Black Scare / Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States

In the early twentieth century, the US experienced two panics: the Black Scare and the Red Scare. Charisse Burden-Stelly's book explores how these panics were interconnected, revealing how they unfolded together as the US pursued capitalist domination. She argues that antiradical repression is inseparable from anti-Black oppression and vice versa. The Black Scare/Red Scare highlights the anticommunist nature of the US and its governance, but also shines a light on a misunderstood tradition of struggle for Black liberation. Burden-Stelly incorporates emancipatory ideas from various disciplines to uncover novel insights into Black political minorities and their legacy.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 14 November 2023
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press

In the early twentieth century, the United States experienced two significant panics: the Black Scare and the Red Scare. The Black Scare emerged from white Americans' fear of Black Nationalism and their apprehension about the potential social, economic, and political equality of Black people. On the other hand, the Red Scare was sparked by communist uprisings abroad and subversion at home, leading to the establishment of anticapitalism as a force capable of infiltrating and disrupting the American order.

Charisse Burden-Stelly's book, Black Scare/Red Scare, delves into the intricate relationship between these state-sanctioned panics, highlighting how they unfolded concurrently as the United States pursued capitalist domination. Burden-Stelly demonstrates that antiradical repression is inseparable from anti-Black oppression, and vice versa.

The book begins in 1917, a year marked by significant events such as the Bolshevik Revolution, the East St. Louis Race Riot, and the Espionage Act. Burden-Stelly traces the long duration of these intertwined and mutually reinforcing phenomena, highlighting the two bases of the Black Scare/Red Scare: US Capitalist Racist Society, a racially hierarchical political economy built on exploitative labor relationships, and Wall Street Imperialism, the violent processes by which businesses and the US government structured domestic and foreign policies to consolidate capital and racial domination.

In opposition to these forces, Radical Blackness emerged as a response to the governments fear of both Black insurrection and Red instigation. The states' actions and rhetoric characterized Black anticapitalists as foreign, alien, and undesirable, leading to an ideology that Burden-Stelly calls True Americanism. This ideology posited that the best things about America were absolutely not Red and that the country should prioritize its own interests over those of foreign powers.

Black Scare/Red Scare is a groundbreaking work that sheds light on the historical connections between antiradical repression, anti-Black oppression, and capitalist domination in the United States. Burden-Stelly's meticulous research and analysis provide a valuable contribution to our understanding of this critical period in American history.

Weight: 486g
Dimension: 227 x 152 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780226830155