Can you talk about racism and capitalism?
You often write and speak about how they are
intimately connected.
And talk about a world that you envision.
Yeah, racism is integrally linked to capitalism.
And I think it’s a mistake to assume that
we can combat racism by leaving capitalism
in place.
As Cedric Robinson pointed out in his book
Black Marxism, capitalism is racial capitalism.
And, of course, to just say for a moment,
that Marx pointed out that what he called
primitive accumulation, capital doesn’t
just appear from nowhere.
The original capital was provided by the labor
of slaves.
The Industrial Revolution, which pivoted around
the production of capital, was enabled by
slave labor in the U.S.
So, I am convinced that the ultimate eradication
of racism is going to require us to move toward
a more socialist organization of our economies,
of our other institutions.
I think we have a long way to go before we
can begin to talk about an economic system
that is not based on exploitation and on the
super-exploitation of Black people, Latinx
people and other racialized populations.
But I do think that we now have the conceptual
means to engage in discussions, popular discussions,
about capitalism.
Occupy gave us new language.
The notion of the prison-industrial complex
requires us to understand the globalization
of capitalism.
Anti-capitalist consciousness helps us to
understand the predicament of immigrants,
who are barred from the U.S. by the wall that
has been created by the current occupant.
These conditions have been created by global
capitalism.
And I think this is a period during which
we need to begin that process of popular education,
which will allow people to understand the
interconnections of racism, heteropatriarchy,
capitalism.
