Marcus Hunter and Zandria Robinson have provided us with an innovative methodology for analysing "maps" of African Americans' lived political, social and cultural experiences past and present. Their powerful innovation is creating maps of the black experience based on black people's lived experience. They argue that carefully tracing spatially blacks' political, social and cultural patterns over time leads one to the conclusion that the shared experiences of blacks throughout the polity (and indeed throughout the Diaspora) have far more in common than not. I argue that we can better understand not only the maps that black people have created, but also chocolate cities themselves by using an analytical framework that integrates the analysis of the lived experience of black people with a structural analysis that interrogates the articulation of white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy. This framework is related to the developing research into racial capitalism that is now being conducted globally.

A ghetto can be improved in one way only: out of existence. James Baldwin2 Tommie Shelby’s Dark Ghettos renews the call for ghetto abolitionism, and offers a radical critique of the way in which the black urban poor are governed. It makes three important contributions. First, it revives a tradition that regards the existence of ghettos as the result of systemic injustices in contemporary US society. Shelby argues that “dark ghettos” are the product of a confluence of social injustices; he aims to develop a “systematic account of social injustices along the dimensions of race, gender and class.”3 For Shelby, ghetto abolitionism requires fundamental changes to the basic structure of US society, rather than narrowly targeted policy interventions into the lives of ghetto inhabitants. He calls for an end to racial discrimination in employment, housing, and lending markets, a more equitable distribution of societal wealth, broad redistributive policies (p. 47), the abolition of class stratification (pp. 36–7), full employment, meaningful work, and a freer conception of the family (pp. 77, 193). Second, Shelby offers a radical critique of the way in which the urban poor are governed by evaluating whether coercive state anti-poverty measures are morally permissible. He argues that many coercive state policies cannot be justified in a society in which the basic structure is unjust. Finally, Shelby develops a political ethics of the oppressed. He presents a powerful case that many of the behaviors of ghetto residents that are commonly seen as either immoral or deviant are, in fact, legitimate forms of resistance against an unjust society. “Noncompliance with societal expectations,” Shelby argues, such as “refusing to delay childbearing, to marry, to accept low-paying and demeaning jobs, to respect the law, and to submit to other ‘mainstream’ norms—can be a healthy expression of self-respect and a morally rooted opposition to the status quo” (p. 276). Shelby’s careful analysis of the moral limits of anti-poverty policies under conditions of injustice and his account of the ethics of the oppressed are important and much-needed interventions in the debate. Dark Ghettos forcefully re-centers the question of justice in our assessment of ghetto disadvantage and governance of the black urban poor. Maybe most importantly, Shelby’s analysis brilliantly subverts and critiques common representations of citizens in ghettoized communities as either deviant objects in need of control or passive objects in need of betterment. Instead, they appear as moral and political subjects forcefully asserting their agency and rejecting a deeply unjust society. Dark Ghettos ends with an invitation to a broader debate about the transformations necessary to abolish the ghetto. Shelby concludes the epilogue with the hope that “other scholars, seeing merit in my approach, will be moved to supplement, build on and correct these initial efforts” (p. 284). In this spirit, we would like to offer two broad critiques of Shelby’s account. First, we argue that Dark Ghettos does not pay sufficient attention to the concerns and perspectives of women in marginalized black communities. Shelby implicitly centers the perspective of young black men. Unfortunately, this tends to obscure questions of gender inequality and injustice. In the following, we will discuss this with regards to Shelby’s analysis of work, the family, and “impure dissent.” Second, while Shelby excellently describes what the state may not do and what ghetto inhabitants may refuse to do under conditions of injustice, he has less to say about what is required in order to bring about a just society. He offers a broad account of the principles that a just society would have to satisfy, as well as making very broad policy recommendations. But these recommendations appear against the background of an underspecified account of what he takes the nature of the existing system and its structural tendencies and limits to be.4 Consequently, it remains unclear whether Shelby thinks that the current economic order is capable of realizing his visions of racial and economic justice. There are moments that seem to indicate that Shelby hopes for a return to an expanded and more inclusive welfare state. Without a more concrete account of the structural tendencies of the present social and economic order, however, it is difficult to evaluate his vision of economic and racial justice pragmatically and politically—that is, with a view towards implementation—and to understand the change that it requires. In the following, we first review key aspects of Shelby’s argument about the limits of state anti-poverty politics and the ethics of the oppressed. We then identify and discuss aspects of Shelby’s analysis that would have benefitted from a more explicit engagement with the perspective of women in ghettoized communities. In the last section, we offer some initial thoughts on the questions that a political and pragmatic evaluation of Shelby’s vision of racial and economic justice raises. We argue that the articulation of white supremacy and capitalism tends to systematically frustrate the realization of Shelby’s vision of racial and economic justice, and that we must therefore develop an analytical framework capable of theorizing the mutual imbrication of capitalist and white supremacist logics. Such considerations, we maintain, prompt a reconceptualization of the domination that marginalized black communities experience and help us think about the structural obstacles to and political possibilities for abolishing the ghetto. Shelby criticizes an approach to ghetto poverty that is popular with academics and pundits alike—the “medical model.” The medical model, according to Shelby, understands the problems of the ghetto as the result of deviancy from societal norms. Issues such as poverty and crime are seen as the outcome of malfunctioning social arrangements within the social space of the ghetto, rather than as the result of structural injustices that characterize contemporary US society as a whole. Shelby argues that this perspective produces technocratic solutions to the problems of ghetto poverty and marginalization. It sidelines the moral responsibility of all citizens to work for a just basic structure.5 According to Shelby, this leads to a “status-quo bias” that ignores the comprehensive structural and institutional reforms needed to address the injustices associated with and endemic to “dark ghettos.” Shelby proposes an alternative approach, namely the “systemic-injustice framework.” Rather than looking at the ghetto in isolation, and blaming deviance from societal norms for its woes, the systemic-injustice framework asks what historical injustices and unjust aspects of the contemporary US order produce concentrated disadvantage in marginalized spaces. The systemic-injustice framework therefore shifts the focus of the analysis of ghetto disadvantage from the social-scientific “will it work?” to the normative “is it just?” It refocuses our attention on the moral questions that ghetto poverty raises for all US citizens, including citizens in ghettoized communities, rather than proposing technocratic policy solutions. the state should (a) ensure that everyone has a real opportunity to develop their talents through education, (b) maintain effective anti-discrimination measures so that all can compete for positions on fair terms, and (c) distribute income and wealth (between families and across generations) in such a way that all can share equitably in the advantages of economic cooperation and that class background is no barrier to achievement. (p. 171) On this basis, Shelby considers whether the basic social, economic, and political institutions are just. He concludes that the existence of the ghetto as a space of marginalization, poverty, and disadvantage is not compatible with a liberal egalitarian order and violates the principle of reciprocity. Simply put, the ghetto poor are not receiving their fair share of the advantages of a system of social cooperation. In Shelby’s words, “the existence of the dark ghetto—with its combination of racial stigma, neighborhood disadvantage, inadequate schools, fragile families, forced servitude, and shocking incarceration rates—is simply incompatible with any meaningful form of reciprocity among free and equal citizens” (p. 218). He takes this as a starting point to critique coercive welfare policies that seek to govern the lives of ghetto inhabitants. Under conditions of injustice, Dark Ghettos proposes, there are normative restrictions on the type of policies that the state may implement (p. 5). As long as ghetto residents do not receive their fair share of the advantages of social cooperation, coercive state policies, such as work for welfare requirements, cannot be justified on the basis of a principle of civic reciprocity. According to Shelby, the state may not enforce cultural changes in the ghetto without providing a fair share of the advantages of social cooperation. He argues that ghetto inhabitants not only have the right to resist such unjust state policies, but that such resistance is an expression of dignity and self-respect. Shelby examines three key social, economic, and political institutions: the criminal justice system, work, and the family. In each case, he analyzes policies that target phenomena that are commonly understood as contributing to ghetto poverty, such as crime, joblessness, and single-parent families. In each case, Shelby argues that the state oversteps its legitimate regulatory functions when it seeks to compel the urban poor to change their behavior, rather than providing them with the fair share of societal cooperation. For example, Shelby rejects the common assumption that the state is justified in condemning and punishing all illegal activity.7 He makes two distinct but complementary claims. First, he considers whether ghetto inhabitants have a duty to “respect and abide by the law” (p. 204). He argues that under conditions of intolerable injustice, not all crimes committed by the unjustly disadvantaged are wrong and that “condemning criminal transgressions as a violation of civic duty is misplaced” (p. 220). While Shelby maintains that ghetto inhabitants must follow the law when it coincides with natural duties, he argues that they are not bound to respect the law as such. Thus, citizens in ghettoized communities are not being unreasonable when “they refuse to respect the law and engage in criminal activity” (p. 244). Second, Shelby assesses “when, if ever, state punishment [is] justified in a context where the state has failed to secure a reasonably just structure” (p. 228). He argues that a state like the USA, which has failed to do a “reasonably good job of maintaining a fair system of social cooperation” (p. 232), lacks legitimate authority to impose obligations beyond natural duties (p. 229). However, the state does retain its enforcement legitimacy to punish “certain harmful wrongdoing” in order to protect others from harm, minimally acts that are “wrongs in themselves” (p. 234). But while the state may have the right to punish those wrongful acts, it is not justified in condemning defiance of legal authority under conditions of injustice (p. 244). In similar fashion, Shelby critiques welfare-for-work requirements. He argues that, “given that contemporary ghetto poverty is plausibly explained, at least in part, by historical injustices in appropriation and transfer (what some term structural racism), it is far from clear that welfare conditional on work, which assumes just background conditions, is justifiable to the black urban poor” (p. 182). Shelby focuses on joblessness, as one of the key economic phenomena that contribute to ghetto poverty (p. 175). Instead of concentrating on the usual lines of argument—whether joblessness in the ghetto is voluntary (due to “ghetto culture”) or involuntary (due to structural factors in the labor market)—he focuses on whether voluntary joblessness can be considered a legitimate form of protest against unjust conditions. He asks whether the state is justified in enforcing work-for-welfare provisions or whether “some blacks might be justified in refusing to accept the jobs available to them” (p. 178). While Shelby accepts that there is a civic responsibility to work, he argues that ghetto residents can legitimately refuse to fulfill it, based on three objections (p. 190). First, because the basic structure of US society is deeply unjust. Shelby here points to structural racism, a segregated education system, gross inequalities in wealth, racial discrimination in the labor, housing, and lending markets, and racial discrepancies in income, wealth, and life expectancy, among other factors. Ghetto residents can legitimately refuse to comply with work requirements because they do not receive their fair share of the advantages of social cooperation. Second, Shelby argues, ghetto residents can refuse to work because work requirements are exploitative, since they profit from the “labor of people who are compelled to work because of weaknesses and vulnerabilities that are not of their own making” but stem from unjust circumstances, such as “slavery, serfdom, colonial subjugation, and apartheid” (p. 196). Finally, Shelby maintains, ghetto residents can refuse work requirements as a form of expressive harm, since they reinforce stigmatizing stereotypes (pp. 197–200). Dark Ghettos makes a powerful case against the imposition of work requirements, and convincingly argues that the refusal to work is morally justified. Most importantly, Shelby takes the moral agency of the most marginalized seriously, by arguing that a refusal to work should not be interpreted as an act of deviant social behavior, but as a refusal to submit to unjust conditions.8 Shelby’s approach is innovative insofar as it is concerned with defending voluntary joblessness as a form of moral agency in the face of a deeply unjust system that—at best—provides poorly paid, precarious, and highly exploitative work. However, Shelby’s focus on joblessness also has a drawback: it fails to capture the realities and perspectives of women in marginalized communities. Women’s rates of participation in the labor market tend to be higher than men’s, and they often face the difficult realities of holding multiple poorly paid jobs at the same time, while also shouldering a disproportionate share of unwaged care labor.9 Do women likewise resist such exploitative and precarious work? Are their strategies of resistance also perceived as deviant? Do they challenge or problematize unwaged labor? These questions remain unanswered. Shelby misses an opportunity to make visible the ways in which marginalized black women resist an unjust system that is characterized not merely by racism and economic exploitation, but also by deep and persistent sexism. There are also some other aspects of Shelby’s analysis that implicitly privilege the standpoint of black men. This may be partially explained by the fact that Shelby is trying to defend some of the most heavily criticized forms of behavior; young black men are, after all, often the target of such critiques. However, his account tends to obscure the perspective of black women in marginalized communities. Given Shelby’s commitment to “develop[ing] insights from liberal, feminist, and black radical thought to arrive at a systematic account of social injustices along the line of race, gender and class” (p. 4), one would have hoped for a more extensive engagement with questions of domination and oppression along lines of gender.10 Consider, for example, Shelby’s discussion of child support payments. Shelby makes the radical proposal that, in a just society, fathers should not have to assume the financial burden of child support if they have clearly signaled that they do not want to have children. He argues that parental responsibilities are acquired by “explicitly or implicitly electing to play the role of parent” (p. 150).11 Whereas women’s control over their reproductive decisions, as well as the possibility of giving children up for adoption, means that carrying a fetus to term and assuming parental responsibilities implies a willingness to assume parental duties, Shelby argues, fathering a child when having clearly indicated that one does not intend to do so, does not. As Shelby puts it, “there is sex-based asymmetry in reproductive freedom … although both men and women contribute to pregnancy, only women, and not the men who impregnate them, have the right to decide whether they will gestate and bear children” (p. 134). A woman who decides to carry a pregnancy to term even though her partner “uses contraception or otherwise makes it explicit that he does not want to father a child … has been given fair warning that if she bears his biological child, he might not assume the obligation to parent the child” (p. 153). According to Shelby, it is therefore unfair to saddle biological fathers with the financial responsibility for children they have indicated they do not wish to have.12 Instead, Shelby argues, women are owed the public support that is necessary for them to fulfil their obligations to their children. Shelby’s proposal is clearly motivated by a critique of child support enforcement strategies that criminalize poor black men, and he is understandably critical of such enforcement strategies. He might also be right that we need to fundamentally rethink our approach to parental obligations in a just society. But we would like to reconsider three aspects of Shelby’s proposal from the perspective of gender equality. First, the calibration of responsibilities; second, the question of enforceability; and third, the implications of Shelby’s argument for unjust societies.13 Even if one agrees with the general thrust of Shelby’s argument, the calibration of responsibilities appears one-sided. Shelby’s criterion for avoiding financial responsibility for an unplanned child is remarkably undemanding. The mere use of contraception or any other explicit indication that one does not want to become a father constitutes a “fair warning” that one might not assume parental responsibility. This seems too permissive for two reasons. First, the fact that one wants to avoid fatherhood does not necessarily imply that one will not assume the duties of fatherhood in the case of accidental pregnancy. Second, given that existing social conventions do associate biological fatherhood with financial responsibility, it seems that men should have an obligation to more explicitly discuss their willingness (or lack thereof) to assume parental responsibilities in the case of an unplanned pregnancy. Irrespective of the merits of Shelby’s normative argument, it is difficult to see how such an approach to parental obligations could be practically implemented and become legally enforceable without amplifying gendered power imbalances. How would the state determine a couple’s agreement prior to pregnancy? Would this not threaten to amplify asymmetrical power relations between men and women by creating numerous “he said/she said” cases? In response to such worries, Shelby has argued that maybe the state should always side with women in cases of disagreement. For example, courts could assume that there was agreement to assume parental responsibility in the case of an unplanned pregnancy in the absence of written evidence to the contrary. However, this would undermine the impact of such a change in policy, since it seems unlikely that many people will have signed legally binding papers prior to unplanned pregnancies. From the perspective of gender equality, moreover, worries about the practical implications of Shelby’s proposal extend beyond questions of enforceability. Shelby here mobilizes an ideal-theory account in order to consider what corrective justice requires. It remains somewhat unclear, however, what exactly this implies under conditions of injustice—specifically, it remains unclear whether the enforcement of child support payments should be abolished in the present-day USA. For example, Shelby’s argument presupposes easy access to contraception and safe abortions.14 What does this mean for a world in which women’s reproductive decisions are often severely constrained and increasingly under pressure? Similarly, Shelby argues that the state ought to provide mothers with the support and opportunities that they require in order to fulfil their obligations to their children. But Shelby himself acknowledges that “in the absence of structural reform, if men had the freedom to decide whether to accept the role of parent … this would obviously impose enormous burdens on mothers and would worsen gender inequality” (p. 163). Structural reforms that rectify the disadvantage that single mothers face are urgently needed and we welcome Shelby’s reminder that we risk falling into “status quo bias” if we do not address these structural injustices (p. 163). But what do we do in the absence of such structural reforms? Should we impose such burdens on women and children in order to rectify an injustice to unwilling biological fathers? What does justice require in circumstances in which such structural reform seems either unlikely or simply a long way off?15 These are, admittedly, tremendously difficult questions. But engaging with these questions would have allowed Shelby to give more weight to the concerns and issues that women face. Of course, this does not imply that the issues that Shelby problematizes—namely the criminalization of young black men through aggressive child support enforcement—should simply be relegated to the waiting room of history. But such outcomes can be achieved by means that are less likely to seriously jeopardize the aim of gender equality. For example, one could significantly reduce or even abolish child support payments for low-income non-custodial parents and introduce guidelines that take precarious employment conditions into account. One could likewise make sure that the state does not abuse child support enforcement in order to recoup welfare costs by abolishing the requirement to identify the biological father for women who are on welfare. Such reforms could be justified by relying exclusively on an argument that Shelby mentions in passing—namely, that the enforcement of child support payments cannot be justified to those who have been denied the “rights, opportunities and resources to which they are entitled.”16 Shelby’s discussion of rap as a form of political dissent similarly omits a full engagement with the perspective of women. Shelby defends hip hop as a form of valid and valuable political dissent. He argues that “normatively transgressive” (p. 253) hip hop is often ignored or dismissed out of hand as meaningless, immoral, or politically vacuous. Shelby addresses two critiques in particular. First, he argues that hip hop should be taken seriously as a form of political dissent, despite its “moral and political impurities,” such as rampant materialism, the celebration of violence and lawlessness, as well as misogyny and homophobia (p. 270). Second, Shelby defends hip hop against charges that it is politically meaningless as long as it does not seek to effect change (p. 255). With regards to the former, Shelby argues that some of the morally transgressive and politically problematic characteristics of hip hop are “part of the point” (p. 270). Specifically, Shelby interprets the celebration of lawlessness as a “public declaration that positive law … has no normative force, at least not for the ghetto poor” (p. 270). Shelby then tackles the argument that hip hop is politically defeatist because it is deeply skeptical about conventional politics and/or does not aim to bring about social change. Against such charges, Shelby argues that impure dissent constitutes a valuable form of political dissent insofar as it can express a form of “symbolic exit”: that is, an explicit public refusal to submit to an unjust social order. Instead, Shelby argues, we should recognize impure dissent as a “valuable public act of protest, a meaningful mode of resistance to injustice, an affirmation of self-respect” and a declaration of solidarity with the oppressed (p. 272). It is, Shelby affirms, “a vital element of the political ethics of the oppressed” (p. 273). In order to appreciate it as such, he maintains, we must recognize that “the political morality of dissent includes non-instrumental elements that are purely expressive” (p. 273). According to Shelby, such “purely expressive acts” (p. 274) convey resistance to an unjust political regime, even if they do not seek to bring about change or are fundamentally skeptical about the very possibility of meaningful social change. Shelby makes a convincing case for taking hip hop seriously as a form of valid and valuable political dissent. But while he successfully addresses charges of political vacuity or cynicism, he does not fully engage black feminist critiques of hip hop (p. 258). He only briefly mentions misogyny and homophobia as examples of “impurities.” Feminist critics, such as Joan Morgan, Imani Perry, and Tricia Rose, have offered complex assessments of hip hop as an aesthetic, expressive, communal, and political praxis. At the same time, however, they have called attention to the ways in which hip hop has been gendered as an art form, both in the ways in which it portrays women and in terms of the constraints it puts on women’s voices.17 The problem, for many feminist critics, is not that some forms of hip hop “diverge sharply from conventional or widely held normative standards” (p. 156). The problem is that it aligns too closely with values and norms that are very much mainstream—namely, the norming or exclusion of women’s voices and the objectification, denigration, and commodification of women’s bodies. This has given rise to debates about if, and if so how, contemporary hip hop, particularly in its more commercialized form, continues to be, is, or can be made into a source for self-respect for black women and a declaration of solidarity with black women—questions that would have complicated Shelby’s justification of hip hop on the basis of an expression of self-respect and a declaration of solidarity with the oppressed. As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, Shelby’s call for ghetto abolitionism is part of a tradition that regards the existence of ghettos as a result and visible reminder of the systemic injustices in contemporary US society. Shelby is clear that ghetto abolitionism requires fundamental changes to the basic structure of US society, and calls for robust anti-discrimination policies, a more equitable distribution of societal wealth, broad redistributive policies (p. 47), the abolition of class stratification, full employment, and meaningful work (pp. 77, 193). However, the nature of the existing capitalist social order remains underspecified. Both the structural tendencies and limits of the existing socio-economic order and the outlines of a political economy capable of realizing Shelby’s vision are left unexplored. Such considerations may, as Shelby argues, exceed the boundaries of philosophical inquiry (p. 6). We would nonetheless like to consider them here, in order to think about the political implications of Shelby’s vision of a more just society. In the following, we argue that thinking about the possibilities for realizing Shelby’s vision of racial and economic justice requires the development of an analytical framework that accounts for the articulation of capitalism and white supremacy. We will first show why we need such an account and what it means for Shelby’s vision of racial and economic justice. We will then sketch an outline of such an approach that understands white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy as articulated systems of domination. There are aspects of Shelby’s “systematic account of social injustices” (p. 5) that seem to point beyond a capitalist order, such as his demand for the abolition of class stratification. More often, however, Shelby’s vision of a more just society seems to call for an enlarged and more inclusive welfare state, presumably backed by Keynesian economic policy. If that is indeed what Shelby has in mind in Dark Ghettos, what would it mean to take this seriously as a political project in the face of a decades-long decline of the welfare state? The welfare state has, historically, constituted a social compact that has ensured at least a modicum of equality in the distribution of income and wealth. However, this social compact has proven rather precarious in the last decades. Since the 1970s, the welfare state has undergone a precipitous decline.18 This decline has gone hand in hand with the weakening of organized labor, the deregulation of markets, and the rise of the financial sector. High levels of state debt have exposed states to the vicissitudes of the bond markets, including demands for the imposition of austerity, while the increased mobility of global capital has led to increasingly grotesque competitions for capital investments, often resulting in a shrinking tax base.19 Overall, then, states increasingly find themselves under pressure from capital. While some attribute this development primarily to an ideological shift—the neoliberal turn—the weakness of the democratically governed capitalist welfare state is at least partially attributable to structural crises and tensions that resulted from the mediating role that the welfare state took on. It assumed, as Greta Krippner has argued, “responsibility both for providing direction to the economy and for managing the social consequences of growth.”20 Deteriorating economic conditions in the 1960s and 1970s (slower growth and higher unemployment) made the state vulnerab

My research career took a strange turn over the past decade. What was supposed to be a concise and contained book project based on public opinion data from the 2000 presidential elections turned into a decade long project that evolved to include eight separate public opinion studies between 2000 and 2010, three separate book projects, and a research paper to be submitted to a journal. There were major missteps along the way, and far too much time between publication of Black Visions (University of Chicago Press 2001) and the first of the three books (Not in Our Lifetimes, University of Chicago Press 2011). There were side projects that diverted time from the main project. All in all, I was involved in a research process that any tenured colleague, including most definitely myself, would stridently tell our junior colleagues to avoid if they wanted to see their careers progress—and we would be absolutely right to give them that advice.

In the wake of increasing racial violence, new black movements have focused on questions of criminal justice. Yet some have argued that we need to focus more intensely on the deep economic inequality that particularly plagues black communities. The urgency of this issue is heightened by a pervasive sense within black communities of perpetual and rapidly escalating crisis. One way to reframe the question is, what is the relationship between race and this new stage of neoliberal capitalism in the twenty-first century? To what degree can we characterize the period we live in as one of crisis, and, if so, what is the nature of the crisis? I argue that the United States is experiencing a deep crisis—a crisis that is deeply seated in multiple parts of the population—one that will be illegible without understanding the current and historical nature of race and capitalism in the

This article examines how the racial order in the United States has evolved since the Jim Crow era. Two leading characterizations of the current situation are that we live in a postracial society and that we live in an era best described as the New Jim Crow. We probe the key differences between the Jim Crow racial order and the racial terrain of the current period and come to the conclusion that both claims are inadequate because they are tied to a sanitized and restricted understanding of Jim Crow as a set of legal and state institutions and policies. As such, both frames neglect the economic sphere. This article addresses this silence in the context of black politics. Specifically, we argue that a neoliberal racial order has emerged and that analyses of black politics must attend to the way racial divisions have become magnified in economic policies and civil society. A key claim is that a critical difference between this era and the Jim Crow era is the adoption of neoliberal ideology and support for neoliberal policies by a wide and diverse segment of black elites.

In the wake of increasing racial violence, new black movements have focused on questions of criminal justice. Yet some have argued that we need to focus more intensely on the deep economic inequality that particularly plagues black communities. The urgency of this issue is heightened by a pervasive sense within black communities of perpetual and rapidly escalating crisis. One way to reframe the question is, what is the relationship between race and this new stage of neoliberal capitalism in the twenty-first century? To what degree can we characterize the period we live in as one of crisis, and, if so, what is the nature of the crisis? I argue that the United States is experiencing a deep crisis—a crisis that is deeply seated in multiple parts of the population—one that will be illegible without understanding the current and historical nature of race and capitalism in the United States.

Wacquant's 'Marginality, Ethnicity and Penality in the Neo-liberal City' makes important contributions to our understanding of the role of state in shaping patterns of racial domination under neo-liberal regimes. As important as his contributions are, however, two major flaws in his conceptual framework undermine the utility of his approach for either scholarly analysis or political intervention. First, Wacquant systematically and incorrectly downplays the role of capitalism in shaping the dynamics of racial domination under neo-liberalism. Second, Wacquant, by focusing on what he calls 'hierarchies of honour', misses the essence of the racial order in the USA and worldwide - a racial order that continues to promote white supremacy as a system of exploitation and domination.

This panel presents current research projects that compare identity, race, religion and gender, within and across national boundaries in the Americas and Europe. NCOBPS is an excellent location for exploring this rich range of research, and for comparing empirical, theoretical, substantive and methodological findings across nations and regions. Important changes have occurred in the US, Brazil, the Americas and France in population demographics, in the meaning of gender, in the recognition of racial and ethnic identity, as well as in the increased complexity of religious practices. Bird and Franklin compare France and Brazil in order to develop theoretical explorations of discourse and policies shaping race, ethnicity and gender identities. Morris examines the politics of the major parties in France on race/ethnic integration within the context of debate about French national identity, and compares them with the U.S. Morrison and Oliveira document the development of the Black Parliament of the Americas in 2003, and assess its activities in reference to its original goals. Pinderhughes explores the effect of changes in a variety of socioeconomic and racial/ethnic diversity factors on US African American racial identity in the Age of Obama. Proposed Participants: Chair, Michael Dawson, University of Chicago Papers: • American Racial Identity in Transition? Black Politics in the Age of Obama Prof. Dianne Pinderhughes, University of Notre Dame • Identity, Rights and the Census in U.S. and French Party Politics Dr. Lorenzo Morris, Howard University • The Black Parliament of the Americas: The Struggle to Influence Legislative Policy to Advance Marginalized Citizens of Africa Dr. K c Morrison, Mississippi State University ( Dr. Cloves Oliveira Pereira ) • Political Paths to Identity Transformations: Global and Local Dynamics in Brazil and France Dr. Karen Bird, Ms. Jessica Franklin, McMaster University Proposed Discussant: Bob Starks, Northeastern Illinois University, Alvin Tillery, Rutgers University Contact: Dianne Pinderhughes, dpinderh@nd.edu

The radical black left that played a crucial role in twentieth-century struggles for equality and justice has largely disappeared. Michael Dawson investigates the causes and consequences of the decline of black radicalism as a force in American politics and argues that the conventional left has failed to take race sufficiently seriously as a historical force in reshaping American institutions, politics, and civil society. African Americans have been in the vanguard of progressive social movements throughout American history, but they have been written out of many histories of social liberalism. Focusing on the 1920s and 1930s, as well as the Black Power movement, Dawson examines successive failures of socialists and Marxists to enlist sympathetic blacks, and white leftists' refusal to fight for the cause of racial equality. Angered by the often outright hostility of the Socialist Party and similar social democratic organizations, black leftists separated themselves from these groups and either turned to the hard left or stayed independent. A generation later, the same phenomenon helped fueled the Black Power movement's turn toward a variety of black nationalist, Maoist, and other radical political groups. The 2008 election of Barack Obama notwithstanding, many African Americans still believe they will not realize the fruits of American prosperity any time soon. This pervasive discontent, Dawson suggests, must be mobilized within the black community into active opposition to the social and economic status quo. Black politics needs to find its way back to its radical roots as a vital component of new American progressive movements.

Although he promised no real left agenda, Barack Obama was elected by hopeful voters who projected onto him a deep desire for a truly transformative and progressive presidency. Instead, the Obama administration expanded US imperialism abroad and economic policies that benefited the wealthiest of individuals and corporations domestically. The following article argues that there are lessons to be learned from this episode in American history and illustrates why we must mobilize a left political agenda that is larger than a single individual and a single presidential term.