On Violence, Race, and Social Theory

In this article, I offer an engagement with Wacquant's checkerboard of ethnoracial violence. Drawing on material from the digitalized W. E. B. Du Bois archive, I focus on two theses of Du Boisian thought that I believe can enrich Wacquant's theorization of ethnoracial violence. In particular, I highlight how Du Bois emphasized (1) the process by which colonial violence gets (mis)recognized as nonviolence; and (2) how ethnoracial violence connects to capital accumulation as an essentially profitable enterprise. Bringing Du Bois’ work into the picture, I invite Wacquant to consider the relationship between ethnoracial violence and racial capitalism and to engage in a fuller discussion about the struggles in social space over the very definition of violence itself. I conclude by questioning how we might connect Wacquant's contemporary theorization with the work of intellectuals—such as Du Bois—who have put ethnoracial violence at the center of their concerns.