Race and class: Do we need a 'Black Marxism'?

[@kamnesia79]

I think she has completely misunderstood Robinson. Robinson, from my understanding and from DuBois before him, thought Marxism worked, but only to a certain point. DuBois had gone to Russia and found that Marxist/Socialist folk had no *language*, much less any real answer for racism within the Marxist concept. "Black Marxism" is about the stretching and pulling of the concept to fit Black voices in. Also, her discussion of race being recent is.....irresponsible and disingenuous. Aside from "Black Marxism," there are just entirely too many books to read on this subject. To start, Geraldine Heng's "The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages" is a valuable resource. Also, to say that there is no Black Radical Tradition is wild. I don't know what to say about this.

[@JuliusOctavian-ws1vc]

​Q: "If a white factory worker fights against an African American capitalist, then what is the Marxist stance?" A: Marxist in the context of class struggle between workers and capitalists, we stand with workers against capitalists, and we will not give any capitalist of any ethnicity or race a free pass to exploit and oppress workers.

[@serversurfer6169]

As a Marxist, I usually begin with mountain stance.

[@HypnoticHollywood]

If capitalists didn't provide jobs to workers then workers would starve, but marxists aren't smart enough to understand this basic logic.

[@HypnoticHollywood]

@@serversurfer6169 If capitalists didn't provide jobs to workers then workers would starve, but marxists aren't smart enough to understand this basic logic.

[@ammarbanaji9404]

A white worker how benefits from exploiting Africa and slavery….. I don’t care if you communist or capitalist if you white you will get the business ✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾 pussy

[@ammarbanaji9404]

Who*

[@bereniciuspotkinovitch6793]

Great, great lead-off! Thank you all, British comrades. As a French-Canadian member, I couldn't come to the school, so these videos are helping a lot to understand Marxism through its roots. Have a great day - and let's build this revolution together!

[@AlexandraBryngelsson]

Great lead-off as always! But comrades should stop being afraid of being loud! Loud is good, more people will listen, more loud comrades plz!

[@lucacorgiani9026]

Thank you for the live comrades, as I couldn't attend in person ✊🏻🚩

[@serversurfer6169]

Who was speaking, and where can we hear more from them? 🤞🤷‍♂

[@serversurfer6169]

They're called Fiona Lali, and they give an excellent talk on black nationalism here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pavIeIeHgMd6m8U ✊🤓

[@JoeRichardson-Suman]

This is a comrade who has spoken excellently at many other conferences and events, you can probably find them elsewhere on this channel :)

[@MrHBox]

The speaker is Fiona Lali. I first heard about the speaker from her debate with the Tory Suella Braverman.

[@mantistoboggan480]

Great talk! Love the Baldwin quote at the end. Thank you comrade.

[@VigilantnotMilitant]

Coooked with the class fire🔥 💯 Rigorous & profound!

[@ΠαυλοςΝτ]

We criticise so we can help the semi awakened conciousness not tell people what to do. If they come along they come.

[@bAkra60]

Maybe the speaker should read Yurugu by Marimba Ani.

[@quisqueyalorah.784]

Who is she?

[@august_3rd]

JUST LIKE FANON SAID MARXISM HAS TO BE stretched out.

[@grahamjones5400]

If Black Marxists feel it's needed, then yes. Different communities have different pressing conditions and concerns. BUT it's up to those communities to decide it.

[@fabilovesfutbol]

Great, so either you didn't watch the video at all or didn't understand what was being said. Either way, you're lost 💯

[@ronnysmobilephone]

Turn up the volume and then repost the video.

[@davisoneill]

I do agree that more care has to be taken so that we can hear every word Comrade Fiona speaks.

[@disgustedcustomerdoe8237]

Whoa!!!!!🎉❤

[@amelakn]

The speaker mischaracterises the book and the author’s thesis. I question if she actually read the book given the inaccuracy of her claims. I think her political-econmic analysis of racialism as a complex sociological system is awful and inaccurate. Why did white working-class people vote against their own economic interest with Brexit? Racial Capitalism explains this tendency towards class fragmentation. Robinson explores the relationship between racialization (the social construction of race) and class formation. Next, he talks explicitly about proto-racism in Europe as a precursor to racialism. The hierarchical relations formed around racialism was created in service to capitalist extractions and fragmentation of class solidarity. Robinson clearly explains how racialism was not static but highly mutable and changeable over time. He talks extensively about how Irish immigrants to England during the early industrialisation period were racialised and the expansion of racialist logics through colonial imperialism. Specifically, Robinson discusses racialism as a dynamic and changing relationality not static one. The Black Radical tradition is an intellectual school of thought even if the speaker is not aware of the breadth of the scholarship. The speaker demonstrates poor scholarly analysis of the topic. I wish she engaged with the author’s thesis rather than mischaracterising the author’s central thesis. Organisers, next time me get a speaker who actually read the book not skimmed it, preferably a political scientist.

[@irenekaloyannis1072]

The speaker addressed and refuted each of these points, and stated which ones have any truth to them (and to what degree). Perhaps have another listen.

[@ludviglidstrom6924]

“Why did white working class people vote against their own economic interests with Brexit?” That is an extremely weird question. They did not vote against their own interests with Brexit. The EU is an extremely reactionary, neoliberal, capitalist and imperialist organization. Imagine if Jeremy Corbyn would have won the election and then tried to implement his policies in a Britain that’s part of the EU; many of his reforms would’ve been illegal. That’s why Corbyn was quite anti-EU even though he was forced in a more pro-EU direction by his own party.

[@fabilovesfutbol]

You didn't listen to the video, and it's painstakingly obvious. Your subjective understanding of the book and its lessons won't make the objective reality around the book, n its lessons change

[@davisoneill]

Whites don't see voting against immigration as being against their economic interest. The less workers there are for the Capitalists to exploit, the more they must pay for labour. Of course, the Capitalists never would allow Brexit to cut off their supply of labour.

[@mjjackson5963]

I agree, she could have at least touched on the observations made in Black Reconstruction by W. E. B Dubois regarding the white proletariat acting against their own class interest during reconstruction. Her analysis is very underdeveloped.

[@LaLasta]

Marx's letter to Engels July 30 1862 😭😭😭

[@MiCajaDelIdiota]

Before asking the question, please define what is Black Marxism?

[@turtlecraft7996]

I think the point is precisely that "Black marxism" doesn't really exist as a movement or coherent philosophy, and is mostly an artificial construction by some academics who want to sound radical, while essentially they are rejecting marxism.

[@MiCajaDelIdiota]

@@turtlecraft7996 Excellent!

[@VigilantnotMilitant]

Fiona defines it in this lecture based on the book Black Marxism by Cedric Robinson. Robinson (and Fiona) define Black Marxism as "the Black Radical Tradition" in Africa as decolonization activists and also in the Americas. Fiona highlights that Robinson's definition of Black Marxism is identity reductionist (my characterization not Fiona's) and "idealist" (Fiona and RCP's) characterization because it crudely lumps together black political activists that promoted different political theories.

[@MiCajaDelIdiota]

@@VigilantnotMilitant If there's such thing as "Black Marxism," then something like "White [Caucasian] Marxism" must exist, And why not add "Latino Marxism?" Sure! Just like there's a "White Sociology," "Black Chemistry," etc.. right? So, sciences and praxis are defined by the racial/ethnic essences of it's practitioners. Judeo-Germanic Marxism anyone? You know, the one practiced by Karl...

[@brudamo9203]

No need if antiracism is practised right?

[@paulosdula6922]

Your reading of Cerderic Robinson is totally flawed. I think you need to read again with disturbingly open-mind to clearly understand the essence of the book. In soldiarity.

[@ronnysmobilephone]

Change your mind change the world idealism.

[@ChattyCinnamon]

You added absolutely nothing to the conversation

[@ludviglidstrom6924]

I think it’s possible to imagine a non-racist, non-sexist etc capitalism. It’s absolutely theoretically possible to have a capitalist society with huge economic inequality without any racial component to that class hierarchy. So just as many black millionaires and billionaires as white ones and so on. So I don’t think capitalism is inherently racist, sexist and so on.

[@fabilovesfutbol]

Yes, I think anyone can IMAGINE capitalism in such an idealist n utopian way, but in reality, that's fundamentally impossible.

[@serversurfer6169]

Capitalism is inherently inequitable, and things like race and gender serve as scapegoats for that inequity. Absent that, the difference between the owners and the owned/rented becomes harder to dismiss. 🤔

[@dorinpopa6962]

​​​@@fabilovesfutboljust like nationalism is very useful in splitting apart the working class and mobilize it for the interests of the ruling class, racism is just like that but even more useful for the ruling class. National difference are not always visible right away, but with racism they use a clearly differentiable feature to do the splitting even more efficiently. It's too useful of a tool for the bourgeoisie to just relinquish it and allow capitalism to become not racist, because then the fundamental class differences will be the only one left and will be a lot more obvious for the masses

[@hyperbole6529]

😂😂 what fools

[@roverboat2503]

The ruling class. You mean Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot.

[@patrickmorris3721]

Talk about being duped. She obviously has never studied world history over the past 1000 to 2000 years. And see how the borders of countries or continents changed. Land and borders Flowed like Mercury on a flat surface. Even history of the last century with revolutions. And to talk about Africa revolutions and not know what they were revolting for. I’m shocked.

[@davisoneill]

Seems you feel threatened by Comrade Fiona's brilliant eloquence.

[@patrickmorris3721]

No I’m not but thanks for asking. I’m just curious about her confidence in going through writing a book and public speaking. Impressive.how so much work/ talk. Produced so little. When it should have. Good topic to have chosen and rich in information. But didn’t

[@dorinpopa6962]

​​@@patrickmorris3721the book she's talking about is not her's and she's critiquing it. And yes, the African revolutions mostly deserve the heat because the leaders have very often sold the masses to the imperialists. They have just placed themselves as regional managers in place of the previous colonial administrations. The exceptions to this are the explicitly Marxist movement like in Burkina Faso with Sankara.

[@Owl350]

Vote for the Socialist Party !