Postcolonial melancholia

Paul Gilroy examines and defends multiculturalism within the context of a post-9/II "politics of security." His unorthodox analysis pinpoints melancholic reactions not only in the hostility and violence directed at blacks, immigrants, and aliens but also in an inability to value the ordinary, unruly multiculture that has evolved organically and unnoticed in urban centers.

Drawing on seminal discussions of race by Frantz Fanon, W.

E. B. DuBois, and George Orwell, Gilroy proposes that it is possible to celebrate multiculturalism and live with otherness without becoming anxious, fearful, or violent.