H.L.T. Quan on Cedric Robinson, Racial Capitalism, Black Internationalism, & Cultures of Resistance

In this livestream we will be joined by H.L.T. Quan to talk about the book Cedric J. Robinson: On Racial Capitalism, Black Internationalism, and Cultures of Resistance. We will discuss several themes from the collection, which Quan edited, including Cedric Robinson's thinking on Pan-Africanism, what he called the "Native Theory of History," his piece "The First Attack is an Attack on Culture," Robinson's methodology, his work on racial regimes and cultural production, and his prolonged engagement with revolutionary theory, including Marxism, and revolutionary movements.
H. L. T. QUAN is a political theorist and an award-winning filmmaker. Currently she is an Associate Professor of Justice and Social Inquiry in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. She is also an affiliate faculty member in African/African American Studies, Asian Pacific American Studies, Women's and Gender Studies, and the Sidney Poitier New American Film School at ASU. Her research and teaching focus on radical thought and praxis, including feminist consciousness and activism, utopian thought and speculative living, data justice, and the Black Radical Tradition.
Quan is the author of Growth Against Democracy: Savage Developmentalism in the Modern World (Lexington Books, 2012) - a radical critique of modern development and economic thought, including neoliberalism, and the editor of Cedric J. Robinson: On Racial Capitalism, Black Internationalism, and Cultures of Resistance, (Pluto Press, 2019). She recently completed her monograph, Against Tyranny: A Feminist Ethic for Democratic Living - an in depth study of willful refusals against various terms of order.
As a filmmaker, she collaborates with C.A. Griffith, including co-producing/directing three feature length documentaries, Mountains That Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama - A Conversation on Life, Struggles, & Liberation (2009); America’s Home (2014), a film about gentrification and displacement in Puerto Rico; and Queer, Broke & Amazing! (2022), a film on LGBTQ+ people in the United States and their struggles for economic justice. In 2020, Quan was the Editor in Residence for the social justice related blog Praxis, featuring more than 40 unique essays from writers from all over the world.
She and C.A. Griffith co-founded QUAD Productions, a non-profit media collective in 1999. Through QUAD, they have produced over a dozen short and three feature-length documentaries - all focusing on various social justice campaigns. In spring of 2010, QUAD co-produced the short documentary Arizona Women and Children Rise: Resisting SB1070 in collaboration with Third World Newsreel (TWN) for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, National Domestic Workers Alliance and Puente Movement. QUAD’s footage was quickly edited in New York by TWN to create an eighteen-minute cut that was sent to the White House and members of Congress in May 2010 to challenge Arizona's racist, anti-immigration law. For more information on Quan and Griffith's feminist film praxis see their interview with Chandra Talpade-Mohanty and Linda E. Carty in the Feminist Freedom Warrior Video Archive.
Professor Quan has been an educational volunteer for the College Program at a federal prison in Arizona for more than 15 years.
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[@michaeltee4275]

Notwithstanding whatever usefulness it has had in the past, black nationalism in 2024 is a dead end.

[@michaeltee4275]

Quan is correct about how even the left 'intelligensia' has not taken the black theoretical contrabutions to Marxism seriously.

[@michaeltee4275]

I agree that, other than an uncritical recognition of MLK's radical religiosity, the U.S. left has not seriously examined the radical aspects of the black religious traditions.

[@etspiritus]

✊🏾✌🏾

[@reddy11-11]

(Foxy Brown) “Pam Grier was a intentional distortion of Angela Davis.” Dam! That was so true. I was 10 yrs old at the time and Angela D was definitely an imprint on my mind bc my Mom liked her. But in reflection I do remember foxy brown, cleopatra jones subtlety imposing on that image and impression. Thanks for that insight. I can confirm that statement as I unwittingly lived it. Thank God Sista Angela out lasted those movies & I grew up in Oakland (replete with Blk consciousness at that time), so these imposter images fell off.

[@MAKCapitalism]

It is a really insightful article. Like on some level I understood this, but the way he lays it out in the piece is very clarifying

[@michaeltee4275]

All theories are limited; some more than others

[@michaeltee4275]

Although Robinson's 'Black Marxism' raises many thought-provoking and credible ideas about the development of white supremacy and colonialism, overall it's a very muddled and abstruse work , imo, with very little utility for the black radical tradition he claims to uphold.

[@MAKCapitalism]

You may feel that way. But that's not the book this episode is about and the one we are discussing absolutely does have utility. Unless you think Cabral, Fanon, Malcolm X have no utility or that understanding the mechanics of racial regimes in service of Capital are irrelevant.

[@michaeltee4275]

Although I disagree with the class reductionists who've reduced everything to economics, I think some black Marxists, like the late Robinson , make the mistake​of overemphasizing white supremacy and NOT recognizing that ALL colonial regimes manufacture justifications for colonization and exploitation. White supremacy has arguably been the most intractable and ubiquitous, among other things @@MAKCapitalism

[@justinehecht8978]

I find Black Marxism very useful for building working class solidarity and for thinking through how institutions respond to changing conditions, and any move towards liberation by reorganizing themselves. There's whole troves of scholars and activists that utilize this work to think and organize. So maybe try exploring some of the folks Quan mentions if you want to see how Robinson is actually being used.

[@michaeltee4275]

@@justinehecht8978 Good for you. Other than invoking the need for Marxist to CENTER the Black radical tradition, Black Marxism ain't that profound. Check out Gerald Horne and Nina Farina .

[@justinehecht1197]

I think the point was that many people do find this work useful, even if you don't. So avoiding universalizing statements is useful more often than not. I'm also familiar with both Horne and think he and Robinson share a lot of similar points. Farina is not making any new arguments by illustrating that Black folks have not had free speech rights here, that's been pretty well established since the abolitionists if not earlier. I've not read all of her work, so maybe she says more else where. But what is it that you finding limiting about Black Marxism exactly?