Barack Obama and the Politics of Race

Abstract

Many scholars across racial lines argue that the historic election of Barack Obama as the first African American president of the United States marks the dawning of a "postracial era" in our country. Despite this claim and unprecedented enthusiasm that abounds within African American circles about the direction of race relations in this country, there seems to be a glaring ideological disconnect between the desire and reality of a race-free society. Focusing attention on this disconnect and the symbolic capital of "hope" that Obama's presidency constitutes for the Black community, this article exposes the potential pitfalls of wholesale investment in postracial thinking, particularly for the most economically vulnerable African American populations. Chief among the questions that the authors ask is how African Americans can productively address the continuing challenges of race-centric oppression under an Obama administration that is itself an embodiment of this postrace thinking.

Backing Barack Because He's Black: Racially Motivated Voting in the 2008 Election*

“…Perhaps the biggest reason for Blacks' resistance to the effects of optimism is that they simply “think differently” about an Obama presidency. Clearly, Blacks appreciate the historical significance of a POTUS of color; nevertheless, unlike some of their White counterparts, Blacks generally do not (and arguably should not; see Harlow, 2009; Reed and Louis, 2009; Teasley and Ikard, 2010) expect an Obama presidency to solve the U.S. race problem. If anything, an Obama victory brings issues of race into sharper relief, for Hunt and Wilson (2009) and Hutchings (2009) demonstrate that instances of individual‐level discrimination and prejudice have not declined—and in some cases have become more frequent as well as severe—since the election (see also CBS News, 2008; Street, 2008; Tesler and Sears, 2010).…”

Vulnerable Life: Zombies, Global Biopolitics, and the Reproduction of Structural Violence

“…U.S. occupation made the exportation and appropriation of the zombie possible, but earlier colonial and imperial projects shaped the figure itself, which is but one part of a larger spiritual and religious system, Vodou. It is important to recognize this history and to understand that Vodou is a living religion and should be respected as such 6 . As Maya Deren explains in Divine Horsemen: Living Gods of Haiti and Leslie G. Desmangles analyzes in the journal Anthropos, this religion resulted from the importation of Africans to Haiti (and the Caribbean at large) as slave laborers brought a broad variety of West African cultural and spiritual beliefs in contact with Indigenous Caribbean and Christian beliefs [49,50].…”

“…While Seabrook fetishizes blackness and Haitian spirituality and folklore, while also dismissing it as primitivism, Craige's perspective is more overtly paternalistic and racist, viewing Haitians as primitive and underdeveloped. 6 Vodou is also often spelled "Vodun" and is likely more familiar to most readers in its Anglicization, "Voodoo." To learn more about Vodou as a living religion and about what its transcorporeality can teach us about the social construction of theories of the mind and the self, see the work of Roberto Strongman [47,48].…”

“…Take, for example, Alexander's analysis of the disenfranchisement of black Americans through the criminal justice system, a means of restructuring and renaming caste-based systems of inequality, a reformulation of Jim Crow in a contemporary moment where overt racism has become unacceptable ([1], p. 2). Or one can take for example broad socio-economic disparities that persist, such as those identified by Teasley and Ikard in their criticism of postracial formulations [6]. Or take the examination of neoliberalism and colorblindness from Reagan to Obama provided in the third edition of Omi and Winant's Racial Formation in the United States, which historicizes the convergence of neoliberalism and colorblind 1 For more on this issue, see #Ferguson syllabi such as those offered by Sociologists for Justice [3,4].…”

Barack Obama, the Tea Party, and the Threat of Race: On Racial Neoliberalism and Born Again Racism

“…On the other hand, if he acknowledges race or claims racism, he (a) risks the charge of racism by violating the rhetorical norms of neoliberalism and (b) risks marking himself further as ''different'' in the eyes of many voters. In point of fact, the one time Obama ''did 'step out of bounds' as determined by the criteria of White America'' in the case of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates's troubling arrest, argue Teasley and Ikard (2010), ''his comments were partly responsible for his summer 2009 national approval ratings decline'' (p. 421).…”