The Limitations of Black Capitalism with Francisco Perez

Upstream

News, Society & Culture, Politics

4.9 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2022

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There's a broad conflation within our present day capitalist society between the success of individual members of certain oppressed and marginalized groups and their collective success and liberation. This is particularly true when it comes to Black people and their liberatory struggles. Too often, the successes of individual people — Oprah, or LeBron James, for example — or their rise to certain leadership positions, take Barack Obama — are seen as collective successes, whereas, when it comes to the material conditions of all Black people, these individual successes don't have a significant impact. What are the dangers of this conflation between individual and collective success? Can Black liberation be achieved through individual successes within capitalism — through Black capitalism? And what would it mean to truly build Black wealth in the United States and beyond? In today's Conversation, we've brought on someone to help unpack these questions. Francisco Pérez is the Executive Director of the Center for Popular Economics and author of the recent piece in Nonprofit Quarterly: How Do We Build Black Wealth? Understanding the Limits of Black Capitalism.

This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support

If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship

For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky.

You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Before we get started on this episode, if you can, please go to Apple podcasts and rate,
0:05.1	subscribe, and leave us a review there. It really helps us get in front of more eyes and into more
0:10.4	ears. We don't have a marketing budget or anything like that for upstream, so we really do rely on
0:15.8	listeners like you to help grow our audience and spread the word. And also, upstream is a labor of
0:22.0	love. It's really important for us to keep our bi-weekly conversation series and quarterly
0:27.0	documentaries free of charge and accessible to anyone who's interested. But it all takes a lot
0:33.5	of time and resources. If you can, if you're in a place where you can afford to do so and if
0:39.3	it's important for you to keep this content free and sustainable, please consider going to
0:45.2	upstreampodcast.org forward slash support to make a one-time or recurring monthly donation.
0:52.8	Thank you.
1:00.4	Do we actually want to live in a world where the top one percent looks like the people they
1:20.3	oppress, but are still ridiculously wealthy while everyone else is poor? It's a problem simply
1:28.3	that there aren't enough queer people or enough people of color or enough light people are women
1:32.8	in the top one percent, or as a problem at the top one percent of the world has more wealth in
1:37.6	the bottom half of humanity. You're listening to upstream upstream upstream upstream a podcast of
1:45.2	documentaries and conversations that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about
1:50.4	economics. I'm Robert Raymond and I'm Dela Duncan. There's a broad conflation within our present
1:56.4	capitalist society between the success of individual members of certain oppressed and marginalized
2:02.0	groups and their collective success and liberation. This is particularly true when it comes to
2:07.4	black people and their liberatory struggles. Too often, the successes of individual people
2:13.9	or their rise to certain leadership positions are seen as collective successes,
2:19.3	whereas when it comes to the material conditions of all black people, these individual successes
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Upstream, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Upstream and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.