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Black workers are key to racial capitalism’s survival, and that’s what makes us so dangerous. We not only ‘built this here for free.’ As public sector employees, dockworkers, or striking football players, black labor is at once the strength and weakness of racial capitalism. https://twitter.com/rkgwork/status/1277062874054168576
Let me say more. I'm responding to a few things. First, to an older contention that changes in American capitalism (deindustrialization) rendered black workers disposable (Boggs). Dawson nicely summarizes that argument here:
https://items.ssrc.org/reading-racial-conflict/then-now-on-racial-capitalism-and-racial-conflict/
https://items.ssrc.org/reading-racial-conflict/then-now-on-racial-capitalism-and-racial-conflict/
That argument has some merits. But looking back from 2020, I think it says more about the elevated narrative place, so to speak, of industrial capitalism in the histories of 20th century African American economic life.
But think about black public sector workers who are key to shuffling white gentrifiers within the city to their tech jobs, who work as conductors and train operators moving workers from the suburbs to downtown corporate offices. They are hardly disposable.
Think of black dockworkers and their allies who shutdown the Port of Oakland to commemorate Juneteenth. They shutdown the 8th busiest container port, and held up the movement of goods throughout the northern Bay Area, Asia, and beyond.
https://www.oaklandseaport.com/performance/facts-figures/
https://www.oaklandseaport.com/performance/facts-figures/
Or think of the 70% of black NFL football players, the debt used to pay stadium bondholders, and the local businesses reliant on the upcoming NFL season. Think of all the black college football players, and just how dependent local college towns are on their labor.
This is the paradox. Black workers in a range of industries and sectors are used to power racial capital accumulation, but yet an exercise of their power--labor stoppages, strikes, protests--disrupt the system and upend that order.
