Derrick Darby is Henry Rutgers Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He holds a BA from Colgate and a PhD from Pittsburgh. He discovered his passion for philosophy growing up in the Queensbridge public housing projects in NYC. For the backstory, see his TEDx talk, "Doing the Knowledge." He writes about rights, inequality, and democracy. He has been profiled in The Atlantic and published in The New York Times and other outlets. He is a cohost of A Pod Called Quest. His most recent book, with John L. Rury, is The Color of Mind: Why the Origins of the Achievement Gap Matter for Justice.

• Introduction:


• Taking a Hard-Eyed View of Racism


• Part I The Demise of Small Tent Remedies


• 1 Affirmative Action


• 2 Voting Rights


• 3 Racial Reparations


• Part II The Dawn of Big Tent Remedies


• 4 Black Liberalism Can't Save Us


• 5 Postracial Remedies


• 6 Collective Responsibility


• Part III The Demand for Democracy


• 7 Power to the People


• 8 Making Voting Easier


• 9 The Dignity of Voting


• Epilogue:


• Democracy Born of Struggle


• Notes


• Acknowledgments


• Index

In A Realistic Blacktopia, political philosopher Derrick Darby challenges the "small tent" approach to racial justice by examining U.S. Supreme Court cases on education and voting rights arguing that they hold general lessons about the limits of racial politics. Securing racial justice in racist America calls for "big tent" remedies, and Darby argues that pursuing non-race-specific remedies with maximal democratic inclusion is a necessary strategy for mitigating racial inequality and achieving racial justice.