Global Racial Empire vs Materlialism (marxism)

By Anonymous

In reading Taiwo's Reconsidering Reparations I was reminded quickly of reading about materialism in Marx's The German Ideology. Marx built a framework that viewed nearly every aspect of society, from basic family dynamics to tools to language to industry as a result of humans fulfilling their material needs.

Taiwo cites author Charles Mills who argued for a framework of "global white supremacy" as a political system  that results from the fact that "the world has been foundationally shaped for the past five hundred years by the gradual consolidation of global white supremacy" (25). Taiwo goes on to say that his book agrees with this theory. 

I do not object the the fact that global white supremacy has affected nearly the entire world. It has been a phenomenon that has shaped the global power structure, allowed those in power to gain wealth, and subjugated millions of people. 

Though, I do think an important nuance could be clarified. I notice that subjugation has occurred in many different ways. It has occurred by race, but it has also occurred by class, gender, religion, and ethnicity. In India there was a caste system where people of the same race subjugated each other. There have been countries where different groups of the same race have genocided each other. Slavery of conquered people has occurred numerous times throughout history, even before race existed. To this day, women lack rights in many places around the globe. Some might argue that poor white people in America lack political power and are being marginalized to fuel the capitalist system that benefits the wealthy.

The common denominator here is subjugation. A marxist-materialist may go on to say it is subjugation to meet material needs. This paper focuses highly on race and white supremacy. I don't think Taiwo would deny that race was used as a way for white people to subjugate other people. But in that case, is race just a proxy? Like gender, class, caste, or ethnicity. Is Taiwo's reading just a narrowed in case study of an example of Marx's materialism, where material needs can explain all else? 

If this were true, it would have consequences to Taiwo's understanding of the Global Racial Empire. It seems subjugation happens no matter what. In cases of slavery, Jim Crow, and racism, it is clear that race was created and used to subjugate. But in other cases, such as the exploitation of India, Africa, or South America, how do we know race is the reason for such exploitation? Does Taiwo believe that, if the people in these countries were white, they would have not been exploited? 

Italians and Jews have been marginalized and exploited in America. Millions of working class people have been exploited since we can remember. There have always been hierarchies, even when race didn't exist. 

It could be possible that colonizing countries exploited other ones because they more technologically advanced, and thus had the power to. Those countries happened to have people with different skin color, and thus we think it is because of race. To be clear, I am not arguing that racism does not exist or didn't exist in these instances. It is likely that colonizing European imperialists showed up and used the differences between themselves and the indiginous people to create race, simply as a way to separate, patronize, or justify subjugation. I'm just wondering if race is the reason. It could be argued that race was a tool. If there hadn't been racial differences, perhaps the colonizers would have come up with a different seperating tool. 

Comments

  1. SambhavMay 1, 2023 at 11:11 PM

    This blog post presents an interesting perspective on Taiwo's "Reconsidering Reparations" and its emphasis on race and global white supremacy. Your discussion raises two significant points that warrant further reflection.

    First, you emphasize that subjugation manifests in various forms, such as class, gender, religion, and ethnicity, in addition to race. This broader perspective on oppression, illustrated by examples like the Indian caste system and exploitation of the working class, highlights the complexity of the reparations debate and the difficulty in identifying the precise causal chains that have led to the suffering of marginalized communities.


    Second, your suggestion that race may be a proxy or a tool used to justify subjugation, rather than the root cause, raises important questions about the reparations debate. If we acknowledge that race is not the sole factor driving historical and contemporary subjugation, it encourages us to focus on addressing the symptoms and structural inequalities that perpetuate cycles of poverty and disadvantage for various marginalized groups. It seems then, that if we are to focus on reparations, perhaps it is more productive to address the symptoms of subjugation rather than attributing it solely to race and working from there.

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