Episode 41: Racism and Capitalism in Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor's Race For Profit

In this episode we interviewed professor and author Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor about her latest book Race For Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership. The book has already been put on the long-list for the National Book Award. Taylor is also the author of From #BlackLivesMatter To Black Liberation, which articulates many of the historical arguments she references throughout our conversation. In 2017, she also published How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective. 

In this interview we discuss some of the central themes of Race For Profit, and some of the historical figures within it. The book is a thorough analysis of how racism and capitalism in the US worked together through public and private partnership, after organizers and rebellions brought about the formal end of redlining at the end of the 1960’s. 

We talk to Taylor about why this book - which is based on her dissertation ended up being her third book. Additionally through the course of the conversation Taylor provides her insight into key questions for socialists in the US today, including questions surrounding the Sanders campaign, the lack of US internationalism. 

For context this interview took place back in July, but we agreed to time it with the release of the book. Which is available now from University of North Carolina press and comes out everywhere this week.

Photo Credit: Sameer A. Khan/ Fotobuddy