He’s White, Unfortunately

Obama’s ascent to the (still) White House is part and parcel of forty years of transition from the Jim Crow order to a new racial regime. Obama represents the sedimentation of a higher stage of the “new racism,” one described by Dylan E. Rodríguez as a “multiracial white supremacy.” In the new phase of racial regulation, the old sins—imperialism, neoliberal capitalism, and the racial order—work best in blackface.

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, “Chats: Is Obama Black, Bi-racial, or Post-racial?Zócalo Public Square, September 7, 2011. http://zocalopublicsquare.org/thepublicsquare/2011/09/07/is-obama-black-bi-racial-or-post-racial/read/chats/

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