Challenging History: Barack Obama & American Racial Politics

Daedalus ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 140 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rogers M. Smith ◽  
Desmond S. King ◽  
Philip A. Klinkner
Keyword(s):  
Predominantly White ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
National Unity ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Racial Inequalities ◽  
Color Blind ◽  
Racial Policy ◽  
Governing Institutions

Modern American racial politics remains sharply divided over racial policy issues, with coalitions of political activists, groups, and governing institutions aligned on opposing sides. A “color-blind” policy alliance urges government to act with as little regard to race as possible. A “race-conscious” alliance argues that policies should aim to reduce material racial inequalities and that race-targeted measures are often needed. These modern racial policy alliances are strongly identified with the two major parties; as a result, they contribute to modern political polarization. In a predominantly white electorate, color-blind policies are far more popular than race-conscious ones. President Barack Obama has responded by stressing goals of national unity and foregrounding color-blind policies, while quietly choosing among them on race-conscious grounds and adopting limited race-targeted measures. It remains to be seen whether his approach can succeed in reducing material racial inequalities or immunizing him from charges of reverse racism. It also faces challenges at home and abroad for privileging American national interests above multicultural and internationalist concerns.

scholarly journals HAMILTON’S DERACIALIZATION

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 621-638
Author(s):  
Richard Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
Black Candidates ◽  
Black Racial Identity ◽  
Curriculum Vitae ◽  
Color Blind ◽  
Racial Policy

AbstractMany commentators have described Barack Obama as a ‘deracialized’ politician. In contrast to ‘racialized’ Black candidates, deracialized politicians are said to deemphasize their Black racial identity, downplay the racial legacies of American inequality, and favor race-neutral over racially targeted policies. Puzzlingly, this narrative of Obama’s racial politics sits incongruously with his political curriculum vitae, spent largely in contexts which are difficult to describe as deracialized. This article holds that commentators have misjudged Barack Obama’s racial politics by conflating a contingent electoral strategy with a deeper expression of Obama’s racial philosophical commitments. In explaining these commitments, the article finds the deracialized/racialized framing inadequate. Instead, it favors the typology of racial policy alliances situating Obama within the “race-conscious” policy alliance rather than the “color-blind” alliance. By returning to the site of Obama’s political development, Hyde Park in Chicago, the paper uncovers a tradition of racial politics in which Blacks formed coalitions with progressive Whites but also embraced Black racial identity, acknowledged the enduring legacies of slavery and Jim Crow, and supported targeted policies to overturn these racial legacies. The article argues that Obama was an inheritor of this tradition.

Still a House Divided

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond S. King ◽  
Rogers M. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Racial Politics ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
School Vouchers ◽  
President Obama ◽  
White House ◽  
Racial Inequalities ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Alliances ◽  
Fresh Perspective ◽  
Racial Policy

Why have American policies failed to reduce the racial inequalities still pervasive throughout the nation? Has President Barack Obama defined new political approaches to race that might spur unity and progress? This book examines the enduring divisions of American racial politics and how these conflicts have been shaped by distinct political alliances and their competing race policies. Combining deep historical knowledge with a detailed exploration of such issues as housing, employment, criminal justice, multiracial census categories, immigration, voting in majority-minority districts, and school vouchers, the book assesses the significance of President Obama's election to the White House and the prospects for achieving constructive racial policies for America's future. Offering a fresh perspective on the networks of governing institutions, political groups, and political actors that influence the structure of American racial politics, the book identifies three distinct periods of opposing racial policy coalitions in American history. It investigates how today's alliances pit color-blind and race-conscious approaches against one another, contributing to political polarization and distorted policymaking. Contending that President Obama has so far inadequately confronted partisan divisions over race, the book calls for all sides to recognize the need for a balance of policy measures if America is to ever cease being a nation divided. Presenting a powerful account of American political alliances and their contending racial agendas, this book sheds light on a policy path vital to the country's future.

Prospects of the House Divided

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond S. King ◽  
Rogers M. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Present State ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
Racial Inequalities

This chapter reflects on how Americans can achieve further progress in their long national struggle to reduce enduring material race inequalities. It first returns to the structure of American racial politics as analyzed in previous chapters, before discussing its present state. The chapter then suggests that the effects of the clash of the modern racial alliances have been debilitating on many fronts, illustrating through charts and graphs the effects of these racial alliances, and offers projections on how Americans can tackle current incarnations of racial inequalities, and why progress in that regard seems so slow. Finally, this chapter makes some recommendations for breaking out of the “stalemate” on race that Barack Obama perceived in 2008.

BARACK OBAMA AND THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN RACIAL POLITICS

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rogers M. Smith ◽  
Desmond S. King
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
Racial Inequalities ◽  
Current Structure ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Racial Issues ◽  
The Future ◽  
Black President

AbstractIn 2008, following a campaign in which racial issues were largely absent, Americans elected their first Black president. This article argues that Obama's election does not signal the dawn of a postracial era in U.S. politics. Rather, it reflects the current structure of racial politics in the United States—a division between those who favor color-blind policies and seek to keep racial discussions out of politics, and those who favor race-conscious measures and whose policies are often political liabilities. The Obama campaign sought to win support from both camps. Only if pervasive material racial inequalities are reduced can such a strategy succeed in the long run.

Racial Reparations against White Protectionism: America's New Racial Politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Rogers M. Smith ◽  
Desmond King
Keyword(s):  
Racial Politics ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Systemic Racism ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Color Blind ◽  
Racial Policy ◽  
To Come

Abstract After more than half a century in which American racial politics has been structured primarily as a clash between two rival “racial orders” or “policy alliances,” the longstanding coalitions are transforming into ones centered on significantly new themes. The racially conservative “color-blind” policy alliance is, under the leadership of President Donald Trump, becoming an alliance promising “white protectionism.” The “race-conscious” policy alliance is, with the mobilizations around the slogan of Black Lives Matter, becoming an alliance focused on “racial reparations” to end “systemic racism.” These new, even more, polarized racial policy alliances have counterparts across the globe, and they are likely to shape political life for many years to come.

“That They May All Be One”

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond S. King ◽  
Rogers M. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Core Concept ◽  
Racial Inequalities ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Racial Policy ◽  
Policy Arenas

This chapter sketches the main points derived from the overall structure of American racial politics and why it matters. It looks into the policy challenges that racial inequalities pose in modern America, and considers a few clues about the political guidance needed to move further toward their resolution. The chapter then elaborates this volume's core concept of rival racial policy alliances. Finally, it explains how the subsequent chapters use the idea of alliances to analyze the evolution of American racial politics historically, and the ways today's racial alliances shape and often distort decision making across a wide range of modern policy arenas.

scholarly journals A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Construction on Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia’s Disbandment

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Saptorini Listianingsih
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Political Interest ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
National Unity ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Online Newspapers ◽  
The Government

This study uses van Dijk’s version of Critical Discourse Analysis perspective to examine the news construction of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia’s disbandment in two online newspapers. The two online newspapers used in this study are the Jakarta Post and Jakarta Globe. From the analysis, it shows us that based on textual analysis, the government and HTI are portrayed as two opposing parties. The government is described as ruling regime having authority to maintain national interests that is Pancasila as well as national unity, diversity, and security, while HTI is described as the organization against national interest. Thus, the disbandment of HTI is a correct step to defend national interests. This is in accordance with the developing discourse in society that the existence of HTI is considered to endanger Pancasila. Furthermore, this research revealed that the history, vision mission, previous experience and the political interest of special political elites in media has had decisive influence in transforming reality into news texts.

A Distant Rainbow

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-38
Author(s):  
Debasish Roy Chowdhury ◽  
John Keane
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Western World ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Caste Status ◽  
Governing Institutions

This introductory chapter traces the origins and resilience of the idea of India as the world’s largest democracy. Democracy was neither a gift of the Western world nor uniquely suited to Indian conditions. India was in fact a laboratory featuring a first-ever experiment in creating national unity, economic growth, religious toleration, and social equality out of a vast and polychromatic reality, a social order whose inherited power relations, rooted in the hereditary Hindu caste status, language hierarchies, and accumulated wealth, were to be transformed by the constitutionally guaranteed counter-power of public debate, multiparty competition, and periodic elections. Efforts to build an Indian democracy are said to have done more than transform the lives of its people. India fundamentally altered the nature of representative democracy itself. India’s democratic credentials, however, face new scrutiny as a result of the executive excesses of a populist demagogue as governing institutions crumble. The chapter argues that India’s democratic decline actually goes back further. It looks at the destructive effects of the long-standing neglect of the social foundations of India’s democracy and considers the possible mutation of democracy into a strange new kind of government called despotism.

Is There a Trump Effect? An Experiment on Political Polarization and Audience Costs

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (02) ◽  
pp. 433-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miles M. Evers ◽  
Aleksandr Fisher ◽  
Steven D. Schaaf
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Presidential Transition ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
The Public ◽  
Partisan Polarization

Does President Trump face domestic costs for foreign policy inconsistency? Will co-partisans and opposition-partisans equally punish Donald Trump for issuing flippant international threats and backing down? While the president said he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” without losing voters, the literature consistently shows that individuals, regardless of partisanship, disapprove of leaders who jeopardize the country’s reputation for credibility and resolve. Given the atypical nature of the Trump presidency, and the severe partisan polarization surrounding it, we investigate whether the logic of audience costs still applies in the Trump era. Using a unique experiment fielded during the 2016 presidential transition, we show that Republicans and Democrats impose equal audience costs on President Trump. And by varying the leader’s identity, between Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and “The President,” we demonstrate that the public adheres to a non-partisan logic in punishing leaders who renege on threats. Yet we also find Presidents Trump and Obama can reduce the magnitude of audience costs by justifying backing down as being “in America’s interest.” Even Democrats, despite their doubts of Donald Trump’s credibility, accept such justifications. Our findings encourage further exploration of partisan cues, leader-level attributes, and leader-level reputations.

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