What Is Antiracism?

Praise

“Drawing lessons from a long tradition of anticolonial, anti-imperialist, and Marxist intellectuals and movements, Arun Kundnani demonstrates how racism and capitalism are indivisible parts of one global system. And unless we can see the whole, we’ll never know how to fight.”
—Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams

“This is the book we need to deepen our understanding of how ideas of racism and anti-racism became divorced from questions of who has what and why. Kundnani explains in gorgeous detail how in the twentieth century, people who were struggling to build a new world came to comprehend racism, capitalism, and colonialism as codependent systems. And he shows us how neoliberalism has shaped new racisms-involving, for example, ‘the terrorist’ and ‘the welfare queen’–pointing to key areas of the fight today.”
—Amna A. Akbar, professor of law, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law

“An important and absorbing intervention into debates around racism today, illuminating the profound structural links between imperialism, racism and capitalism. Kundnani shows us how an understanding of this long history is a vital resource for our fights against exploitation and oppression today.”
—Priyamvada Gopal, author of Insurgent Empire

“With theoretical precision and clarity, Kundnani lays out the failings of liberals and the left, offering instead a radical anti-racism fit for tackling the urgent issues facing the world today.”
—Adam Elliott-Cooper, author of Black Resistance to British Policing

“What is Antiracism? is going to be a major staple for decades to come.”
—Joshua Briond, host of the Millennials Are Killing Capitalism podcast

“Tears into the system-and the liberal excuses that surround it”
—Yuri Prasad, Socialist Worker

“Provide[s] a structural analysis of racism, including colonialism and capitalism, whilst showing how liberal ideas of anti-racism can be easily co-opted to support new forms of racist power … an essential read”
—Benjamin Ashraf, New Arab

“Cutting … With over three decades of activism and an impressive body of work to his name, Kundnani draws on a history of collective struggle to offer answers to how anti-racism can be rescued from corporate whitewashing to instead challenge the structures of ‘racial capitalism’.”
—Sigrid Corey, Red Pepper

“Kundnani’s powerful portrayal of the structural role of racism under neoliberalism is a clear demonstration that white and Black workers do indeed have interests in common in overthrowing the capitalism system, and of the importance of a Marxist analysis for understanding this.”
—Elaine Graham-Leigh, Counterfire