The Obamas and a (Post) Racial America?

by Parks, Gregory; Hughey, Matthew; Jost, John; Ogletree, Charles

• ISBN13: 9780199735204
• ISBN10: 0199735204
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-02-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The United States has taken a long and winding road to racial equality, especially as it pertains to relations between blacks and whites. On November 4, 2008, when Barack Hussein Obama was elected as the forty-fourth President of the United States and first black person to occupy the highest office in the land, many wondered whether that road had finally come to an end. Do we now live in a post-racial nation? According to this book's contributors, a more nuanced and contemporary analysis and measurement of racial attitudes undercuts this assumption. They contend that despite the election of the first black President and rise of his family as possibly the most recognized family in the world, race remains a salient issue-particularly in the United States. Looking beyond public behaviors and how people describe their own attitudes, the contributors draw from the latest research to show how, despite the Obama family's rapid rise to national prominence, many Americans continue to harbor unconscious, anti-black biases. But there are whispers of change. The Obama family's position may yet undermine, at the unconscious level, anti-black attitudes in the United States and abroad. The prominence of the Obamas on the world stage and the image they project may hasten the day when America is indeed post-racial, even at the implicit level.

Table of Contents

Contributors	p. xvii
Introduction	p. xix
Measuring Racial Progress in America: The Tangled Path	p. 1
Commentary: Constraint and Freedom in the ôAge of Obamaö	p. 27
Implicit Bias: A Better Metric for Racial Progress?	p. 30
Commentary: The Erasure of the Affirmative Action Debate in the Age of Obama	p. 45
Black Man in the White House: Ideology and Implicit Racial Bias in the Age of Obama	p. 45
Commentary: Black Man in the White House	p. 70
Obama-Nation? Implicit Beliefs about American Nationality and the Possibility of Redefining Who Counts as ôTrulyö American	p. 72
Commentary: As American as Barack Obama	p. 91
Does Black and Male Still = Threat in the Age of Obama?	p. 94
Commentary: Threat, Fantasy, and President Obama	p. 113
Michelle Obama: Redefining Images of Black Women	p. 116
Commentary: First Lady Michelle Obama: Getting Past the Stereotypes	p. 133
Barack, Michelle, and the Complexities of a Black ôLove Supremeö	p. 135
Commentary: The Obamas: Beyond Troubled Love	p. 135
Sasha and Malia: Re-Envisioning African-American Youth	p. 166
Commentary: Re-Envisioning Black Youth	p. 191
Obama and Global Change in Perceptions of Group Status	p. 183
Commentary: Obama and Group Change in Attitudes about Group Status	p. 215
The Role of Race in American Politics: Lessons Learned from the 2008 Presidential Election	p. 218
Commentary: The State of the Post-Racial Union	p. 243
Obama's Potential to Transform the Racial Attitudes of White Americans	p. 245
Commentary: Black Behavior and Moral Dissonance: Missing Mechanisms in Theorizing the Obama Effect	p. 263
New Bottle, Same Old Wine: The GOP and Race in the Age of Obama	p. 266
Commentary: New Bottle, Same Old Wine: A Response	p. 285
About the Editors	p. 288
About the Contributors	p. 289
About the Commentators	p. 295
Index	p. 297
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