The Contractarianism of White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy

This chapter offers an understanding of hooks’ Marxian view of capitalism theorizes white supremacist capitalist patriarchy as a Marxian contract between white patriarchy and black womanhood, by theorizing the white supremacist capitalist patriarchal contract(s). To contextualize this contractarianism, this chapter considers conceptualizations of the “racial contract” and the “sexual contract,” toward framing the capitalist moment for black womanhood by the capitalist utility of their sex and an underlying historical-materialist significance. Working carefully through what Marx and Engels theorize as “historical materialism,” this is read into how hooks’ theorizes the relationship between the proletariat experiences of black womanhood and white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, grounded on a contractarianism about production relations, and as that which reveals, on the one hand, the human sensuous activity of black womanhood, while, on the other hand, revealing how white supremacist capitalist patriarchy expresses itself with social validity.