Unleashing the capacity of Blackness: The scene of total violence and the ongoing present of slavery

Abstract

In the effort to critically interrogate the state (and law) and global capital (and property) through Blackness as the enduring figure of the total violence of slavery and colonialism, Denise Ferreira da Silva’s Unpayable Debt (2022) centrally targets the Marxian critique of capitalism (or historical materialism) as the premier example of an Enlightenment conceptual apparatus that is simply “of no use.” This review rebuts Ferreira da Silva’s contentions regarding Marx and Marxian critiques. Marx identifies slavery, colonialism, genocide, and warfare as necessary foundations for the very possibility of capital accumulation, rendering the colonial and racial underpinnings of capital accumulation indispensable for any viable analysis of our contemporary sociopolitical world order. As the racialized figure of the enduring legacy of enslaved labor, then, Blackness is indeed crucial for a renewal and further radicalization of Marx’s theory of labor.