Geographies of Racial Capitalism with Ruth Wilson Gilmore – An Antipode Foundation film

Geographies of Racial Capitalism with Ruth Wilson Gilmore
An Antipode Foundation film directed by Kenton Card
Executive Producers: Kenton Card and Tony Castle
Director: Kenton Card
Supervising Producer: Benjamin Garst
Cinematographer: Alice Plati
Editor: Benjamin Garst
Assistant Editors: Cyrus Stowe and Alice Plati
Creative Consultant: Carrie Drapac
Music provided by Audio Network

[karynnotkaren]

I was fortunate to have had Dr Wilson Gilmore as an undergrad at UCLA almost 30 years ago when I was a naive teenager. She inspired me to pursue African American studies at the graduate level, hoping I could obtain a fraction of the knowledge she possessed.
It is a pleasure after all this time to have this seminar with her again. I feel towards her the way others feel about movie stars or athletes and am star struck when I read her work, dazzled at the way she breaks down and explains information in ways that seem effortless yet belie years of study, practice and dedication. I hope she will read this and know the impression she made on my life personally and professionally as I teach undergrads and hope to provide them a even a fraction of the inspiration and insight that Dr Wilson Gilmore provided me. Thank you.

[Marzipanhen]

00:24
The relationship between slavery and race race and unfreedom, unfreedom and labor is one that we constantly try to untangle and, at our peril, we ignore it but, also at our peril, we make it too simplistic because the complexity of it matters for what we do in the current moment to undo the catastrophe of mass incarceration. So, I go down this path of trying to think globally in order to think about how today, given the catastrophe of racial capitalism on a world scale, its particular form of austerity and neoliberalism and permanent war that we struggle through requires an approach to solving problems that, however particular or local they are, have an international dimension, because it is an international problem. Capitalism requires inequality and racism enshrines it.
01:43
My name is Ruth Wilson Gilmore. I have been a teacher and a researcher into especially the prison industrial complex, but, in order to investigate that, I've had to lift up from that certain general themes that are very exciting that we're going to be able to explore in our conversation, including racial capitalism, which is all of capitalism, abolition geography, and my role as a teacher in the university and in the streets.
02:11
Racial capitalism, which is to say all capitalism, is not a thing, it's a relation. However, if we look back through the history of capitalism as it developed, we see that the understanding that those who own the means of production had of their differences from those whose labor they exploited were understandings that we can recognize today as racial practice.
02:48
So, all capitalism is racial from its beginning, which is to say, the capitalism that we have inherited-- that it's constantly producing and reproducing itself, and it will continue to depend on racial practice and racial hierarchy no matter what. This is another way of saying we can't undo racism without undoing capitalism.
03:23
Being a good geographer means going to look and see, and then to challenge oneself in one's description of what we want to see. But, politically, it is giving all of the attention you have to the thing, so that you understand how it works.
03:43
The word discovery doesn't sit well with anybody who knows anything about the history of the world, and yet people flock here to this Monument, unaware or uncaring about its fascist dimensions. Unaware or uncaring about the compass rose that is behind it that was a gift of the Apartheid government of South Africa to the fascist government of Portugal in the mid 1960s. Can we try to redescribe this world that has been described in these particular ways in this tourist location with this monument and this pavement.
04:21
Slavery and the slave trade-- it's not something that was initiated when some people who became known as Europeans encountered some people who became known as Africans and grabbed them. It was never limited to African slavery, and, in fact, we ought take more seriously than perhaps we do, the fact of intra-- what we call today European-- slavery as being one of the forces that shaped the modern world.
4:47
The foundations of racial capitalism, the foundations of the social organization of human groupings in Western Europe during the rise of capitalism. They don't have anything to do with Africa, Asia, North America, or South America. They have to do with what was happening here in Europe between people all of whose descendants might have become white. I mean, that is the major lesson of racial capitalism, and why does that matter? It matters because capitalism won't stop being racial capitalism, if all the white people disappear from the story.
05:26
Capitalism requires inequality, and racism enshrines it. It started racial without what people imagined race to mean, which is black people, and it will continue to be racial without what people imagine the not-race to be, which is white people

05:59
My expertise is on the expansion of criminalization and incarceration in the United States, and by extension their expansion in the capitalist world, why and how that has happened, and what we can do to undo that.
6:19
So, I set myself the task of understanding what had happened in California between say the mid-1970s, when anything could have emerged as a solution to surplus labor, and what actually happened starting in the early 1980s in which California started to build prison, after prison, after prison, after prison, when it could have built universities, or factories, or veterans housing, or parks, or museums, or anything else. So, prisons then in my view concentrate surpluses. I asked questions about how the relatively powerful local elites used the state to get what they want. So that brings us back to the question of criminalization.
7:18
There has to be a steady stream of criminals, of those eligible to be categorized as criminal. They have to keep coming. And so that-- that group has to either get bigger over time or deeper over time. The sentences have to be longer, the list of behaviors that count as crime have got to grow, people, who having been caught up in the system, to get out of it, which is to say to go back home, if they can go home, and be there, what people call "reentry, " a word I hate, but to go home and be there and be in a community and of it, is as part of how the perpetuation of this category "criminal", that is the basis of the prison industrial complex, can perpetuate itself. The relationship of that to slavery is on the one hand very general and freedom is like freedom and, on the other hand, the racial order and hierarchy of the United States, founded on both slavery and genocide, never stopped reproducing itself through all of its iterations
over time.

[madinahabdullah]

This was the BEST sociology “class” I have ever taken. First time in which I took actual notes, like a student, for a YouTube video. Thank you Dr. Wilson-Gilmore, I hope your work and study on Racial Capitalism, Abolition Geography, and Radical Dependency, revolutionizes the world. It can change the world and inject some much needed humanity into those who need it.

[tatudomeiobsta]

Would you like to add a caption? One that is not automatically generated, so that deaf and foreign people can watch the video more easily.

[ViburnumScarab]

"Radical dependency" what an incredible word and idea

[drummerschild]

Amazing scholar and educator. Thank you for sharing your intellect in this way and for this Purpose.

[bgilmore]

'capitalism requires inequality. racism enshrines it.' (Ruth W Gilmore)

[tcolina]

I toughly enjoyed this film and if you reading this, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, thank you, merci.

I am a black American with international roots; Caribbean (Jamaica), African and Western Europe. Educationally I’ve studied race and race relations concentrating on the antebellum period in America, the Harlem Resonance, Nigerian Independence, and South African Independence, but I digress.

During this COVID pandemic and civil rights revolution in America, I’ve revisited the writings of some old and new friends; namely James Baldwin, WEB Du Bois, Kwame Nkrumah, Malcolm X, Eric Fonner, Ronald Takaki, as well as Ibram X Kendi, but again I digress.

I wanted to share that I love how you created your avenues and linked the information of the Geographies of Racial Capitalism, it’s important. To that end, I just wanted to share that I agree with you and wish you well.

[PLOttawa]

This was such a powerful and educational piece. It inspires love, struggle, appreciation for “radical dependency.” Thank you 🙏.

[paxboniato]

just seeing all those wonderful embraces made me feel that covid isolation/pain of social distancing so much more acutely...I remember hugs, hugs were nice!

[NuraDi]

“...we can’t undo racism without undoing capitalism “ was the main message that echoed in my head. In capitalism, some people are on top and other people are on the bottom. It just never occurred to me how racism plays a role in this system. The question I have is, if you are born into a race that is being used to support capitalism, how do you get out of this trap? Many ideas come to my mind as pathways to true freedom. Thank you for sharing this message 👏🏽

[clumsydad]

brilliant, even in just a few minutes radically improved my understanding of race and capitalism. even those of us 'intelligent' people are so buried in layers of historical propaganda and social amnesia we often can't see the obvious contradictions and injustices in our culture of command and control. thank you

[azsxdcfv]

" Capitalism requires inequality, racism enshrines it ". Philosophically spot on and morally challenging, these six words speak volumes about the de-evolution of modern society.

[NallahBrown]

"Life and living, and living together and living together in rather beautiful ways."

[sheemakarp]

The music soundtrack is fine when she is not talking. At other times it drowns out her voice. Her ideas are powerful enough without the music. Can you adjust this, especially at the beginning? 🙏

[karenhalo]

Real talk and from what I recall always perceptive and deep. I will always remember the hand clap poem, "...a sailor went to see, see, see..."

[ChanelleLeonard]

14:36-15:04. This quote. Such a great film

[LaCreshiaify]

@14:39 - Solidarity is made and remade. It never just is.

[lilririah]

I love this so much! I was wondering if you could edit the captions so that it can be more accessible to all that need to be aware of this 💖💖

[adrianaEDC]

every word rwg speaks is worth writing down. wow. She is so youthful & spry? lol. It's the vivacity that comes from knowing you're DAMN