It was a reaction to crises that went unresolved and continue to dog working-class and poor Black people. The Black eruption of 2014 was not just a replay of events that preceded it 45 years earlier. But for the majority of Black people, it was the struggle that promised a greater future. The promise of black-owned businesses and greater access to American affluence was alluring. For some, the overtures of business were welcomed. In the aftermath of the rebellions in 19, business makes a concerted effort to insinuate itself into Black urban neighborhoods as the friendly face of capital after Black people had been burning and looting business operations. Allen pays particular attention to the repeated attempts of capital to absorb, usurp and in some cases coopt the Black movement. The Black Awakening was not just an issue for Black people - it was a threat to the system itself. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Allen captured the way that the Black movement had the capacity to shake the American state to its core. To what extent do you see your work as a sequel to Allen’s analysis of a prior generation’s struggle? George Ciccariello-Maher: The introduction to your book - “Black Awakening in Obama’s America” - is a reference to Robert Allen’s 1969 classic Black Awakening in Capitalist America, which in its attentiveness to the complex interplay of race and class arguably represents a predecessor to your own book. George Ciccariello-Maher interviews her for ROAR Magazine. By showing us how we got here, to a society in which “colorblind” rhetoric provides cover for not only racist continuity but also the dispossession of the poor as a whole, Taylor’s book is a compass for charting a different course altogether. Like all militant texts, it walks the fine line between Marx’s “ruthless critique of everything existing” - in this case, not only the white supremacist power structure, but also the abject failure of Black elites and the Obama “illusion” - and the revolutionary optimism coalescing in the streets from Ferguson to Baltimore and beyond. Published by Haymarket, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberationhas struck a chord nationwide, garnering major awards but more importantly sparking necessary debates. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor has written the most important book of 2016.
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