Paul Gilroy’s “The Black Atlantic” calls into question the legitimacy of some of the terms we use to divide and identify our world. He rejects the notion of an antagonistic relationship between his personal identifiers of black and English, noting that, while popular culture may perceive the English identity to be a white person, in fact, there is nothing essential about being English (p. 1). Gilroy attacks ethnic absolutism as impossible in light of the Atlantic slave trade, where European, American, and African cultures influenced each other in ways that made each of these places more “hybrid.” Gilroy’s examination, then, requires drawing out the connections between these cultures. Fortunately, people of African descent have drawn out these connections for generations. Gilroy notes that some African-Americans waived off their feelings of exceptionalism “in favor of a global, coalitional politics in which anti-imperialism and anti-racism might be seen to interact if not to fuse (p. 4).” Similarly oppressed black people have transcended national barriers to work for a common cause. While Gilroy’s point about the breakdown of rigid nationalities through pan-Africanism is correct, this point must also call into question the black diaspora. As Gilroy asserts and science affirms, there are no phenotypical differences between different races and race is only real through society’s affirmation of it. Thus, the idea of the black diaspora buys into the social construct of race just as nations buy into ethnic absolutism. Though the black diaspora rejects the idea of national division, it does connote that there is something essential about being part of the black diaspora. Yet that essential mark cannot be blackness since race does not exist. For members of the Black Atlantic Diaspora, the defining characteristic could be a history of oppression, though that may not be a specific enough division. Though I do not currently know the solution to the issue of legitimizing the black diaspora, I think this is an important lens to work with throughout the semester. When we read black authors, we must continuously ponder whether there is anything essential about being black.