Staying in or moving out? Justice and the abolition of the dark ghetto

Abstract

Tommie Shelby articulates a nonideal theory of black US ghettos that casts them asconsequences of an intolerably unjust institutional structure. I argue that, despite someof its significant merits, Shelby’s theory is weakened by his rejection of integration as aprinciple for reforming disadvantaged ghettos and correcting structural injustices in theUS. In particular, I argue that Shelby unwarrantedly downplays the socio-economicefficiency of integrationist policies and fails to consider some of the ways in whichintegration might count as a duty of (corrective) justice.