Autonomies

Color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality.

James Baldwin, Down at the Cross

The Anarchist movement in North America is overwhelmingly white, middle class, and for the most part, pacifist so the question arises: why am I a part of the Anarchist movement, since I am none of those things? Well, although the movement may not now be what I think it should be in North America, I visualize a mass movement that will have hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Black, Hispanic and other non-white workers in it. It will not be an Anarchist movement that Black workers and the other oppressed will just “join” — it will be an independent movement which has its own social outlook, cultural imperative, and political agenda. It will be Anarchist at its care, but it will also extend Anarchism to a degree no previous European social or cultural group ever has done. I am certain that many of these workers will believe, as I do, that Anarchism is the most democratic, effective, and radical way to obtain our freedom, but that we must be free to design our own movements, whether it is understood or “approved” by North American Anarchists or not. We must fight for our freedom, no one else can free us, but they can help us.

Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, Anarchism and the Black Revolution

One of the most important lessons I also learned from anarchism is that you need to look for the radical things that we already do and try to encourage them. This is why I think there is so much potential for anarchism in the Black community: so much of what we already do is anarchistic and doesn’t involve the state, the police, or the politicians. We look out for each other, we care for each other’s kids, we go to the store for each other, we find ways to protect our communities. Even churches still do things in a very communal way to some extent. I learned that there are ways to be radical without always passing out literature and telling people, “Here is the picture, if you read this you will automatically follow our organization and join the revolution.” For example, participation is a very important theme for anarchism and it is also very important in the Back community. Consider jazz: it is one of the best illustrations of an existing radical practice because it assumes a participatory connection between the individual and the collective and allows for the expression of who you are, within a collective setting, based on the enjoyment and pleasure of the music itself. Our communities can be the same way. We can bring together all kinds of diverse perspectives to make music, to make revolution.

Ashanti Omowali Alston, Black Anarchism

The expression “black anarchism” may ring a discordant note among some anarchists. The many adjectives that have distinguished different kinds of anarchism – mutualist, collectivist, communist, individualist, for example – have served above all to mark different ways in which the anarchist ideals of freedom and equality are imagined and fought for. And even when “anarchism” becomes the adjective of a designation – anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-feminism, anarcho-primitivism -, it reflects an effort to inject anarchist ideals into a larger body of political thought and practice.

A “black anarchism” suggests something more disturbing, a form of political parochialism, an anarchism for “black people”, somehow contrary to the universalist aspiration of anarchist intentions. And if to this is added a concern for “black nationalism”, then the anarchist may indeed have reasons for scepticism regarding the possibility of a seemingly racially defined form of anarchism.

Is then “black anarchism” simply a well meant misunderstanding, or worse, a contradiction in terms? Or cannot one instead see in “black anarchism” the desire to identify a form of domination that has and continues to mark modern capitalism?