 | |
| Author | Robert L. Allen |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | History |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
Publication date | 1969 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 251 |
| ISBN | 9780385077187 |
Black Awakening in Capitalist America is a 1969 social sciences and history book by American scholar Robert L. Allen that analyzes the experience of Black residents of the United States as that of a colonized nation within a nation. Allen primarily analyzes Black organizing in the 1960s and often draws from the work of Frantz Fanon.
Allen focuses on Black activism in the United States following the Civil Rights Movement and details how corporate interests and White-led power structures co-opted and de-radicalized Black Power and Black nationalism. Allen cites the Ford Foundation funding of the Congress of Racial Equality as an example of how Black-led movements are influenced to align with the interest of more mainstream organizations. Allen further explores this idea through the response to the 1967 Newark riots and critiques Black leaders who focused on electoral representation instead of systemic change for communities. [1] As part of his analysis of potential avenues for change he also stridently critiques Black capitalism as a method for social change. [2] [3] N. D. B. Connolly, an American historian and professor writes: [4]
For Allen, the most unjust characteristics of the country’s economy—chronic African American underemployment, housing segregation, police brutality, the expansion of corporate power, and the gaping and growing chasm between the wealthy and everyone else—existed for two reasons: (1) the crushing power of white capital and (2) the willingness of black chiefs to broker land and influence with whites as part of the more general workings of capitalism.
Black Awakening has been described as "seminal" [5] and "groundbreaking" [6] in the field of Internal Colonialism Theory, and as "the most incisive application of Internal Colonialism Theory to African America." [6] It has also been described as "important" for its examination of Black capitalism. [7] Despite being well-received at its original publication, [8] Allen's work grew neglected as Internal Colonialism Theory lost prominence after the 1970s. [5]
In 2009, an academic conference was held in Berkeley, California to commemorate the forty-year legacy of the book. Allen's work was described as "an often neglected, yet unfortunately all-too timely, work in addressing twenty-first century concerns." [5]
Incite! includes an excerpt of Black Awakening in Capitalist America as a chapter in The Revolution Will Not be Funded (2017).
Marxist feminism is a philosophical variant of feminism that incorporates and extends Marxist theory. Marxist feminism analyzes the ways in which women are exploited through capitalism and the individual ownership of private property. According to Marxist feminists, women's liberation can only be achieved by dismantling the capitalist systems in which they contend much of women's labor is uncompensated. Marxist feminists extend traditional Marxist analysis by applying it to unpaid domestic labor and sex relations.
Criticism of capitalism is a critique of political economy that involves the rejection of, or dissatisfaction with the economic system of capitalism and its outcomes. Criticisms typically range from expressing disagreement with particular aspects or outcomes of capitalism to rejecting the principles of the capitalist system in its entirety.
Metabolic rift is a theory of ecological crisis tendencies under the capitalist mode of production that sociologist John Bellamy Foster ascribes to Karl Marx. Quoting Marx, Foster defines this as the "irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism". Foster argues that Marx theorized a rupture in the metabolic interaction between humanity and the rest of nature emanating from capitalist agricultural production and the growing division between town and country.
Postcolonial international relations is a branch of scholarship that approaches the study of international relations (IR) using the critical lens of postcolonialism. This critique of IR theory suggests that mainstream IR scholarship does not adequately address the impacts of colonialism and imperialism on current day world politics. Despite using the language of post-, scholars of Postcolonial IR argue that the legacies of colonialism are ongoing, and that critiquing International Relations with this lens allows scholars to contextualize global events. By bridging postcolonialism and International Relations, scholars point to the process of globalization as a crucial point in both fields, due to the increases in global interactions and integration. Postcolonial IR focuses on the re-narrativization of global politics to create a balanced transnational understanding of colonial histories, and attempts to tie non-Western sources of thought into political praxis.
Radical criminology states that society "functions" in terms of the general interests of the ruling class rather than "society as a whole" and that while the potential for conflict is always present, it is continually neutralised by the power of a ruling class. Radical criminology is related to critical and conflict criminology in its focus on class struggle and its basis in Marxism. Radical criminologists consider crime to be a tool used by the ruling class. Laws are put into place by the elite and are then used to serve their interests at the peril of the lower classes. These laws regulate opposition to the elite and keep them in power.
Decoloniality is a school of thought that aims to delink from Eurocentric knowledge hierarchies and ways of being in the world in order to enable other forms of existence on Earth. It critiques the perceived universality of Western knowledge and the superiority of Western culture, including the systems and institutions that reinforce these perceptions. Decolonial perspectives understand colonialism as the basis for the everyday function of capitalist modernity and imperialism.
Susan Saltzman Fainstein is an American educator and scholar of urban planning. Fainstein is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Her research and writing has focused on the distributive effects of urban development strategies and megaprojects, the role of democracy and community control in local public institutions, and establishing a moral theory of "the just city."
Kara Keeling is an American humanities academic. As of 2016 she is Associate Professor at the University of Southern California in the Critical Studies of Cinematic Arts and in the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity.
The theory of imperialism refers to a range of theoretical approaches to understanding the expansion of capitalism into new areas, the unequal development of different countries, and economic systems that may lead to the dominance of some countries over others. These theories are considered distinct from other uses of the word imperialism which refer to the general tendency for empires throughout history to seek power and territorial expansion. The theory of imperialism is often associated with Marxist economics, but many theories were developed by non-Marxists. Most theories of imperialism, with the notable exception of ultra-imperialism, hold that imperialist exploitation leads to warfare, colonization, and international inequality.
The Gilda Stories is the 1991 debut novel of American author and activist Jewelle Gomez. Published in 1991, this speculative fiction vampire novel follows the experiences of a black lesbian heroine whose power and morality challenge assumptions about the vampire myth. Readers see this central character travel through time and lead multiple lives. In her first life, she is an unnamed runaway slave in Louisiana in 1850. After killing a bounty hunter in self-defense, she is rescued by Gilda, a vampire who runs a brothel named Woodard's. The women at the brothel educate her, become her family, and introduce her to vampirism and eternal life. Eventually, she becomes a vampire herself and adopts Gilda's name. The novel follows by providing historical vignettes of different cities and time periods, which highlight key moments in Gilda's life. She is in California in 1890, Missouri in 1921, Massachusetts in 1955, New York in 1981, New Hampshire in 2020, and the "Land of Enchantment" in 2050. This movement across time and space also situates the themes of blackness, sexuality, and female empowerment in various contexts.
Farah Jasmine Griffin is an American academic and professor specializing in African-American literature. She is William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African-American Studies, chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department, and Director Elect of the Columbia University Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University.
Wade W. Nobles is a professor emeritus in the Department of Africana Studies at San Francisco State University and notable pioneer of the African-American psychology movement.
Nathan Daniel Beau Connolly is an American historian and professor. He is the Herbert Baxter Adams Associate Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University and co-host of the U.S. history podcast BackStory. He is also the author of A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South Florida. A self-professed "desegregationist," Connolly, in 2016, became the first African-American U.S. historian tenured at Johns Hopkins University, and the first African American to win either the Kenneth T. Jackson Book Award from the Urban History Association (2015) or the Bennett H. Wall Award from the Southern Historical Society (2016).
William McClendon (1915–1996) was an American journalist, newspaper editor, educator, activist, jazz musician, and prominent member of Portland's civil rights community. He was born in 1915 in Atlanta, Georgia. He died at the age of 81 in 1996 in Portland, Oregon. He founded the Portland Observer, a newspaper focused on Portland's African American community before and during World War II.
Linda Burnham is an American journalist, activist, and leader in women's rights movements, particularly with organizations and projects serving and advocating for women of color.
Racial capitalism is a concept reframing the history of capitalism as grounded in the extraction of social and economic value from people of marginalized racial identities, typically from Black people. It was described by Cedric J. Robinson in his book Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, published in 1983, which, in contrast to both his predecessors and successors, theorized that all capitalism is inherently racial capitalism, and racialism is present in all layers of capitalism's socioeconomic stratification. Jodi Melamed has summarized the concept, explaining that capitalism "can only accumulate by producing and moving through relations of severe inequality among human groups", and therefore, for capitalism to survive, it must exploit and prey upon the "unequal differentiation of human value."
Abolitionist teaching, also known as abolitionist pedagogy, is a set of practices and approaches to teaching that emphasize abolishing educational practices considered by its proponents to be inherently problematic and oppressive. The term was coined by education professor and critical theorist Bettina Love.
Robert Miles, also known as Bob Miles, is a British sociologist. Miles has worked as a professor of sociology at University of Glasgow and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Anti-Americanism has been a recurring theme among several influential African American political organizations and activists due to racism against African Americans domestically, and against other non-white people internationally. African-American anti-Americanism can be contrasted with African-American patriotism, although the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive antonyms.
JoNina Marie Abron-Ervin is an American journalist and activist. She became involved with the black power movement following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and a trip she took to Rhodesia. While at university, she reported for several newspapers, including The Cincinnati Herald and The Chicago Defender. After graduating, she joined the Black Panther Party and was active in organising a number of their "survival programs", as well as editing the party newspaper. After its dissolution, she continued editing the academic journal The Black Scholar and worked as a professor at Western Michigan University. Since her retirement, she has remained active in community organizing and anti-racist activism.