Racial Capitalism

This course examines how race and capitalism are coevolutionary partners in U.S. society and culture. Different from the European Marxist tradition that centers the white working class, a racial capitalist framework provides a more nuanced and accurate account of how capitalist exploitation, dehumanization, and accumulation persists and is normalized within the settler colonial and antiblack context of the U.S. In studying and engaging racial capitalist thinkers and activists, this seminar is guided by two related learning goals. The first goal is to identify and make sense of what a racial capitalist critique and analysis of power in U.S. society offers us other radical and progressive frameworks such as liberalism or traditional Marxist approaches do not. The second goal is to apply what we’ve learned in studying racial capitalism in the U.S. by looking at examples of how communities have and are currently building movements that address, confront, and resist forms of racial capitalism and its persistence in the U.S.