Trust The Oppressed
Allen (2002) maintains, following the lead of Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of The Oppressed (1993), that "the oppressor [=White Supremacist (Racist)] needs to learn to trust the worldview of the oppressed [=non-white people], as it is only the humanity and radical love of the oppressed that can liberate both the oppressor and the oppressed." (p.469) A similar position was articulated by the late Algerian thinker, Malek Bennabi, and more recently, by white professor of International relations, John Hobson (see an earlier blog article on this point).
The Colour of Capitalism
According to Allen (2002), "the fear of newfound corporate power has simultaneously clouded the recognition and examination of still-existing state power over the disenfranchised ... [It] implies that the poles of power are now regions of capital and not necessarily nation-states. These assumptions seem oblivious to the historical and contemporary realities of the global hierarchies that exist among nations." (pp.471-472) On his view, "neoliberalism is not producing a retraction of the nation-state as much as it is a restructuring [=refinement] of it for the further perpetuation [=maintenance] of white identity politics [=White Supremacy (Racism)] in national and international domains [emphasis added]." (p.473) Crucially, Allen maintains that
The Marxist discourse on neoliberalism seems to pay little attention to naming explicitly and theorizing the racialization of neoliberalism and the continuing legacy of European imperialism [=White Supremacy (Racism).] Marxist critics have little trouble saying that there is a growing gap between the rich and the poor, but we seldom provide a further analysis of the relation between globalization and the reproduction of the identity of whites as constructed capitalists [emphasis added]. (p.473)
He goes on to assert that "the object of the white Marxist's ire, the neoliberal, is rarely given a body, face, or social identity that explicitly names who takes up, and has the power, to enact, neoliberal policies." (p.474) In response to the question, "who are the neoliberals?", Allen provides the following answer:
Are they not, as a social identity group, still primarily white folks, and, thus, the same hegemons as before? [emphasis added] (p.473)
In another jointly authored piece, Allen is even more explicit:
Global capital is white capital in that the bodies of most capitalists are seen as white - or something close to white [emphasis added].
Thus, Allen is forced to concede that "the focus on neoliberalism turns our [=white people's] gaze away from the global superstructure of white supremacy and attempts to abolish it." (p.483)
"This Global White Feudalism called 'capitalism'"
According to Allen (2002),
rather than seeing capitalism as a break from European feudalism, it ought to be thought of as an expansion of feudalism to European ethnics [=whites], a restructuring [=refinement] of "global feudalism" as opposed to the invention of a new economy that broke completely with the old. If there was a break, it was that whites, although internally divided, nevertheless organised against the world [emphasis added]. (p.477)
Crucially, he maintains that "it is difficult to believe that the rise of European imperialism was rooted mainly in capitalistic greed since accss to equity was distributed along racial group lines" (p.478), a position that is supported by the data and statistical analysis of correlations between sovereignty and socio-economic development in M. Shahid Alam's important work, Poverty from the Wealth of Nations: Integration and Polarization in the Global Economy since 1760 (2000, London: Macmillan).
Consistent with Alam, Allen states that
as evidenced by the sheer fact of who now controls the world and who reaps the benefits, whiteness trumps capitalism as the most significant opportunity structure and identity politics moevement over the last 500 years [emphasis added]. (p.478)
In short, capitalism is "a tool of global white supremacy [emphasis added]." (p.483)
