Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education. By Danielle Allen. (University of Chicago Press, 2004.)

Beyond Martyrdom: Rereading Invisible Man

“…Danielle Allen gives the best known and most thorough version of this argument in Talking to Strangers (Allen 2004) and again, recently, in her chapter on Ellison in African American Political Thought (Allen 2021). On her account, "affirming the principle" amounts to a call for the victims of 12.…”

“…The martyr reading centers on sacrifice, which is an important concept for Ellison. In his critical essays and interviews, he routinely frames American race rituals-from stereotyping to racist violence-as scapegoating or sacrificial acts, whose expiatory function benefits whites. 1 It is difficult to call Ellison's views of sacrifice hopeful, but some commentators, including Allen (2004Allen ( , 2021, Booth (2008), Danoff (2019), Eddy (2003), and Turner (2012), draw a hopeful lesson from these writings-they redeem sacrifice by situating it in a process of democratic aspiration, in which the risk of sacrifice moves witnesses (ideally) to greater empathy and action. W. James Booth reads the 1.…”

“…In perhaps the best-known version of this reading, Danielle Allen finds a political response to invisibility in the novel's epilogue, in which the narrator determines to "affirm the principle on which the country was built and not the men, or at least not the men who did the violence" (Ellison [1952] 1995b, hereafter IM, 574). 2 Allen (2004) gives a martyr reading of this epiphany: she finds that the titular Invisible Man (hereafter, IM) realizes that those who affirm foundational American principles, "in the face of violence and domination, cast aggressive acts into the starkest relief by allowing them to expend their full force" (115). 3 By modeling exemplary habits of citizenship, even in the face of violence, political actors risk sacrificing their own lives in the hope of affecting witnesses, moving them in more democratic and egalitarian directions.…”

“…Hooker (2016), 2. Allen (2004Allen ( , 2021 draws on Eddy's analysis of sacrifice in Ellison, and Booth (2008), Danoff (2019), andTurner (2012) all cite Allen approvingly. 3.…”

“…At best, tricksterism is seen as a weapon of the weak that does not challenge oppression, and at worst, tricksterism's resort to duplicity is seen as corrosive to the health of the polity (which requires trust) and perhaps also to the soul of the 6. For Allen (2004), political theorists should glean from the political agency of "the dominated" forms of citizenship "that can belong to everyone"-that is, that conduce to habits of reciprocal sacrifice (108). And refusing sacrifice, insofar as it is a determination not to suffer loss, risks further corroding trust.…”