Black Scare / Red Scare with Charisse Burden-Stelly

Upstream

News, Politics, Society & Culture

4.9 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2023

⏱️ 64 minutes

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Summary

The Red Scare — perhaps most well known through the era of McCarthyism that dominated the social, political, and legal spheres of the U.S. in the 1950s — is actually much more than just a brief window of time where communists in the United States were vilified, criminalized, and blacklisted. The Red Scare is actually much more pervasive and longstanding, originating decades before McCarthyism and stretching well into the present. And, when combined with the Black Scare — the fear and hatred of Black people in the United States — it really forms an entire mode of governance that has shaped the character, policies, and collective consciousness of much of U.S.'s 20th and 21st centuries.

To talk about the Black Scare, the Red Scare, and how they work together to create a specific hegemonic atmosphere and policy landscape in the U.S., we've brought on Charisse Burden-Stelly, an Associate Professor of African American studies at Wayne State University, a fellow at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University, a member of the Black Alliance for Peace, and author of Black Scare / Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States, published by the University of Chicago Press.

In this conversation, we discuss the history of the Red and Black Scares by looking at a few different examples of how these modes of governance overlapped and shaped both policies and people in the 20th century. We also explore how these scares have followed us into the present and how they shape and color more contemporary moments like the George Floyd uprisings, the Stop Cop City movement, or the various solidarity movements for Palestinian liberation here in the United States.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The two foundational squares of the society to be called the end word and then to be called
0:26.5	the communist because you know throughout various points in history to be called a communist
0:32.2	mate you can lose your job right it meant that you could not work for the federal government
0:37.4	it meant that you could be cast out of organizations it meant that civil rights and liberty didn't
0:43.5	pertain to you it meant that you could be thrown in jail so when those two come together
0:49.3	through like black people and black that is to say when black people are a communist it
0:53.2	creates a double bind and a double threat you are listening to upstream upstream upstream
1:01.9	a podcast of documentaries and conversations that invites you to unlearn everything
1:06.4	you've thought you knew about economics I'm Dela Duncan and I'm Robert Raymond
1:11.7	the red scare perhaps most well-known through the era of McCarthyism that dominated the
1:17.9	social political and legal spheres of the U.S. in the 1950s is actually much more than
1:24.5	a brief window of time where communists in the United States were vilified, criminalized
1:30.4	and blacklisted the red scare is actually much more pervasive and long-standing originating
1:37.4	decades before McCarthyism and stretching well into the present and when combined with
1:44.2	the black scare, the fear and hatred of black people in the United States it forms an
1:50.5	entire mode of governance that has shaped the character, policies and collective consciousness
1:57.1	of much of the U.S.'s 20th and 21st centuries to talk about the black scare, the red scare
2:04.6	and how they work together to create a specific hegemonic atmosphere and policy landscape in
2:10.2	the U.S. We've brought on Sheree's Burden Steley, an associate professor of African-American
2:16.7	studies at Wayne State University, a fellow at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in
2:22.1	American History at Harvard University, a member of the black alliance for peace and author
2:28.6	of black scare, red scare, theorizing capitalist racism in the United States published by University
	...

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