American Fascism, Sociology, and the Black Radical Tradition

Abstract

As fascist politics intensify in the United States and globally, sociology faces renewed questions about how to theorize the fraught relationship between racism, capitalism, empire, and democracy. In this article, we argue that the Black Radical Tradition (BRT) offers sociology a powerful analytic for understanding fascism not as a historical aberration but as a recurring political expression of racial capitalism. Drawing primarily on a close reading of Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition , we examine the epistemological, political, and world-making dimensions of the BRT and trace how Black radical thinkers theorized fascism within the longer history of racial capitalism. We then consider what deeper engagement the BRT might offer the sociology of race and ethnicity, particularly through transnational and historical relational analyses, as well as expanded attention to consciousness, culture, and collective liberation in moments of societal crisis.