The affirmative has it backwards – capitalism isn’t the root cause of antiblackness but antiblackness makes possible growth-driven capital accumulation – means the k turns case

We draw on the concept of “anti-Blackness” as it is defined by scholars who engage with Afro-Pessimism. These scholars argue that civil society as we understand and live it is (in)formed by the dehumanizing condition of chattel slavery. They claim that civil society, therefore, is inherently antithetical to all manifestations of Black social life, yet requires Blackness for its political, economic, ontological, epistemological, and—as we aim to show—spatial coherence (Hartman, 1997; Sexton, 2016; Sharpe, 2016; Wilderson, 2010). As demonstrated in the articles cited above, current expressions of anti-Blackness remain imbricated in prevailing and developing political economic practices. In this article, we attempt to more fully explicate not only how global capital and anti-Black violence exist simultaneously but also how various expressions of anti-Blackness around the world are necessary for the perpetuation of global capitalism. To do this, we first explore theories of global capital to flesh out some of its structural characteristics. Next, we turn to a discussion of theories of anti-Blackness to highlight how Black populations’ assumed spatial incapacity in the modern epoch is a condition that makes the perpetual accumulation of capital possible. The penultimate section explores how globalized capital expresses itself in the United States, with the St. Louis, Missouri metropolitan area as a case study. The final sections serve to demonstrate how an understanding of global capitalism’s reliance on anti-Blackness is already expressed in the discursive and material practices of Black grassroots political actors. Drawing on the discourses and actions of Black Lives Matter (BLM), the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), and the Afro-Brazilian community of Ilha de Mare´ in Bahia, Brazil, we argue that those facing anti-Black expressions of capital recognize the impossibility of separating Black death from capital accumulation. In drawing on examples from the Global North and Global South, we demonstrate some of the ways that global capital accumulation manifests differently around the world. Moreover, we highlight that, regardless of the particular expression of capitalism, antiBlackness conditions the possibility of capitalist reproduction across different global contexts. The critiques and actions of political movements clearly highlight how anti-Blackness is not a mere result of global capital but actually scaffolds the ground on which capitalism stands.