The Meaning of Dignity
I hold a worldview, a theology, a philosophy that dignity is an innate human right. That we are all created with worth and dignity. As I have observed and learned about dignity is also an action a way of being and a way of interacting with others. It is innate and yet also an intentional action. It is a way that we treat each other and a way that we treat ourselves.
Lloyd’s View of Dignity
In his book Black Dignity Vincent Lloyd argues that dignity is performative that it is the struggle with domination. I struggled with his arguments around dingily and my own understandings. It seemed as if we were viewing things differently. Lloyd’s work centered on this idea of domination and the struggle against it as a way of finding flourishing. He wrote, “In short we have to be able to cut through a jumble of culture that captures our attention in order to notice the workings of domination and the struggle against domination. But once we do, we are able to access a realm of truth that transcends culture. with struggle comes a kind of flourishing that we can never achieve simply by inhabiting a culture well.” (1) In this quote I began to see some commonality.
The Hope in Dignity
Dignity is something that we have, that when we discover our dignity we can find the strength to face the struggles, we can find flourishing that can even feel counter cultural. Dignity is about not settling or “simply inhabiting a culture well” its about discovering one’s worth and living into it riding the ups and downs, facing the struggle with hope. My son had a school assignment to analysis African American spirituals, to find the hidden meaning, to identify the importance of the song in the struggle. He chose the songs “Amazing Grace”, “Wade in the Water”, and “Nobody Knows the struggle I’ve seen”. In these songs there was something they had in common, HOPE. Hope is a powerful source for dignity, I would say it allows us to hold on to the dignity that we have and not be willing to give it up in the face of struggle and this is how we are able to face the struggle.
Conclusion
Dignity can be a source of power for an individual and on the other side can become a source of power for domination. In his book Lloyd is trying to help the reader understand this power and how movements, culture, and people have used the power of dignity to create dominance or find hope.
1. Vincent W Lloyd, Black Dignity (Yale University Press, 2023), 155.
About the Author
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.