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A review by colin_cox
From #blacklivesmatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
4.0
In the final chapter of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes, "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. Nor 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" (206). Taylor's move here is an intriguing but not terribly new idea. Indicting capitalism and the exploitation associated with it constitutes the broad argumentative point Taylor makes in From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, so any reader who takes umbrage with this notion may find Taylor's book underwhelming.
While the conclusion is something of a motley affair, Chapters 5 and 6 constitute the best From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation has to offer. In Chapter 5 Taylor writes of Barack Obama, "The Black political establishment, led by President Barack Obama, has shown over and over again that it was not capable of the most basic task: keeping Black children alive. The young people would have to do it themselves" (152). This not-so-subtle critique charges the Black political establishment with a provocative crime: assimilation and acquiescence to a quasi-corporate political machine. It also demonstrates Taylor's commitment to and solidarity with non-institutional and amorphous movements such as BlackLivesMatter.
Near the end of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, Taylor quotes Malcolm X. In a speech to the Organization of Afro-American Unity, he said, "You can't have capitalism without racism" (qtd. in Taylor 197). Again, this is a crux of Taylor's claim in From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. Yet, Talyor explores certain implicit questions as well, and the most stunning of those questions are: What has the system consumed? And how can people of color fight this consumption?
While the conclusion is something of a motley affair, Chapters 5 and 6 constitute the best From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation has to offer. In Chapter 5 Taylor writes of Barack Obama, "The Black political establishment, led by President Barack Obama, has shown over and over again that it was not capable of the most basic task: keeping Black children alive. The young people would have to do it themselves" (152). This not-so-subtle critique charges the Black political establishment with a provocative crime: assimilation and acquiescence to a quasi-corporate political machine. It also demonstrates Taylor's commitment to and solidarity with non-institutional and amorphous movements such as BlackLivesMatter.
Near the end of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, Taylor quotes Malcolm X. In a speech to the Organization of Afro-American Unity, he said, "You can't have capitalism without racism" (qtd. in Taylor 197). Again, this is a crux of Taylor's claim in From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. Yet, Talyor explores certain implicit questions as well, and the most stunning of those questions are: What has the system consumed? And how can people of color fight this consumption?