Laundering Black Rage: The Washing of Black Death, People, Property, and Profits

by Too Black, Rasul A Mowatt

: The Washing of Black Death, People, Property, and Profits examines the dilution and commodification of Black Rage―conceived as a constructive response to the conquest of resources, land, and human beings―in a spatial and historical critique of the capitalist State. Interweaving academic criticism with journalistic essays, it presents a thoughtful challenge to popular narratives surrounding recent US events such as the Black Lives Matter movement, the death of George Floyd and other police killings, and cases of White vigilantism, arguing that the maintenance of capitalism increasingly requires the manufactured consent of the conquered. Essayist/performer Too Black and geographer Rasul A. Mowatt assert Black Rage as a threat to the flow of capital, which must therefore be conquered by laundering, defined as a process • Incubation via the State, which places rage in circulation by setting both the oppressive conditions for its expression and seeding contradictions for it to be cleaned. • Labour, which sets mass uprisings in motion, layers the narcissistic rage of the Black elite over the illegal, militant rage of the masses to conceal class interests and collapse labour into capital. • Commodification, in which the now-laundered Black Rage is integrated within the State, ready to be withdrawn as a labour-crushed commodity to be bought, sold, or repressed by White capital. Entwining histories of Black resistance throughout the diaspora, State building under capitalism, cities as sites of laundering, and the world making of empire, Laundering Black Rage also lays the groundwork for upending the process through an anti-colonial struggle of reverse-laundering conquest. Relevant to studies of race and culture, history, politics, and the built environment, this pathbreaking work is essential reading for scholars and activists engaged at the intersection of critiquing capitalism and combating systemic racism.

Genres: Nonfiction, Theory, Politics, History

202 pages, Hardcover

Published April 11, 2024

Reviews

[shemauky · Rating 5 out of 5]

closing excerpt:

“Laundering Black Rage focused on the histories of Black resistance throughout the diaspora, State building under capitalism, cities as sites of laundering, the world making of empire, and how the process can be upended through an anti‐colonial struggle of reverse‐laundering conquest.

Instead of using the fronts to legitimize Black Rage through bribery, we should flip the bribes of the capitalist State and fund the anti‐colonial, anti‐imperial measures it so religiously outlaws. The instructions for such acts lie beyond the mission statement of a White liberal non‐profit front, the “decolonizing” syllabus of a bromidic academic, and even the pages inside this book. We cannot formalize what is illegal. The answers rest in our collective Black Rage, the conspiring Rage of every conquered and oppressed people, and our ability to organize it all toward a life‐affirming post‐Western communist world. Anything less is a reconstruction of fronts, a reconstruction of our oppression.”

[KT]

a good start 2 the year. very solid overall - ive found im drawn to a lot of geographers' work, which is interesting (& this book is no exception). one of the chapters in the middle (ch3) felt unwieldy/strangely argued, which stood out to me because the rest of the book was great. i found it because i was listening to an episode of millennials are killing capitalism (all-time fave) & Too Black was a guest, so i looked up his work and found this book. there's also an episode about this book specifically - started listening but haven't finished. anyway, cheers

[Michael Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

The capitalist ruling class and its functionaries do not simply "commodify Black death" or co-opt social movements, they monetize and divert Black rage - the latent or active response of the oppressed to white supremacy and capitalist oppression.

Using the analytic and extended metaphor of money laundering, the authors trace how various forms of progressive activity and rhetoric in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement have been de-radicalized and diverted into safe channels, that deliver gains to an out of touch elite, drain radical social movement energy, and spatially remake the city - I appreciated the geographic analysis of how "the city" is a product and tool of conquest and capitalism.

The authors build from important anti-imperialist and Pan-African scholars like Walter Rodney as well as the widely under-appreciated analysis of Robert L. Allen, who adapted the concept of neocolonialism to the shifts in ruling class governance in Black communities in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Throughout the book, the authors assign laundering to a few different concepts, like commodity fetishism, literal illegal laundering, legal forms of capitalist exploitation, expropriation, or rent-seeking, and everyday operations that reproduce capitalist social relations in cities. I'd be curious to see to what concrete examples future scholars adapt the concept of Black rage laundering.

[Zollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

incisive and timely

[Amr Bedawi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Too Black meticulously outlines how (justified) Black rage is captured by the state. The Black Lives Matter movement was commandeered by Black elites who layered their grievances on top of those most vulnerable to police violence, namely poor, working-class Black people (particularly men). Calls for prison abolition transformed into donations for Democrats. Abolishing the police transformed into DEI initiatives at major corporations. Reparations transformed into “buy Black.” To quell the revolutionary energy of 2020, a comprador class of Black elites from Killer Mike to Kamala Harris was propped up, cunningly convincing the masses that their interests were aligned. And all we had to show for those uprisings was a genocider in office under whom extrajudicial police killings did nothing but grow, DEI initiatives that are currently being rolled back one by one, and a cop as VP. As long as there is oppression, Black rage will express itself. As Too Black warns, we must develop ways to organize this rage towards revolutionary means rather than allow it to be laundered in service of a Black elite whose material interests do not match our own.