A Fidelity to Politics: Shame and the African-American Vote in the 2004 Election

This essay explores how the concepts of shame and fidelity, in their relation to race, racism, electoral politics, might be thought with reference to the African-American vote in the 2004 presidential elections. Fully cognizant of the increasing ‘numerical’ irrelevance of African-Americans as an electoral constituency, this essay argues for their participation, a participation not grounded in the liberal American politics of material and symbolic ‘expectation’, in the elections as a felicitous political event.

…?suffering produces patience, and patience produces fidelity, and enduring fidelity produces hope, and hope does not disappoint. (Romans 5.2)