In a Liberation School Interview two years ago, Dr. Jared Ball, professor of Communication and Africana Studies at Morgan State University, proclaimed the demise of Black capitalism. Drawing from his extensive research and acclaimed book, “The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power,” Dr. Ball dismantles the deceptive narrative surrounding Black consumerism and illuminates the path toward genuine Black liberation.

The interview delved into the core arguments presented in Dr. Ball’s book, which exposes the fallacy of Black buying power. According to Bell the power of the Black buying power was actually a myth perpetuated by mainstream media and corporate interests to divert attention from systemic racism and economic inequality.

He elucidates how this narrative places the burden of responsibility on Black communities for their own oppression, while obscuring the structural barriers that perpetuate racial disparities.

At the heart of Dr. Ball’s argument lies a call to action for a paradigm shift away from consumerism and toward collective empowerment. He challenges the notion that economic prosperity can be achieved solely through consumption and financial literacy, advocating instead for a focus on community solidarity and political mobilization.

Dr. Ball’s critique of Black capitalism resonates deeply in the current socio-political climate, where calls for racial justice and economic equity reverberate across the nation. His scholarship serves as a vital tool for understanding the complex intersections of race, class, and capitalism, and offers a blueprint for dismantling oppressive systems.

As Dr. Ball declares, “There can be no liberation without socialism.”

He explained the roots of American capitalism and why Black people will not benefit.

“Black people are an oppressed nation and an exploited class, and thus our fight is, you know, largely shaped by the logics of white supremacy and capitalist exploitation of our labor. Black people were forged into a separate nation by our particular history, our shared experience in the United States tracing back to the earliest forms of capitalism in the United States, which as we all know, grew up on the plantation system in the antebellum pre-Civil War South,” he said.

Bell continued, “And the plantation system relied upon the chattel slave labor to produce agricultural profits from the land that was ruthlessly stolen by white colonists through genocide of many Native Americans and the force displacement and dispossession of these natives from their ancestral homeland, right?”

He added, “At the same time, millions of Africans from different regions of Africa were brutally kidnapped and brought to the United States to work these lands, to till the soil, to build capital, and bear the lash of colonial oppression. So our kidnapped ancestors, they spoke different languages, practiced different religions, and had different cultures, engaged in separate economic activities, and came from distinct tribes and nations before European colonization and enslavement. And white slave traders, they abruptly stole us out of our history and sold us into slavery.”

He went on to say that although slavery is officially outlawed, it still continues in other forms.

“And although plantation slavery no longer exists in this older form, the institutionalization of oppression of Black people continues today. And the American capitalist system tries to push this idea that racism is a stain on American democracy, right, and that formal legal rights for Black people should suffice in solving our problems. But the bourgeoisie know that Black people are a nation within a nation and that we are the political power keg that has and will spark revolution, uh, and lead the multinational working class to victory,” he explained.

Dr. Jared Ball, Photo: YouTube screenshot, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAQ20qgdMeQ