Rod Bush takes a (good) stab at addressing the Obama election in the context of Black solidarity movements. It reads in part:

And of course there are some who want to use Obama’s success as an indication that the nation is overcoming its racial divisions. This is of course nonsense. Racism is systemic. And it is part of our commonsense. But I do think that the southern strategy is dead. Has been dying since 2000, but voter suppression has been used effectively to give us a sense that it is still in power. People of color are becoming too large a demographic to simply dismiss by demonizing Blacks, especially when Huntington and that crew are crying about the Hispanic threat, the Muslim threat, and the Chinese threat. The pushback against white world supremacy has been integral to the rise of oppressed strata throughout the 20th century. It is not separate from the increased power of working people, women, and increased opposition (or at least a relaxation of) hetero-normativity. The relations of force between the dominant forces and the subordinate forces within the world-system have been over the longue duree of the world-system has been altered in favor of subordinate forces.

Within the United States Black solidarity is a consequence of the systemic nature of racism which during the 20th century imparted an internal colonial status to the Black population (See Roderick Bush, “The Internal Colonial Hybrid: Reformulating Structure, Culture, and Agency” in this book)1 It is not a national question in the way that the Communist International and the CPUSA envisioned during the early half of the 20th century (here I agree with Cruse’s critique, at least 70%). It consists of a need for decolonization of the U.S. Empire both internally and externally. This thrust will continue, whatever Obama does. But his election is a consequence of the slow change in relations of force both internally as people of color increase their numbers within U.S. society, and their strength within the world-system.

Full essay here. Bush’s writing reminds people that anarchism is still struggling with what the Obama election means in the context of race and white supremacy. As comments over at the plantation (where so many seemingly unrelated conversations inevitably drift to race, how white everyone is, and how political people of color are largely insane, illogical nationalists) suggest, anarchism is considerably farther from an answer.

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