Episode 40 - Capitalist Racism and State Repression w/ Charisse Burden-Stelly
Listen to full episode :
In this episode, I’m joined by Charisse Burden-Stelly, associate professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University and author of Black Scare/Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States (University of Chicago Press, 2023)—to discuss the connections between capitalism and racism and how the intertwined relationship between anti-Blackness and anti-communism has shaped the history of state repression in the United States. In particular, we situate the current moment of escalating state repression against activists and social movements within this longer history of what Dr. Burden-Stelly calls “the Black Scare/Red Scare longue durée.”
About the show:
Return to Bandung is hosted by Pranay Somayajula, an Indian-American writer, researcher, and organizer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His work explores themes of diaspora, (inter)nationalism, anticolonial politics, and the many lives and afterlives of empire. You can learn more about Pranay and read his writing on his website, as well as on his Substack blog, culture shock.
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If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave a review or rating, and subscribe to the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts! If you’re able, please also consider supporting my work—which encompasses both my writing and this podcast, as well as various other political education projects by signing up as a paid subscriber to my Substack or making a one-off contribution:
Sources and helpful links:
Charisse Burden-Stelly — Black Scare/Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States (University of Chicago Press, 2023)
Return to Bandung episode with Nick Estes on the federal occupation of Minneapolis (August 2026)
Erik S. McDuffie — Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism (Duke University Press, 2011)
Carol Boyce Davies — Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones (Duke University Press, 2008)
U.S. Department of State — Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism (July 2026)
Upstream episode with Charisse Burden-Stelly on the State Department Cuba report (August 2026)
Charisse Burden-Stelly — Reading "Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism" through Black Scare/Red Scare, Part I (Substack, July 2026)
Robin D.G. Kelley — What Did Cedric Robinson Mean by Racial Capitalism? (Boston Review, January 2017)
Peter James Hudson — Racial Capitalism and the Dark Proletariat (Boston Review, February 2018)
William Z. Foster — The Negro People in American History (International Publishers, 1954
Peter James Hudson — Bankers and Empire: How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean (University of Chicago Press, 2017)
Return to Bandung episode with Sam Klug on internal colonialism in the United States (November 2025)
Lara Sheehi — From the Clinic to the Streets: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures (Pluto Press, 2026)
George Jackson — Blood in My Eye (Black Classic Press, 1990)
Social links:
Return to Bandung:
Twitter: twitter.com/returntobandung
Instagram: instagram.com/returntobandung/
Pranay Somayajula:
Twitter: twitter.com/p_somayajula
Instagram: instagram.com/pranay.somayajula/
Website: pranaysomayajula.com/
Substack: culture-shock.xyz/
Charisse Burden-Stelly:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/drcbs_
Substack: https://drcbs.substack.com/