ABSTRACT

　　Black movements, unlike other social movements, have been theorised within the black community to provide the frameworks for fleshing out solutions to black problems over many decades. The theoretical current that underpinned these black movements, especially in the United States, has developed into a flood of normative discourses around black nationalism, black liberalism, and black radicalism. The review of these theories has revealed that despite the progress that the African American community has made in the last fifty years, the problem of race consciousness implicit in these perspectives continues to impede black progress. Whilst race consciousness has been the rallying point of mobilising African Americans for collective actions, it has also inhibited understanding of their problems beyond race, deepened division and racism, and prevented the scrutiny of the American capitalist system and its capitalist ruling class, who have been the culprit responsible for black problems for more than four centuries. This article concludes that an alternative perspective is therefore needed in the twenty-first century to conceptualise blackness around class solidarity, class struggle, and socialism to challenge the global capitalist order and imperialism that undermine black liberation and sustain existing black problems.

　　KEYWORDS

　　Class question; race consciousness; black movements; black radicalism; capitalism

　　From: International Critical Thought 2025 15 (1)

　　Editor: Wang Yi