Impact of Slavery on American Capitalism

American capitalism is born on the backs of African slavery.

Absolutely right.

Right? So it, from the beginning of it, the beginning of it,

there was a group of people who

are going through what the rest of Americans find themselves going through

right

now, which is their humanity and their worth and their, their

labor was extracted by a

capitalist organization, political system known as

slavery so that people could make money and that they could toil in

perpetuity. So the beginning of American capitalism at

the, the

jumpstart of wealth that the country got is rotten.

You would agree with that?

I'd agree with that 100%. Look, and, and I would argue, argue that our s- like

let's d- let's separate, and you asked me about,

you call yourself a capitalist.

Certainly.

I g- I gave you the definition of, of, of capitalism.

I would just argue that America has never actually had a pure

form of capitalism.

We had closer to purity, but even then, when I, when we talked about the '50s and

'60s-

Mm-hmm

... that was the exclusion of Black folk, you know, by way of-

Of course

... Jim Crow and segregation-

Redlining

... and all the redlining-

Right

... everything.

Mm-hmm.

So, you know, if you're Black in America, you've never actually had access to real

capitalism. You were, you had your, your, your labor

extracted from you via like the, the most

fundamentally unethical, immoral act of placing

somebody in, in, in, in, in, in, in slavery.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And then we've excluded Black folk in different ways.

We still exclude Black folk in different ways from full participation in

capitalism via access to capital, via access to good schools, via access to

healthcare, via access to all these things.