Talk:Racial capitalism

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2021 and 3 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Amykuriakose (article contribs).

Concept of "Race"

Another editor undid my revision arguing "I understand where you're coming from. But why render the introductory paragraph less clear with "race is a social construct," when there exists, independent of society, a difference in skin pigmentation levels amongst groups of humans." However, this argument is flawed because empirical "difference in skin pigmentation levels" is not equivalent with empirical evidence for "races". To claim that "races" exist independent of human conceptualizations is (please note: I do not assume that the editor who undid my revision holds this view) is a form of "racism", see racism. Please help to eliminate racist claims from this lemma. Smht% (talk) 20:01, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Smht%, I by no means am arguing in favor of racism: I mean, the whole reason I started this page was to speak on the prejudices and biases inherent to today's system of global capitalism. However (as I stated before) I see no valid reason to act as if race doesn't exist. Objectively, it exists. And, Yes, I get where you are coming from: you want to be politically correct and socially aware. But there is no need for that argument to be made here. If you would like to take that stance, I invite you to start a separate Wiki-page, perhaps one pertaining to 'race as a social construct;' but that notion can and should be omitted from this page. Vito Esposito (talk) 21:34, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Vito Esposito, thank you for your answer. I hope to have made clear that I do not at all insinuate that you argue in favor of racism. My point is: I would be more careful with the claim that races are natural kinds because this is one - alleged - scientific basis of racism. Maybe, you as a native speaker can find a less complicated way than my attempt to tackle this problem in introductory paragraph. Smht% (talk) 15:26, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Proposed Revisions

I would like to rewrite the existing article since it is underdeveloped. Currently, the article only includes a lengthy definition and description of the history of the term, and I would like to rewrite the introduction to be more clear and concise. In addition, I would like to create sections including “Origins,” “Overview,” “Critiques,” and “Scope & Implications” (as another user mentioned) to add structure, depth, and connect the concept of racial capitalism to other relevant themes. I also mention my suggested changes with some references to incorporate on my user page. Amykuriakose (talk) 03:16, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Please visit my sandbox for a detailed proposal of revisions. Amykuriakose (talk) 02:27, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Revisions

I have started editing the lead, by making it more concise and rewriting/moving some information to a new "Origins" section I created. Please let me know if there are other changes that need to be made! Amykuriakose (talk) 03:01, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Amykuriakose, Your editions have so far been thoroughly researched, well written, and (to be frank) necessary. — Please proceed with any proposed additions/revisions to the article. In its current state, it is terribly underdeveloped and warrants more attention; for the topic itself is of the greatest importance and ought to be fleshed out more fully. Thank you for your time and effort. Vito Esposito (talk) 9:19, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Suggestions on Revisions

1. First, what does the article do well? Is there anything from your review that impressed you? Any turn of phrase that described the subject in a clear way?

The article has efficient titles, a clear and precise lead, and a variety of scholarly sources; it increases overall quality of the original article. I was impressed by how the article comes across as neutral, despite its controversial nature.

2. What changes would you suggest the author make to the article? Why would those changes be an improvement? (Draw from your comments in this form in making these suggestions)

1) Expand sections on environmental justice, COVID-19, and South Africa and Palestine/Israel; they seem too brief compared to the history and origins section

2) Specify difference between “origins” and “history”

3) Be more specific than “Scope and Implications” – what does this mean? A sub-header should be used to make the subject of this paragraph more clear

4) Create a short section about alternative viewpoints/discuss scholars who disagree with Robinson

5) Shortening/taking out lengthy quotes and replacing them with explanations of concepts to make the article more accessible to a broad audience

6) Add 1-2 more images to the article

3. What are the most important things the writer could do to improve the article(s)?

They could expand certain sections to make the article more balanced, create more specific and clear headers, discuss alternate viewpoints, take out long quotes, and add images.

SarahD12345678910 (talk) 16:44, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Thoughts on New Revisions

I really enjoyed the description of how this term came about. I think the explanation of the term’s origin was essential in setting up the scene to discuss how it has been implemented. In addition, the examples mentioned really clarified this abstract topic and allowed me to see how this idea was being manifested in different instances. I think the article could be improved by eliminating the ambiguity in the lead of the article when describing what exactly racial capitalism is. The current explanation is a bit broad and can be confusing. Other than that, I think revising “Origin” to maybe “Term Origin” would clear up the air because people often consider origin to mean the history of something and since a history section is already confusing, it makes it confusing to the reader as they don’t know what exactly the next section will cover. In the end, I think the most important thing is to simplify the concepts mentioned to make this article applicable to everyone. --Zachre Andrews (talk) 19:33, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Zachre Andrews I completely understand your objection. But my concern with narrowing the concept's definition (at least as it appears in the introductory paragraph) is that such a narrowing to certain applications would be to the exclusion of others. Put differently: In its current form, the definition is broad/vague enough to encompass (what I hope to be) all applications of the concept. Further along in the article, the concept is elaborated upon in more concrete terms and applied to particular use cases (e.g., the transatlantic slave trade), but it oughtn't be presented as such at the onset.

And to be sure, the term does not derive exclusively from Marxist and radical thought (though we may easily trace the line of descent), but it must by necessity be presented here, as it was by Robinson, in the Marxist and radicalist tongue. That is, sociological notions such as a "derivation of economic value," "commodification of race," "exploitation," etc., must here be used and are themselves terribly broad and vague terms. So the broadness/vagueness can be attributed at least in part to the nature of the concepts themselves: for their progenitor presented them in such terms and we here must do the same.

That said, I am open to further discussion and am interested in hearing additional comments on the matter. Vito Esposito (talk) 7:31, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Is this an encyclopedia article or a tabloid opinion piece?

The article starts with: 'Racial capitalism is a concept coined by Cedric J. Robinson'. It tries to define that concept initially, but then ends up with the concept presented as confirmed and factual with not much more than an incomprehensible Robinson quote for support.

There is a sense of propaganda and soapbox about this article as it seems to be mostly the work of one editor (the page creator). It has too much jargon, strays off topic, and has issues with WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. Also, adhere to WP:MOS 92.28.16.199 (talk) 03:01, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Section Expansions

I changed the some section headings to make the article more clear and avoid confusion between the origin of the term and the history behind it. I also expanded on the subsections under "Modern racial capitalism" and created a "Critiques" section. Please let me know if there are any concerns with my revisions or if anyone has any feedback/further changes they want to make. Amykuriakose (talk) 00:42, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

@Amykuriakose: this article is quite good. Thanks for working on it! I was not actually familiar with Robinson's work before reading this, and I'm glad to have found it, so thanks for that. I did have to spend some time with the references you cited in order to better understand what exactly racial capitalism is, and I think this article could be a little clearer. Specifically, I think the section on 'term origin' is a little unclear. Possibly this could be solved with simpler and more concise wording. I think that the definition of racial capitalism is clearly stated in the lead, and I think it could be more clearly stated again in the section on term origin. It might also be useful to expand very slightly on Robinson's rejection of Marxism (his book is titled Black Marxism after all--what's the difference between Black Marxism and Marxist Marxism?) The footnote with the quote from Marx may make things more confusing. (Is it a Marxist notion that capitalism overthrew the discriminations of feudalism, or did Marx say that these discriminations were merely supplanted by new discriminations?--Possibly both, but this could all be more clear).

I think the history section is pretty good. I do think some clarification could be helpful on how capitalism functioned before racialization. You describe how capitalism became racialized through the slave trade, but if capitalism is based on the, "tendency of European civilization...not to homogenize [groups of peoples] but to differentiate," what were the important differentiations (at least in colonial America) before the slave trade? And why didn't those differentiations work anymore? You do touch on this with indentured servitude, and maybe it's enough, but I felt something could be clearer here.

Finally, I think you could either devote a little less to the article by Charisse Burden-Stelly or else more clearly distinguish her 'modern racial capitalism' from that already formulated by Robinson. I think the rest of the section on modern racial capitalism is great.

I hope all this is helpful. Thanks again Larataguera (talk) 05:20, 25 November 2021 (UTC)