2.7 Conclusion
Let’s return to the Haitian Revolution. C. L. R. James, a postcolonial theorist from Trinidad, provided a thorough interpretation of the Haitian Revolution in his book The Black Jacobins (1989 [1938]). James described how the enslaved people formed a class. Pushing against the sole focus on class, he pointed to how race and colonialism also played a role in the events of the revolution. While comparing slavery to the slave revolt, he argued, “The cruelties of property and privilege are always more ferocious than the revenges of poverty and oppression. For the one aims at perpetuating resented injustice, the other is merely a momentary passion soon appeased” (James 1989:88–89).
James’s account of the Haitian Revolution provided a theory of capitalism that showed capitalism was “rooted in colonialism and the exploitation of the racialized masses” (Itzigsohn 2013:179). Simultaneously, James provided a “theory of emancipation and democracy based on the action of these masses” (Itzigsohn 2013:179). In The Black Jacobins, he shows how class struggle and racial struggle are connected and that the racialized, colonized people had to emancipate themselves. They could not wait for the French White working class or anyone else to save them (Itzigsohn 2013). He even wrote a play based on the revolution, called Toussaint L’Ouverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History (James 1992). However, American sociologists continue to ignore James’s contributions, just as they have done with the work of Du Bois (Itzigsohn 2013; Morris 2017). How might we explain this given what we have learned about sociology in this chapter? What might postcolonial theory, critical race theory, or intersectional feminism have to say about this? What additional theoretically rich events might have sociologists overlooked?
Sociologists utilize a variety of different theoretical perspectives to help make sense of human behavior and identify patterns. Some classical theories provide frameworks that contemporary sociologists built on as our world continues to change. Now that you have a sense of what sociology is, you might be asking how sociologists “do” sociology. The next chapter will explore how sociologists use social science research methodology to understand more about human interactions within various contexts.
Review of Learning Objectives
Key Terms
- Bourgeoise: in Marx’s theory, the wealthy owners/capitalists that control economic production.
- Colonialism: when a dominating country creates settlements in a distant territory.
- Conflict theory: a macro-level theory that proposes conflict is a basic fact of social life. It tends to argue that the institutions of society benefit the powerful.
- Critical race theory: a theoretical framework that examines how racism is embedded in American social life through its systems and institutions.
- Feminist theory: a theoretical framework that argues women suffer discrimination because they belong to a pa