From #Blacklivesmatter to Black Liberation

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2016

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Chapter 2

Chapter 3-Chapter 5

Chapter 6-Chapter 7

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Institutional Racism

Institutional racism, or structural racism, is a guiding theme of the book. In the Introduction, Taylor identifies institutional racism as the best framework for understanding Black experience, especially Black poverty, in a country like the United States that has peddled a public image of democracy, meritocracy, and equal opportunity. She explains that the term “institutional racism” was introduced by Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton in their 1967 book, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation. Institutional racism locates the source of Black deprivation in “the policies, programs, and practices of public and private institutions” (8). It’s an important framework because, as Taylor demonstrates, there is a tendency among the political establishment and the economic elite to absolve themselves of responsibility for Black hardship by locating its source in perceived Black inferiority, culture, and family structure, in addition to narrowing the definition of racism to the intentions and actions of individuals.

Throughout the text, Taylor provides evidence of institutional racism embedded in the policies and practices of the United States. For example, In Chapter 1, she cites Ira Katznelson on “the uneven distribution of postwar riches” (31). Katznelson’s book, When Affirmative Action Was White, discusses the initial exclusion of Black Americans from New Deal programs, urban disinvestment, and Black exclusion from suburban housing where federal subsidies were being provided in the aftermath of World War II. She also notes in the chapter the role of formal equality in obscuring institutional racism.

In Chapter 3, she discusses the policies and practices of Black politicians, such as the first Black mayor of Camden, New Jersey, Randy Primas. Taylor discusses how he authorized the building of an incinerator and a $55 million prison despite community opposition to both. Taylor includes a quote from Primas demonstrating that the prison construction was rooted in a commitment to private enterprise, the generation of municipal revenue, and policing Black poverty.

With these examples from Chapter 1 and 3, Taylor demonstrates that a structural critique connects various iterations of racism into a single matrix. There is an obvious connection among legal discrimination in housing, employment, and education; health disparities; and the policing of Black communities. A structural critique connects the uprising against police violence to this larger web and exposes the fundamental and interrelated flaws of American society that are undergirded by a commitment to a racist political economy. It also lends credence to her assertion in Chapter 4 that the police are armed agents of the state, essentially foot soldiers of the political and economic elite, who ensure that the inequitable structure remains in place. That the Black political establishment pushes forward this political agenda, including the police state, underscores that racism is institutional, as opposed to merely located in the intentions and actions of presumably white or non-Black individuals.

Other examples of institutional racism and its impact are provided throughout the text, such as in the Introduction where Taylor provides statistics on the wealth and income disparities between white and Black families; in Chapter 4 where she provides statistics on the likelihood of Black men being killed by the police; and in Chapter 6 when she discusses the education policies that disproportionately funnel Black children into the school-to-prison pipeline. Again, all the examples serve the purpose of locating Black inequality in institutional structure rather than individual behavior.

Class Warfare

From the recognition of institutional racism comes attention to class warfare, as in the political establishment and economic elite have been waging and continue to wage war on poor and working-class people. The centrality of class warfare to Taylor’s analysis becomes most clear that it is an idea integral to her argument when she discusses Karl Marx in Chapter 7. Class warfare is a central component of Marxism. Furthermore, the discussion of Marx’s structural critique of capitalism succinctly illuminates the relationship between racial oppression and class exploitation.

That the political and economic elite are waging a war on poor and working-class communities is exposed by the literal militarization of the police. In Chapter 4, Taylor discusses the “process of transforming police into soldiers in the inner city” (121). She provides evidence from a report detailing the distribution of M-16s, M-14s, grenade launchers, armored personnel carriers, bayonets, tanks, helicopters, and airplanes from the Pentagon to civilian police agencies during the Clinton administration (121). The Pentagon provided billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment to the police under the Bush administration and the Obama administration between 2006 and 2012 (121).

The perception that “the police are fighting a war against drugs and crime and must be heavily armed” (121) obscures the fact that they are actually waging a war on poor communities. Drug and crime issues are outgrowths of poverty, exacerbated by the gutting of social welfare. Yet, the political establishment “concentrates even more resources into policing” (123) rather than boosting the public sector and social services that would mitigate the effects of poverty. Furthermore, those “quality of life” and “nuisance” crimes that characterize the “broken windows” approach to policing are most likely to be committed by poor people, thereby bringing them into increased contact with law enforcement. In addition, this increased contact also draws poor and working-class people into paying fines and fees that form the bulk of municipal revenue, thereby shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to the poor and working classes.

Taylor illustrates at the beginning of Chapter 4 that the criminalization of poverty has roots in post-Emancipation Black Codes, which draws a link between racial oppression and class exploitation. However, the war on poor and working-class communities, while disproportionately impacting Black communities, is not limited to Black people. White and Latinx communities “get caught up in its web as well,” highlighting that class warfare is a multiracial issue. In the same chapter, Taylor writes that one of the three tenants of Marx’s theory is “that when group of workers suffers oppression, it negatively affects all workers and the class as a whole” (209), suggesting that white and non-Black people have a stake in joining Black communities in resistance to the police state.

In addition, as Taylor nears the end of Chapter 6 and speaks about solidarity, she writes that BLM’s forward movement must involve “building networks and alliances with Latinos in opposition to attacks on immigrant rights, connecting with Arabs and Muslims campaigning against Islamophobia, and organizing with Native organizations that fight for self-determination” (186). Taylor’s mention of Latinx and Native communities implies the role that America’s foreign policy, history of settler colonialism, and perpetuation of capitalism have played in creating the impoverished conditions of those who come here from the global South looking to escape poverty and those who were already here prior to European “expansion” and the US myth of Manifest Destiny. The mention of Muslims and Arabs also draws a connection between America’s foreign and domestic policies, both of which are undergirded by the maintenance of capitalism and the relegation of most people to the poor and working class.

Thus, the police’s role as foot soldiers of the political and economic elite demonstrates that there is, in fact, a war being waged by the elite class against poor and working-class communities. The specific racialized nature of this war is significant. Yet, the generalized nature implies that the root is capitalism and that its inequities extend beyond the Black community to the poor and working class.

Response to Black Resistance Movements

The response to Black resistance movements is also a key theme in Taylor’s discussion. It is especially significant to consider in terms of the forward trajectory of the BLM movement. Taylor illuminates two important and interrelated points about Black resistance movements: one, that the political establishment’s response is to repress the movements; and two, that the general public’s response is raised consciousness. The latter makes the former even more necessary for the elite to maintain their power because raised consciousness of the masses threatens the control of the minority elite and the mythology of America.

Taylor provides several examples of the tactics used by the political establishment to repress Black resistance movements. They primarily involve the expansion of the police state and the use of police force to quell uprisings. In Chapter 1, Taylor discusses the impact of “loyalty investigations” at the height of McCarthyism that subjected leftist activists to FBI interrogation and stigmatization. In Chapter 2, she describes legislation from the Johnson and Nixon administrations that conflated activism with criminality and directed an expanded policing state at “the ‘unruly’ Black population” (65-66). Chapter 2 also includes discussion of the “vicious crackdown against a mostly Black uprising in the Attica prison in upstate New York” (67). The incarcerated people were demanding improvement to “the quality of life in the prison, including improved sanitation, an end to guard brutality, better medical care, and better food” (67), but the state’s response was to tear gas the incarcerated individuals, blinding, chocking, incapacitating, and killing people in the process (67).

Chapter 3 outlines that the promotion of Black elected officials and the turn to electoral politics was a “preventive measure against urban uprisings” (85). Black politicians responded, in turn, by fulfilling their duty to the larger political establishment by expanding the policing state among their constituencies. For example, Carl Stokes in Cleveland appointed “another white veteran police chief” (87) and “spent tens of thousands of dollars on upgrading the weaponry of the police force” (87) in the aftermath of a 1968 Black nationalist uprising against the police. Similarly, Wilson Goode repressed Black resistance in 1985.

The threat that Black resistance movements and organizations pose to the elite class lies in the way that Black resistance raises public consciousness and creates the potential for multiracial class solidarity by exposing the interrelated flaws of American society. In Chapter 1, Taylor notes that “the positive impact of the struggle could be measured by shifting opinions among the public regarding social programs” (46). She cites national polls demonstrating that the resistance of the 1960s increased the general public’s support of expanding social programs that would mitigate material deprivation (46). Taylor’s discussion of Nixon’s administration in Chapter 2 points to the concern that Black resistance was “having a direct influence on the economy” (57). In part, Nixon catered to a business class anxious about “Black and white workers on the same picket lines” (57) during the strike wave of 1967 to 1974.

Resistance in the 21st century has also had the same effect of raising public consciousness in terms of the interrelated nature of racial oppression and class exploitation. In Chapter 5, Taylor discusses the convergence of the Troy Davis protest encampment and the Occupy encampment, noting that it helped draw connections between “economic and class inequality […] corporate greed, fraud, and corruption” (146) and racism. In Chapter 6, Taylor discusses the national profile of the BLM movement and “a number of white, Latino/a, and Asian students” (173) participating in direct action in solidarity with Black protestors.

Taylor’s attention to political and public response to Black resistance movements elucidates continuities between different eras of resistance and highlights that the Black liberation struggle in its past and contemporary iterations is, in essence, a “project of human liberation and social transformation” (194). It spotlights the elite’s commitment to maintaining the racialized political economy of the US and exposes the emptiness of the myths that are central to the maintenance of ideologies that serve the elite and oppress the rest.