What is Antiracism?

Description

And Why It Means Anticapitalism

By Arun Kundnani
Verso

What is “racial capitalism” and how do we overcome it? This sharp, slim, revelatory book argues that we misunderstand contemporary capitalism if we miss the centrality of racism to neoliberalism.

From David Harvey to Wendy Brown, the leading scholars of neoliberalism’s rise treat racism as an ornamental feature of recent capitalist politics—an ugly ornament, to be sure, but not one that is central to neoliberalism.

In crisp, accessible prose and via descriptions of some key moments of modern history in the US (like the Black Power movement) and the UK (like Enoch Powell’s introduction of neoliberal ideas in parliament), Arun Kundnani argues that this misapprehension of the role of race in neoliberalism contributes to the Left’s inability to build a successful movement connecting race and class.

Today, liberal antiracism has proven powerless against structural oppression. As Arun Kundnani demonstrates, white liberals can heroically confront their own whiteness all they want, yet these structures remain.

“Drawing lessons from a long tradition of anticolonial, anti-imperialist, and Marxist intellectuals and movements, Arun Kundnani demonstrates how racism and capitalism are indivisible parts of one global system. And unless we can see the whole, we’ll never know how to fight.”—Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Hammer and Hoe