. War on Poverty), but these policies don’t ultimately change ghettos for the better. Shelby believes this is because ghettos represent structural injustice. People A) don’t treat the ghetto poor as equal by assuming they brought poverty on themselves or B) refuse to give up their privilege. Thus, the ghetto poor are systemically barred from education and employment opportunities because of intrinsically and extrinsically racist institutions. (Racism is defined as any action that conveys racist attitudes. Intrinsic racism has the conscious goal of being racist while extrinsic racism might have neutral goals and racist effects.) The social model would reform society to redistribute wealth to re establish equality of opportunity.
2) The ghetto poor should be able to self-determine. In his chapter on Community, Shelby argues against Anderson’s suggestion of integration and instead believes that blacks should be able to self-segregate while whites should accept integration. He argues this on three major grounds. The first is that whites cannot self-segregate without blocking resources; blacks can. When whites pay premiums for neighborhoods with high test scores or property values, they bar black families out of that neighborhood. This isn’t just blocking them from those specific schools or homes, but from the “entire domain” (as Shelby calls it) of those goods. Meanwhile, while black neighborhoods can have some closed organizations, those organizations don’t prevent whites from seeking education and employment elsewhere. The second point is that black self-segregation promotes black solidarity. Already a marginalized group, blacks unite together to pool their resources into a stronger interest group. This way, they might develop the political clout needed to move policies towards the social model. Whites don’t have any kind of similar solidarity structure because they already dominate politics; they are not a marginalized group. More importantly, when they use racial proxies to avoid black neighborhoods, they’re ignoring the facts, thus shirking the duty of justice and legitimizing unjust institutions. The third and final point is that black self-segregation is a rational defense mechanism. Integration will inevitably cause interracial conflict, at least at first, and some would reasonably want to avoid that conflict. One of Shelby’s major beliefs is that the oppressed cannot be forced to take on an undue burden in the reform process given their existing suffering. Because of that, he argues that no one can be forced to integrate and that black choice is vital in any reforms.
3) The ghetto poor do not have civic duties, only natural ones. In his Chapter on Crime, Shelby pulls on Rawls to explain how the structural injustice of ghettos ultimately changes the ghetto poor’s duty to obey the law. Rawls’ conception of justice as fairness protects the welfare of the least-advantaged group (difference principle), and he writes that societies that fail to uphold the difference principle shouldn’t then be surprised when the minority group feels resentful of institutions and ceases to obey them. The idea is that all citizens are equal, and Shelby outlines how the ghetto poor are left out of this equality. The lack of reciprocity takes them out of the idea of justice and therefore frees them from their side of the social contract (i.e. their civic duties). However, Shelby doesn’t let the ghetto poor completely off the hook: they have natural duties to uphold personal morality. While Shelby considers turning to street crime a rational thing based on the life of the ghetto poor (i.e. the lack of outside opportunities for employment and the criminal cycle), he warns that gangsters and hustlers cannot be unreasonably cruel in their activities.

I’m usually not a fan of ideal theory, but I quite liked how Shelby integrated it rather seamlessly with real life. He simultaneously demonstrated how ideal theory fails to account for structural racism while also incorporating ideal theory into this solution. His review of the problems underlying ghettos and the models addressing their perpetuity was very comprehensive, and his arguments were very well-developed and supported.

I do foresee some minor problems in his argumentation, specifically in his refutation of integration. Historically, integration has been the primary path of reform. As Shelby pointed out, integration hasn’t eliminated ghettos or poverty. That said, integration in the 1960s did make significant difference, and in that case, forced integration was necessary. Today, integration is needed again before self-determination and black choice can occur. This is for several reasons. One, black solidarity can only go so far. Of course, it is crucial for blacks to unify their resources and promote their interests in politics. However, a truly structural unjust system will keep them out of the reform process anyway. Voter suppression and gerrymandering are the clearest ways that blacks in the U.S. are marginalized so that, even when in a group, they don’t have the political clout to achieve needed reforms. Just look at DC: it’s not a state because the elite won’t let the minority groups in it participate in the reform process. Because of the limits of black solidarity, some integration is necessary to achieve political reforms. Historically, the abolition and Civil Rights movements took off because both white (e.g. William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Virginia Foster Durr) and black (Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, and MLK Jr) voices fought for structural reforms. This is likely what will need to happen again for ghettos to be changed. Second, Shelby makes a rushed rebuttal that black self-segregation can never block the entire domain, attributing the lack of resources to the lack of a monopoly. However, he also admits that affluent blacks exist and tend to avoid poverty-stricken neighborhoods as well. There needed to be more of a discussion on this point because affluent blacks self-segregation would unjustly contribute to ghettos. Third, while Shelby’s ideal argument that civic obligations no longer apply is well-argued, it’s ultimately… ideal. Do the ghetto poor suddenly stop following stop signs? “The law” is a wide-ranging institution, and black self-determination would still probably need to include some of it to A) not alienate itself from the political clout it needs and B) channel their resistance more effectively, as Shelby proposed. All that said, I understand Shelby’s point that blacks cannot be forced to accept a worse circumstance in integration. This all rounds up to a very difficult reform process, but Shelby makes important headway in enumerating the values and goals for that reform.

Please note that this review only covers the introduction, Ch. 1, 2, and 7, which I felt were some of the most interesting chapters. I encourage everyone to read the whole book.

[Julia Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very strong philosophical treatise that frames the existence of ghettos as an issue of justice. Shelby asserts that eliminating ghettos is necessary for justice by demonstrating why different aspects of life in the ghetto are the results of injustices (e.g. unemployment, crime). I found his argument to be convincing and prolific. This was my first time reading an entire book of philosophy, more than just essays/excepts of book chapters. However, I think it is a reasonably approachable read for non-academics. I think some exposure to philosophy would be best before diving in otherwise it may be difficult to follow.
My favorite aspect of this book is the discussion of existing philosophical literature. As a person who is not well-read in philosophical works, I found the discussion of Rawls’ theories and other philosopher’s works and their shortcomings or strengths to be very informative and thought-provoking. A nice introduction to political philosophy as a field. If anything, I wish there was more explicit discussion & exploration of different frameworks, theories, philosophers, etc just because it became a little dull and tedious to read the portions in which Shelby is just asserting, applying, explaining, defending his own framework - it gets a little redundant.

Other really interesting aspects:
- our obligations as a citizen v. moral person
- Last chapter on Rap music

Only additional critique I have is that I thought discussion and consideration of gender, especially in the section about reproduction, to be lacking.

[Jeramey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found myself agreeing with much of what Shelby put forth, but only when I could separate his thoughts from those of others he was referencing. The book is written in a rather academic style that makes it difficult to read without extensive domain knowledge.

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books on social and economic issues, Dark Ghettos is a philosophical treatise on the causes of inner city poverty and the moral underpinnings of public policy. Shelby takes issue with what he refers to as the “medical model” of addressing ghetto poverty. The typical aims of public policy are to diagnose problems and propose narrowly defined solutions. This approach ignores issues of justice and subjugates the poor to being passive recipients. Instead, the solution to ghetto poverty lies in recognizing that it results from a fundamentally unjust set of conditions, as does material privilege. While this view may not sound new to those who pay attention to social justice, Shelby’s treatment of the topic differs in the extent to which he roots his argument in philosophy, and also how he engages with a range of opposing viewpoints. He discusses in depth 7 potential causes of poverty; residential segregation, cultural configurations, reproductive choices, single-mother families, joblessness, crime, and mass incarceration. In each case he identifies commonly-held viewpoints as articulated by social scientists or social thinkers. He discusses the responsibilities of government and justified responses on the ghetto poor for each, rooted in a liberal egalitarian framework espoused by Rawls (“nonideal theory”). For Shelby, understanding what to “do” about ghetto poverty entails first having a shared understanding about the rights and responsibilities of different actors in responding to a fundamentally unjust society.

“Some readers may become impatient with the arguments to come, perhaps insisting that the only thing that matters is what would solve this urgent problem. But there are related, logically prior questions that also matter. For instance, it matters enormously how we conceptualize “the problem”. While all agree that certain aspects of life in ghettos are troubling, what is it about ghetto poverty that calls for a solution? And what constitutes “fixing” the problem? That is, what standards are appropriate for judging progress or failure? Finally, even if we identify a set of actions that would bring about a desirable outcome… we need to know whether these actions are justifiable to all concerned” (7-8).

As an example of his approach, in the chapter on Community, Shelby rejects what he terms the “new integrationists” who claim that the solution to ghetto poverty is to bring about black integration into white neighborhoods. He discusses social and economic integration, highlighting the views of specific people who have made arguments in favor. According to these views, an important route out of poverty is for blacks to be exposed to the social capital and economic/employment opportunities that whites enjoy. From a liberal egalitarian standpoint however, this would infringe on the rights of blacks who choose to self-segregate for reasons that have nothing to do with racial injustice. In a fundamentally unjust society, the goal should be to improve the conditions of neighborhoods in ghetto poverty.

In the chapter on culture, Shelby entertains a position he refers to as the cultural divergence hypothesis, which states that a cause of ghetto poverty is actions and traits inherent to culture. As an example which resonated personally, he finds troubling the use of programs that provide incentives for participation but then punishes recipients for a failure to comply; having helped to evaluate a conditional cash transfer program, which provides rewards and punishment for families that make investments in health and education for their children, I read with interest. For Shelby, even if the hypothesis were true, “moral reform attacks the ghetto poor’s social bases of self-esteem and fails to honor their need to preserve their self-respect” (p. 100), and also fails to respect an individual’s right to self-determination. When a society is fundamentally unjust, for Shelby, it can be argued that a legitimate response is to deviate from the norms of the dominant culture. A better solution are programs that enlist the ghetto poor “as allies”, such as grassroots efforts to improve political participation.

What I find appealing about Shelby’s rhetorical style is his ability to place common social critiques in conversation with each other, and his willingness to give a thorough, and (I believe) empathetic accounting for how a particular viewpoint might respond. If you believe you have identified a flaw in one of his arguments, it is likely that he at least acknowledges it at some point in the reading. Moreover, I would recommend this book to all who work in the realm of public policy. Though I wasn’t unfamiliar with many of the arguments and positions that Shelby takes, his willingness to engage thoroughly and in good faith with a range of views I would consider to be on the political left and center makes this a particularly nuanced take on issues of social justice. For me, my understanding of political and moral philosophy and its relationship to public policy has been strengthened enormously by engaging deeply with this book.

[kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kinda wanna re-read this, had to read for class kinda fast. REALLY interesting and provoking, Shelby is an amazing writer who gave me a lot to think about!

[Josh Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

I borrow and riff on Shelby’s arguments constantly.

[jadey · Rating 4 out of 5]

i liked the work punishment crime chapters but not necessarily fully convinced (think im more left than him)

I am going crazy x2

[Ian Baime · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spectacular and brutal. Pragmatic theory at its best

[Henry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent application of Rawls.

[staceyzh · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are roughly two ways to come to why the poor don't work:
1. Use common sense and realize the kind of low wage and meaningless work that they have the opportunity of choosing is, u know, stupid to choose
2. Use Rawlsian framework to develop a social theory of reciprocity, make the distinction between self-esteem and self-respect, explain that actions for self-respect is not just selfish "feel-good" moves, differentiate natural duties and civic obligations, define work, and eventually reason that a poor person refuse work because of self-respect and their justified refusal of contribution to a society with deep injustice against them.

Not an argument against Shelby's points and meticulous analysis, just that I continue to find analytic philosophy rarely interesting and most of the time drab and out-of-touch.

[Alejandro Maldonado · Rating 5 out of 5]

really fantastic