The Harm of Slavery Isn't Just That Black People Don't Learn Grammar, Though He Thinks That's Important

For this episode we discuss David Walker’s 1830 radical anti-slavery tract An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World and Melvin Rogers’s 2015 article “David Walker and the Political Power of the Appeal.” We explore Walker’s political philosophy of judgment and its relationship to normativity, solidarity, and reconstructing civic society. Walker offers an insightful critique of the insidious pathologies race introduces into Western political formations. We cover questions of universalism, the contentious role of violence in political change, and what it means to inherit a political tradition.   

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References:

David Walker. 1830. An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World. Found at https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeaamericanstudies/15/

Melvin Rogers. 2015. “David Walker and the Political Power of the Appeal.” Political Theory 43(2): 208-233.

Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com