The Obamas and a (Post) Racial America? Hardback

by Charles (Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, Harvard Law Sch Ogletree

Edited by Gregory (Law Clerk, Law Clerk, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Washington DC) Parks, Matthew (Professor of Sociology & African American Studies, Professor of Sociology & African Hughey

Part of the Series in Political Psychology series

Hardback

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Description

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.