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University of Oregon

Demystifying Racial Monopoly

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Through analysis of private, public, and state reactions to the Great Depression and northward black migration, this thesis demystifies four key functions of race constitutive of capitalist racial monopoly: historical availability, division of labor, motivation of surplus absorption, and embodiment of false consciousness. Nonetheless, the working class’s immanent limitations and transcendent activities in this paradigm later gave rise to the 1950s and 60s racial liberation movement’s social constructionist critiques. The following counterintelligence reactions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation neutralized, abstracted, and mystified such racial politics, rendering their truncated identarian form available to a variety of political groups from the anti-racist left to the ethnonationalist right. In this way, capital now appropriates resistant racial politics as part of a commodified and mutually antagonistic multiracial plurality. To resuscitate multiracial coalitional politics that can challenge capital’s racial monopoly, today’s anti-racism must reassess the historical development of racial monopoly in the mid-twentieth century.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
M.A.
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Department of Philosophy
Grantor dc:publisher
University of Oregon
Year dc:date.issued
2022

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Haller, Reese
Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
  • Russell, Camisha

Subjects

dc:subject × 6

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • All Rights Reserved.
Language dc:language.iso
en_US

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Handle dc:identifier.uri
https://hdl.handle.net/1794/27646

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
University of Oregon
Base URL
scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/server/oai/request
Last updated
2026-08-21
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Haller, Reese. Demystifying Racial Monopoly. masters thesis, University of Oregon, 2022. https://hdl.handle.net/1794/27646