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A review by klevtown
From #blacklivesmatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
5.0
Excellent excellent excellent.
The chapter titled 'From Civil Rights to Colorblind' does an exquisite job of placing colorblindness within its historical context (onset of economic crisis with global capitalism, the undoing of the welfare state in the Nixon era). While many race readers (a genre in which I would not include this book) describe the perniciousness of colorblindness, few explain how colorblindness has been used (for over half a century) to deny access to opportunity.
The last chapter digs into the sister sins of racism and capitalism (see quote below) and draws a path forward for a social movement rooted in solidarity and class consciousness.
"It is widely accepted that the racial oppression of slaves was rooted in the exploitation of the slave economy, but fewer recognize that under capitalism, wage slavery is the pivot around which all other inequalities and oppressions turn. Capitalism used racism to justify plunder, conquest, and slavery, but as Karl Marx pointed out, it would also come to use racism to divide and rule--to pit one section o the working class against another and, in so doing, blunt the class consciousness of all. To claim then, as Marxists do, that racism is a product of capitalism is not to deny or diminish its centrality to or impact on American society. It is simply to explain its origins and persistence. Not is this reducing racism to just a function of capitalism; it is locating the dynamic relationship between class exploitation and racial oppression in the functioning of American capitalism." (p. 206)
The chapter titled 'From Civil Rights to Colorblind' does an exquisite job of placing colorblindness within its historical context (onset of economic crisis with global capitalism, the undoing of the welfare state in the Nixon era). While many race readers (a genre in which I would not include this book) describe the perniciousness of colorblindness, few explain how colorblindness has been used (for over half a century) to deny access to opportunity.
The last chapter digs into the sister sins of racism and capitalism (see quote below) and draws a path forward for a social movement rooted in solidarity and class consciousness.
"It is widely accepted that the racial oppression of slaves was rooted in the exploitation of the slave economy, but fewer recognize that under capitalism, wage slavery is the pivot around which all other inequalities and oppressions turn. Capitalism used racism to justify plunder, conquest, and slavery, but as Karl Marx pointed out, it would also come to use racism to divide and rule--to pit one section o the working class against another and, in so doing, blunt the class consciousness of all. To claim then, as Marxists do, that racism is a product of capitalism is not to deny or diminish its centrality to or impact on American society. It is simply to explain its origins and persistence. Not is this reducing racism to just a function of capitalism; it is locating the dynamic relationship between class exploitation and racial oppression in the functioning of American capitalism." (p. 206)