Abstract

Misidentity Politics

This article presents information the book "Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line," by Paul Gilroy. The high point of liberal faith that the color line might be permanently breached may have been the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. From a participant's perspective it is difficult to forget the sea of 200,000 black and white demonstrators behind the figures of Martin Luther King, Jr., Walter Reuther, A. Philip Randolph and other prominent civil rights leaders, arms confidently linked, marching toward an egalitarian future. By 1965 many were convinced that the long-deferred dream of equality and justice was at hand. Considering all these subjects, Paul Gilroy' book broke through the nation-specific context of race politics and he has written a powerful, albeit minoritarian defense of the position that racial thinking-not just racism is a key obstacle to human freedom.