Abolitionism was necessarily also an antiracist movement because slavery ran on racial technologies.

Evidence

Abolitionism, especially in the form of the slave revolts and accompanying maroon secessions, thus constitutes the first of the three major historical examples of antiracist commitment and struggle I am seeking to identify here. Abolitionism, of course, aimed first and foremost to end institutionalized slavery. But the institutionalization of slavery – capture and trade, degradation and exploitation, servility and abuse, violence, the imposition of power, and foreshortened lives – was predicated upon and enacted through racial technologies. Abolitionism accordingly assumed by necessity antiracist disposition, at least in the sense of resisting the balder, more aggressive, and more obvious forms of racial terror. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 89

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the book’s organizing scheme of three historical antiracist mobilizations (abolitionism being the first).
• XREF: The claim that slavery’s institutions were mediated by racial categories connects to the reader’s prior notes on Robinson’s Black Marxism (racial ideologies predate or shape economic systems). — connects to: Abolitionism could succeed by keeping racist premises and only changing their implications — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 513; Antiblack prejudice grew out of slavery rather than causing it. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3321; Slavery does not necessarily entail racial categories (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Abolitionism could succeed by keeping racist premises and only changing their implications #contradicts (0.85) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 513
• Abolitionists against slavery could still defend segregation and white supremacy #complicates (0.85) — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 260
• Antiblack prejudice grew out of slavery rather than causing it. #corroborates (0.82) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3321
• Slavery does not necessarily entail racial categories #contradicts (0.72)