Tommie Shelby

Tommie Shelby's prize-winning work has established him as one of the preeminent and original contemporary writers on social justice and race. One major strand of Shelby's research focuses on the intersection between economic and racial injustice. What distinguishes Shelby's approach is its attempt to see economic/racial injustice from the standpoint of its victims. Just policies of corrective justice must have regard for the political agency and moral standing of those who have been subject to these injustices. It must be informed by what Shelby calls the "political ethics of the oppressed." In addition, Shelby has contributed influentially to studies of African American political thought and expressive culture, including the significance of hip-hop music. His books include The Idea of Prison Abolition (2022), Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform (2016), and We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity (2005). He is coeditor of To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. (2018) and Hip Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason (2005).