There Are No Utopias

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.7 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2022

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It may seem bleak, but Robin D.G Kelley's view of the world says there is no promise of liberation, only struggle. Kelley has spent his career bringing to life the stories of the Black labor organizers and anti-capitalists who are often left out of history books, from radical farmers in the South to Black unions during the Gilded Age. And he's come to a provocative conclusion: that the secret to capitalism's survival is racism. His scholarship uses historical connections between race and labor to directly challenge the premise that there can be any justice within America's current economic system — and to ask what that means for the people who seek it. This week on Throughline, a view of Black history you don't often hear in February.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It is Black History Month.
0:02.0	Class is in session.
0:04.0	This February, 18T brings you a new kind of history lesson.
0:07.6	With history by us, lesson-owned stories from Black History
0:10.5	told by those making it.
0:12.0	A month where we celebrate and reflect on the unique contributions
0:15.6	of Black Americans to U.S. history.
0:18.0	Black History meant to me giving a voice to those who might not have had one.
0:24.0	But also, it's a time for corporate branding.
0:30.0	How high for y'all when you saw the Google Black History Month commercial?
0:36.0	We're the TNT Mods!
0:38.0	Go!
0:40.0	You see making moves coming together on the leaderboard, putting up numbers.
0:44.0	These are all advertisements from AT&T, Dick Sporting Goods, Google and Palatine for Black History Month.
0:52.0	This is just the start.
0:54.0	There are so many more of these ads you can find easily online.
0:58.0	They feature Black Americans on the move, working hard, laughing, being inspired.
1:02.0	Sometimes we see historical figures like Martin Luther King Jr.
1:06.0	or Rosa Parks in them.
1:08.0	They are reminders that these companies want consumers to believe
1:12.0	that they very much care about Black people in their history.
1:16.0	Yet, the hypocrisy is hard to ignore and very cringe.
	...

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