Adolph Reed Jr. on race reductionism and liberational politics

“There is no doubt that racism is real and has negative consequences for people’s lives,” Adolph Reed Jr. and Touré F. Reed note in the abstract to their article “The Evolution of ‘Race’ and Racial Justice under Neoliberalism.” “This is why we have consistently argued for the continued value of anti-discrimination policies. But race reductionism’s insistence on uncoupling disparities from political economy lends itself to individualist reforms (anti-racism training and swelling the ranks of black capitalists) as responses to structural ailments. We must reject race-reductionist analyses and refuse to accommodate charges that a left focused first and foremost on critique of and challenge to capitalist political economy as such, with its corrosive human consequences, is unacceptably ‘class reductionist.’”

What is race reductionism and how does it close off possibilities for liberational politics? How is it that we’ve come to have such a restrictive understanding of race, culture, identity, and “authenticity” today? How have the political, economic, and ideological changes to society that comprise what we call neoliberalism created a situation where discussions of race and racism are divorced from analyses of class and “capitalist political economy”?

As part of a new collaboration between The Real News Network and the podcast THIS IS REVOLUTION, co-hosts Jason Myles and Pascal Robert speak with scholar and activist Adolph Reed Jr. about the genealogy of American conceptions of race and racism, and about the folly of fighting neoliberalism on neoliberalism’s own terms. Adolph Reed Jr. is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, a longtime activist, scholar, and commentator, and the author of numerous books, including: Class Notes: Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene; Stirrings in the Jug: Black Politics in the Post-Segregation Era; and The Jesse Jackson Phenomenon: The Crisis of Purpose in Afro-American Politics.

Pre-Production/Studio: Jason Myles
Post Production: Cameron Granadino

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