Neoliberalism emerged partly to contain postwar black and anti-imperial insurgencies.

Evidence

Neoliberalism rose to prominence as doctrine and policy in response to the post-World War II global insurgencies of which the black movement and its allies— not just the “new social movements” at home but the anti-imperial insurgencies among “the darker nations”— were an integral part. Issues of race were dramatically revived in the 1980s. The Reagan campaigns and administration spoke “backlash” fluently. Reagan characterized black welfare recipients as “welfare queens” and black men as “strapping young bucks.” He invoked “states’ rights” at a campaign stop in Philadelphia, Mississippi— site of the kidnapping and murder of the three civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in 1964. These were repudiations of civil rights and reminders to black voters of their powerlessness. — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 211

Categorization

• XREF: Gives the global frame for US racial retrenchment — echoes existing claims on how racial projects embed in world-scale political economy.