Week 4

Key Questions

• What is race? What is racism?

• What is the relationship between racism and capitalism?

• What is racial capitalism? Why is it important to think and talk about racial capitalism as opposed to just capitalism?

Required Materials:

• Destin Jenkins and Justin Leroy, Histories of Racial Capitalism, "The Old History of Capitalism"

• Shauna Sweeney, Histories of Racial Capitalism, "Gendering Racial Capitalism and the Black Heretical Tradition"

• Chris Chen, "The Limit Point of Capitalist Equality"

Supplementary Materials:

• K-Sue Park, Histories of Racial Capitalism, "Race, Innovation, and Financial Growth: The Example of Foreclosure"

• Mishal Khan, Histories of Racial Capitalism, "The Indebted Among the 'Free': Producing Indian Labor Through Racial Capitalism"

• Allan Lumba, Histories of Racial Capitalism, "Transpacific Migration, Racial Surplus, and Colonial Settlement"

• Nikhil Pal Singh, Futures of Black Radicalism, "On Race, Violence, and So-Called Primitive Accumulation"

• Ruth Wilson Gilmore, "Geographies of Racial Capitalism"

Exercise

Ruth Wilson Gilmore states that “capitalism requires inequality, and racism enshrines it.” Take a moment to write examples of how racism, both historically and currently, functions within capitalism. Can the two be separated? Can there be capitalism without racism?