1. Connection between “Whiteness” and Racism: Ruth Gilmore’s statement implies that racial capitalism is deeply intertwined with “whiteness,” which historically has been constructed to confer privileges on white individuals systematically at the expense of people of color. The connection suggests that racism and capitalism together create structures that benefit those identified with “whiteness,” perpetuating inequalities. This relationship underscores that addressing racial disparities requires fundamental changes to the economic systems that privilege “whiteness.”
2. Creation of “Criminals” by the Prison System: According to Gilmore, the prison system perpetuates the category of “criminals” by reinforcing criminal identities through institutional practices and societal perceptions. She argues that prisons do not merely contain those who have committed crimes but actively participate in producing criminality through continuous labeling and exclusion from society. This systemic marking makes reintegration difficult, often leading to cycles of recidivism. I agree with her view, as it highlights the self-fulfilling nature of the penal system that often hinders genuine rehabilitation.
3. Understanding “Liberation Struggle”: In the last part of her video, Gilmore describes “liberation struggle” as an ongoing process aimed at radically transforming societal structures that sustain racial and economic injustices. This struggle involves dismantling the existing conditions of racial capitalism and reimagining a society where equitable distribution of resources and opportunities is foundational. It’s not merely about protesting what is wrong but also about actively creating alternatives that ensure justice and equity for all.

1. As Ruth Wilson Gilmore has said so astutely, capitalism will cease to be racial capitalism when “all the white people disappear from the story.” Whiteness is deeply implicated in both the structure and operation of capitalism, which sustains racial hierarchies. Here, “whiteness” is more than just a racial identity; it is a social and political construction that has served to justify and validate systems of exploitation and inequality. In this regard, whiteness has been at once beneficiary and enabler of the capitalist system, obtaining economic and social advantages for whites at the expense of people of color. The connection between “whiteness” and racism in this schema would be that whiteness operates as a signifier of privilege and power in capitalistic societies. Whiteness is tied to the economic structures benefiting from racial exploitation, whether through the enslavement of Black people, colonialism, or disproportionate extraction of labor and resources in many other ways from communities made marginal. Racism, in this sense, is not an individual prejudice but a systemic force that sustains these economic relations. According to Gilmore, dismantling racial capitalism would require dismantling structures upholding whiteness as a privileged racial identity, an exercise that calls for radical rethinking of economic and social systems built upon racialized inequalities. Thus, it is also a struggle against the social construct of whiteness and the privileges that come with it in the fight against racial capitalism.
2. Gilmore suggests that the prison system creates actively new “criminals” by labeling people as criminals and reinforcing that identity through the system of treatment. Individuals who go into the prison system are being punished, not only for their crimes, but also subjected to a system that will constantly reinforce their criminal status. The prison system often offers little in the way of rehabilitation or meaningful support, which means that once someone is labeled as a “criminal,” that label tends to stick, even after they are released. It not only punishes but also prevents them from easily reintegrating into society through curtailing rights, making jobs, housing, and social services difficult to access; these very factors may drive them back into criminal conduct as a survival strategy. This punishment-exclusion circle creates the concept that once a criminal, always a criminal. I do agree to a great extent with Gilmore’s view: the criminal justice system has often failed to address the very roots of crime, such as poverty, lack of education, and social inequality, and instead has focused more on punishment and incarceration. This will not only stigmatize individuals but also keep them in a vicious circle of crime. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in many instances where former prisoners, unable to find opportunities for reintegration, are forced into crime. Instead of changing, the system too often locks a person into the role of “criminal,” reinforcing rather than breaking the cycle.
3. In the last part of the video, Professor Gilmore frames “liberation struggle” as a process that involves contesting and tearing down systems that maintain racial capitalism and its constituent inequalities, including the criminal justice system. For Gilmore, the liberation struggle is less about reform of these systems but more about the radical rethinking and restructuring of the social, economic, and political systems that articulate oppression. It means confronting historical and current configurations of exploitation, domination, and racialization that marginalized communities face in their struggle toward a society with more equitable distribution of resources, opportunities, and power. I understand “liberation struggle” not only as a combat against the injustices of the present but also as the vision of a radically different world: the undoing of systems of racial capitalism that have created society, particularly those specific ways in which race and class intersect to create structural inequality. According to Gilmore, the liberation struggle is collective, long-term work, one that requires solidarity across various groups as well as a reimagining of what justice, freedom, and community look like outside the existing structures of domination. It is a movement in the sense that it works toward the structural transformation of power toward conditions where all individuals, especially those who have been historically oppressed, have the ability and opportunity to live a full and meaningful life.

1. Ruth Gilmore says that capitalism will stop being racial capitalism, when all the white people disappear from the story. What’s the connection between “whiteness” and racism, do you think? The connection between “whiteness” and racism that is implied via Ruth Gilmore is that “whiteness” involves people trying to subjugate and use others as a means of obtaining wealth. The way that “whiteness” justifies why those that are subjugated are treated as “lesser beings” to further their goal is through racism, by stating the race that they are apart of (People of African American descent) are lesser than those who are white, and are therefore only tools that should be used to perpetuate the wealth of the white people. This connection is very much stemmed from how white Europeans enslaved many black people from both Africa and the Americas to further their wealth via capitalism and justified it through racism.

2. Gilmore makes the point that criminals are actually being created by the criminal justice and prison system (she says “the category of ‘criminal person’ can be perpetuated”). According to Gilmore, how does that happen, how does the prison system create new “criminals“? Do you agree with her view? According to Gilmore, criminals are created by the criminal justice and prison system, by people who haven’t been apart of society (due to already being in prison) being out of the loop of any new laws that have been added to society overtime, accidentally breaking them via not knowing what has changed and then being reincarcerated over and over again. Essentially, the existing criminals, once they serve their sentence and leave the prison, end up breaking a new law that they didn’t know existed and end up going back to prison. On top of that, criminals who leave prison end up not having a home to go to, meaning that they don’t have a reliable way to learn about these new laws that were made during the time that they served their sentence. I can see Ruth Gilmore’s idea having some truth to it since a lot of changes can occur within the law within the law after a couple of years, and people who are incarcerated typically don’t have family that they can rely on to help them recuperate or learn these things. Not to mention that a good chunk of people also don’t like to associate with people who have been to prison before, since they typically viewed as dangerous people, meaning that the previously incarcerated person is left to fend for themselves once they’ve served their sentence.

3. Describe how your understand what Prof. Gilmore – in the last part of her video – calls “liberation struggle”? Liberation Struggle is the struggle of a group of people or community to fight against a form of government that is limiting their freedom to be who they want to be and live how they want to live. In the case of the example that Ruth Gilmore studied and learned about, the municipality of Cova Da Moura decided that many of the people who lived in Cova Da Moura lived in self-built houses that weren’t up-to code and that they would be relocated to houses that they would make via housing projects. However, the people who live in those self-made houses have been living there for a while and these people have essentially made entire communities through their size, meaning that these changes that the municipality want to enforce would destroy entire communities that have learned to call Cova Da Moura their home. This caused a good chunk of people within their community to organize themselves to understand why they were under threat of losing their homes, to fight against those that were threatening their freedom. This is what I understood Liberation Struggle to be.

What’s the connection between “whiteness” and racism, do you think?
Whiteness is connected to racism because it has been used as a way to divide people into groups, where one group (white people) has more power and privileges. This system makes it harder for other groups to have the same opportunities. Racism keeps these divisions strong by treating some people as less valuable because of their skin color. When Ruth Gilmore talks about “whiteness disappearing,” she means that the system of giving power to whiteness must stop for true equality to happen.

How does the prison system create new “criminals,” according to Gilmore? Do you agree with her?
Gilmore says the prison system creates new criminals by punishing people instead of helping them. When someone goes to jail, they lose opportunities for education, jobs, and housing after they get out. This makes it hard for them to live a normal life, and some might commit crimes again because they don’t see other options. The system also targets poor people and people of color more, making the problem worse. I agree with her because many studies show that prisons don’t fix problems but make it harder for people to change.

Describe how you understand what Prof. Gilmore calls “liberation struggle.”
Liberation struggle means fighting for freedom and fairness for everyone. It is not just about ending racism or fixing prisons; it is about making a world where everyone has what they need to live a good life, like jobs, homes, and education. It’s a long fight to change the systems that keep people trapped in poverty or unfair treatment. Gilmore says this fight is for all people, not just one group, so everyone can have a better future.

1. Ruth Gilmore argues that capitalism depends on racial inequalities. The connection between whiteness and racism is that whiteness represents a system of privilege and power that belittles others. Gilmore argues that racism and whiteness has been used to control others.
2. According to Gilmore criminals are actually being created by the criminal justice and the prison system. Gilmore says this because they are targeting certain groups and communities through poverty and also inequality. They are basically labeling people and being unfair to certain people by how they live.
3. I believe Gilmore idea of “liberation struggle” means fighting for your freedom and rights. Everyone coming together as a group to stand up for the community and stop racism and inequality. Everyone should be treated equally no matter how they look or live.

1. The connection between whiteness and racism is that racism is perpetuated by the white. This is because it is ingrained in all capitalist society that white people will govern over and use the power to the workers to their advantage. In all capitalist systems, white people have controlled other races below them that to create a system that serves them.
2. According to Professor Gilmore, the system creates “the category of ‘criminal person'” because the system is created by those that are in control and they decide to make the system disproportionately affect certain races.
3. The “liberation struggle” is different for every nation, and area. There are different types of struggles that affects each area of the world that people of that area are always working towards breaking free from.

1. If we look deeply at capitalism, we can say that capitalism requires inequality. If we look back to the history of capitalism, we can see that there was a distinguishable difference between the owner of the means and the laborers who were exploited then. So, all type of capitalism is racial capitalism from the very beginning, and it’s been like that for years and years. Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s statement that capitalism ceases to be racial capitalism “when all the white people disappear from the story” demonstrates how whiteness is linked to systems of power and privilege. Whiteness is more than just skin color; it is a social construct that provides benefits and justifies the exploitation of non-white people. Whiteness has been employed in racial capitalism to build and maintain racial hierarchies, allowing wealth to be extracted from oppressed populations while favoring those labeled as “white.” These hierarchies are ingrained in laws, regulations, and cultural norms, making oppression appear natural or necessary, particularly when it disproportionately impacts minority communities. Whiteness has backed colonialism and imperialism all over the world, broadening the scope of racial capitalism.

The connection between whiteness and racism lies in whiteness’s historical and structural role in sustaining racial hierarchies that serve capitalist accumulation. When Gilmore criticizes whiteness, she is not targeting people but rather the institutions and ideas that perpetuate racialized exploitation and unfairness. Her work encourages us to conceive a world without such systems—a world in which racism, and by extension, racial capitalism, is truly eliminated.

2. Ruth Wilson Gilmore believes that the prison system produces new “criminals” by targeting and punishing people based on structural inequities rather than addressing the underlying causes of harm or poverty. She explains that jails do not address problems; rather, they process and warehouse people, particularly from underprivileged areas, who are frequently dealing with challenges such as unemployment, a lack of housing, or institutional racism. The criminalization of survival activities or minor violations promotes incarceration cycles. For example, those released from jail frequently suffer stigma, limited job chances, and limited access to resources, which might force them back into situations that lead to re-arrest. This loop assures that incarceration is more than just a reaction to crime; it is a mechanism that actively causes it.

I agree with Gilmore’s point of view because it demonstrates how the jail system fails to solve fundamental issues such as poverty and inequality, instead reinforcing them. Punishing people without addressing their needs worsens their problems, providing no real solutions for safety or communal well-being. Investing in education, mental health care, and economic possibilities might break this cycle and lessen harm.

3. In the video’s final analysis, Ruth Wilson Gilmore defines “liberation struggle” as a social, transformative process to demolish oppressive systems and build a world that values life, equity, and justice. She emphasizes that liberation entails not just releasing people from specific types of damage, such as jail, but also eliminating the conditions that allow those harms to occur in the first place. This entails confronting interconnected systems of exploitation, such as racial capitalism, patriarchy, and environmental destruction, and developing alternatives that promote caring, cooperation, and communal well-being.

Gilmore defines liberation struggle as grassroots organizing and social action to reimagine and rebuild society. It means envisioning a future without prisons, systematic injustices, and racial hierarchies—a one in which everyone has access to the resources and opportunities they require to thrive. It is not enough to combat oppressive regimes; it is also necessary to create conditions for genuine freedom and prosperity for all.

1.Ruth Gilmore says that capitalism will stop being racial capitalism, when all the white people disappear from the story. What’s the connection between “whiteness” and racism, do you think?-Ruth Gilmore states that capitalism will stop being racial capitalism once all white people disappear. What she means by this is that the system of capitalism has been affected so much by race that capitalism treats people different simply due to their race. The connection between whiteness and racism is that typically white people (in this case “whiteness”), have power and privilege in society compared to everyone else in society, so the rules are basically different for them, and give them a unfair advantage.

2.Gilmore makes the point that criminals are actually being created by the criminal justice and prison system (she says “the category of ‘criminal person’ can be perpetuated”). According to Gilmore, how does that happen, how does the prison system create new “criminals“? Do you agree with her view?-Gilmore says this happens because the system punishes people for crimes and immediately labels them as criminals, when in reality the reason many people commit crimes is due to systemic issues in our society like poverty pushes certain ethnic groups to commit crimes because they don’t have the same advantages as white people, and once you go to prison it gives you a criminal record and makes it hard for you to get a job, which pushes you back to crime. In my opinion I completely agree with her view. It is true that many people commit crimes, but not all people that commit crimes due it because they are criminals, a lot of times it comes from being poor and having things like lack of resources which pushes people to break the law.

3.Describe how your understand what Prof. Gilmore – in the last part of her video – calls “liberation struggle”?-Prof. Gilmore at the end of the video talks about “Liberation struggle”.-She talks about liberation struggle as the fight against systems that oppress people due to things like racial capitalism in which oppress people and don’t give them the same chances as their counterparts simple due to their race, and how liberation struggle’s” goal is to make sure everyone gets a equal chance at making something off themselves.

1. Ruth Gilmore says that capitalism will stop being racial capitalism, when all the white people disappear from the story. What’s the connection between “whiteness” and racism, do you think?

I think that although Ruth Gilmore says that capitalism and racism are connected, and “whiteness” is acting as a tool to maintain racial hierarchies and economic inequality, whiteness here isn’t just about skin color—it’s about the power and privilege that give certain groups superiority over others. According to her even if white people “disappeared from the story”, capitalism would still be a racist system because it prospers on inequality and hierarchies. Being white or “whiteness”, in this sense, is just an excuse to wrongfully  justify and normalize racism in the system.

• Gilmore makes the point that criminals are actually being created by the criminal justice and prison system (she says “the category of ‘criminal person’ can be perpetuated”). According to Gilmore, how does that happen, how does the prison system create new “criminals“? Do you agree with her view?

Gilmore explains that the prison system keeps itself going by always expanding what counts as a crime, giving longer sentences, and making it hard for people to rejoin society after prison. It also targets vulnerable groups, like those affected by poverty and racism, to keep the cycle of incarceration alive and profit from it. I agree with this claim because it shows how the system pushes for this agenda and it is not just an action of individuals.

• Describe how your understand what Prof. Gilmore – in the last part of her video – calls “liberation struggle”
  The way I understand what Prof. Gilmore calls “liberation struggle” is liberation that starts in local communities, where people resist oppression and build systems based on care and togetherness. It’s about learning from history, organizing, and working together to challenge systems like racism and colonialism. Her example of Lisbon communities fighting to save their homes shows how liberation is about solidarity, debate, and rethinking how we live together with justice at the core of all things.