Listening to Black lives matter: racial capitalism and the critique of neoliberalism | SpringerLink Advertisement Search Log in Search SpringerLink Search Article Published: 29 April 2020 Listening to Black lives matter: racial capitalism and the critique of neoliberalism Siddhant Issar1  Contemporary Political Theory volume 20, pages48–71(2021)Cite this article 18k Accesses 3 Citations 53 Altmetric Metrics details Abstract This article explores left critiques of neoliberalism in light of the Black Lives Matter movement’s (BLM) recourse to the notion of ‘racial capitalism’ in their analyses of anti-Black oppression. Taking a cue from BLM, I argue for a critical theory of racial capitalism that historicizes neoliberalism within a longue durée framework, surfacing racialized continuities in capitalism’s violence. I begin by revealing how neo-Marxist and neo-Foucaultian approaches to neoliberalism, particularly that of David Harvey and Wendy Brown, respectively, partition race from the workings of contemporary capitalism. Such analyses obscure neoliberalism’s differential impact on non-white racialized populations, while simultaneously casting anti-racist struggles as divisive. In contrast, I then trace how the Movement for Black Lives policy platform invokes Cedric Robinson’s work on racial capitalism, investigating the utility of this framework for the movement’s demands. Building on BLM’s turn to the concept of racial capitalism, I finally offer an outline of a critical theory of racial capitalism to better theorize neoliberalism. By historicizing neoliberalism within racial capitalism’s historical arc, such a theory unravels the qualitatively different mechanisms through which racialized populations are pressed into circuits of capital accumulation. 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I am also grateful to participants at the Abolition Collective’s Inaugural Convergence in 2017, the Western Political Science Association 2018 meeting, and the University of Chicago’s Race and Capitalism Graduate Conference in 2018, and to Nick Xenos, Yasmeen Daifallah, Sonia Alvarez, Adam Dahl, John McMahon, Rachel Brown, Basil Zeno, Sean Gordon, James Padilioni, Rob Echeverria, and Lars Cornelissen for their feedback. Author information Affiliations University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA Siddhant Issar Authors Siddhant IssarView author publications You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar Corresponding author Correspondence to Siddhant Issar. Additional information Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Rights and permissions Reprints and Permissions About this article Cite this article Issar, S. Listening to Black lives matter: racial capitalism and the critique of neoliberalism. Contemp Polit Theory 20, 48–71 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-020-00399-0 Download citation Published: 29 April 2020 Issue Date: March 2021 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-020-00399-0 Keywords Black Lives Matter racial capitalism neoliberalism race left politics Access options Buy single article Instant access to the full article PDF. US$ 39.95 Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout. Subscribe to journal Immediate online access to all issues from 2019. Subscription will auto renew annually. US$ 79 Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout. Rent this article via DeepDyve. 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