Empire alone does not automatically generate racial regimes.

Evidence

The Chinese came, they traded, they observed. They made no effort to create an empire or even an imperial sphere of influence. Upon returning home, their reports engendered a major debate. The decision was made to burn and otherwise destroy the great fleets… . The point is not to present the Chinese as immaculately disinterested, or whiter than white. It is simply to note that we now know that the capacity for empire does not lead irresistibly or inevitably to the reality of empire. … So China, if anything seemingly better placed prima facie to move forward to capitalism in terms of already having an extensive state bureaucracy, being further advanced in terms of the monetization of the economy and possibly of technology as well, was nonetheless less well placed after all. It was burdened by an imperial political structure. It was burdened by the ‘rationality’ of its value system which denied the state the leverage for change (had it wished to use it) that European monarchs found in the mysticality of European feudal loyalties. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1820 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Fifth, empire must constantly reconfigure strategy and battle to win hearts and minds both domestically and internationally. Empire is not a cemented structure but a process; it relies on racism to reproduce itself. Moreover, empire does not automatically produce or secure exploitative and exclusionary racial regimes. This is what explains in large part why “race” is constantly shifting and evolving; why there are projects of race making, unmaking, and remaking. It is not enough therefore to simply state that empire is the crucible of anti-Muslim racism; it is necessary to explain why, how, and when. The imperial terrain on which races are made and unmade is unstable, and our task as scholars is to make sense of how various contingent factors come together at certain moments to produce races but to also to undo particular racial configurations. As scholar-activist A. Sivanandan put it, racism “does not stay still; it changes shape, size, contours, purpose, function—with changes in the economy, the social structure, the system and, above all, the challenges, the resistances to that system.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 105 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Imperial capacity alone does not produce empire or capitalism. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1820; Empire must keep reworking itself and can fail to secure racial regimes — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 105; Conflict with Africans did not produce racial ideology in Rome. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 445 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Imperial capacity alone does not produce empire or capitalism. #corroborates (0.85) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1820
• The Chinese example proves imperial capacity does not inevitably produce empire #exemplifies (0.85)
• Empire must keep reworking itself and can fail to secure racial regimes #corroborates (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 105
• Conflict with Africans did not produce racial ideology in Rome. #exemplifies (0.80) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 445
• A coherent imperial ideology need not produce effective rule #corroborates (0.75)