TITLE:
Bringing Capitalism and Class into the Frame: In Defense of Political Blackness
AUTHORS:
Ayodeji Bayo Ogunrotifa
KEYWORDS:
Class, Capitalism, Minority Ethnic Communities, Racialization, Political Blackness
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.13 No.11,
November
24,
2025
ABSTRACT: Political blackness as the umbrella concept that unites the political struggles of minority ethnic communities in the UK against racism, discrimination, and violence under a black identity gained ascendancy between the 1960s and early 1980s. Following its critique as being alien to Asians, who did not share African ancestry associated with blackness and for sidestepping ethnic particularism and cultural identity with ethnic minority groups, the analytical power of the concept waned in academic and policy circles. This paper presents a critical review of the evolving discourse surrounding the concept of Political Blackness. It argues that critics of the concept have contributed to and reinforced divisions among minority ethnic communities, often overlooking the unifying and strategic purpose that political blackness once served. In doing so, they have failed to recognise its role as a bulwark against the class-based foundations of racialisation, thereby weakening collective resistance to structural inequality and racism. By bringing the conceptions of capitalism and class into the discourse, political blackness is defended as a viable concept to challenge the widening racial and ethnic disparities in outcomes between the White population and ethnic minorities, and collectively confront the new right movement, whose remits on cultural war and anti-wokeism tend to whitewash racism and its effects on ethnic minority communities. The paper concludes that the class root of political blackness, which emphasises class unity and solidarity across the minority ethnic communities under one political umbrella, is relevant now to challenge the politics of division and identity politics that the British ruling class and the state personnel deploy through state institutions, media, policies, and laws to divide and prevent minority ethnic communities from uniting as a collective to challenge the capitalist establishment along the class line.