Mixed Race Studies

The Impact of the Obama Presidency on Civil Rights Enforcement in the United States

Indiana Law Journal
Volume 87: Issue 1 (Spring 2012)
Symposium: “Labor and Employment Under the Obama Administration: A Time for Hope and Change?”

Joel Wm. Friedman, Jack M. Gordon Professor of Law
Tulane University Law School

Panel 6: Employment Law: Antidiscrimination Law Under a Black President in a “Post-Racial” America?

On Friday, August 4, 1961, police officers in Shreveport, Louisiana, arrested four African American freedom riders after the two men and two women refused to accede to the officers’ orders to exit the whites-only waiting room at the Continental Trailways bus terminal. Four thousand miles away, in the delivery room at Kapi’olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii, Stanley Ann Dunham, a Kansas-born American anthropologist whose family had moved to the island state twenty years earlier, gave birth to the only child that she would have with her first husband, Barack Obama Sr., an ethnic Luo who had come to Hawaii from the Nyanza Province in southwest Kenya to pursue his education at the University of Hawaii. Just over forty-seven years later, on November 4, 2008, their son, Barak Obama II, a mixed-race man who identifies as black, was elected the 44th president of the United States.

The election of the nation’s first African American president was hailed as an event of historic importance. Many heralded Obama’s victory as signaling the dismantling of “the last racial barrier in American politics.” Analogies were quickly and frequently drawn to the historic moment when Jackie Robinson became the first African American player in Major League Baseball. This superficially obvious comparison, however, diminished the causal significance of Obama’s election. When Jackie Robinson left the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues on October 23, 1945, to sign a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and then made his debut on a major league diamond at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947, he breached the unofficial, but rigidly enforced exclusionary “color line” in professional baseball. But this momentous event was the product of a courageous and visionary decision by one man—Branch Rick[e]y, the part-owner, president, and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Obama’s election triumph, on the other hand, was the result of millions of individual determinations to vote for an African American candidate for the nation’s highest office.

Beyond the unique historical aspect of Obama’s election triumph, the results of the 2008 presidential election were interpreted by many as marking the onset of a new era of American “postracialism.” For example, much was made of the fact  that in Virginia, home of the Confederacy’s capital city, Obama amassed more votes than his Caucasian opponent. Many analysts concluded that the voters’ comparative assessments of each candidate’s ability to deal with the nation’s economic woes, and not his racial classification, were a crucial determinant in their decisions in the voting booth. They pointed to the fact that Obama’s 8.5 million vote margin of victory was, in part, the result of his receipt of 40% of the votes cast by white men, a higher share than had been garnered by any of the five previous (white) Democratic presidential nominees…

Read the entire article here.

Using the Mixed-Race Category to Expose the Persistence of Anti-Black Racism: A Response to Thomas Chatterton Williams

2012-03-17

Mark S. James, Fulbright Scholar
Horlivka State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages

This article [Thomas Chatterton Williams, “As Black as We Wish to Be,” New York Times (March 16, 2012)] stipulates that people of mixed-race parentage do indeed experience advantages that those who are perceived to be monoracially black do not, yet argues that these people should deny this advantage because of an “ethical obligation” to identify as (monoracially) “black,” as if numbers alone tells the whole story of racial discrimination. It seems to me that it is precisely because many mixed-race individuals experience advantages that many “pure” black people do not that we can most effectively use the mixed-race category as a way of exposing the persistence of anti-black racism.

As we have seen with Obama, though he did not get the majority of white votes, one can argue that it was precisely his being part white that made quite a few white voters feel comfortable with voting for him. This was why he spoke about his white family early and often. It is highly unlikely that these voters would have felt similarly about a “pure” African American, let alone voted for him (or her). This is perhaps why we did not see the “Bradley effect.” Enough white people voted for him to enable the overwhelming majorities of minority votes to decide the election. Yet when he won, many of these same white people (and others) took this as proof of a “post-racial America.” Suddenly, it was cooler to highlight his “blackness” as evidence of “how far we’ve come.” I believe that some people—and not a trivial number at that—voted for him because of his “whiteness,” and then celebrated his election because of his “blackness.” Therefore, to the extent that we focus on Obama’s “blackness” to the exclusion of how “whiteness” and white privilege functioned in his election, we fail to come to terms with how anti-black racism works today.

It seems to me that Chatterton Williams has it exactly backward. As mixed race people continue to multiply and take advantage of opportunities that may not be available to those who continue to suffer from social and institutional anti-black racism, it makes little sense for him to insist on a “pure” black designation. If he says, “I’m black,” what’s to keep someone from saying, “Well then how can racism still exist? You’re clearly a highly educated black man living in Paris, married to a white woman, and that fact, as you put it, raises few eyebrows. What more do you all want, Negro?”

If, on the other hand, he can argue that it was precisely his proximity and access, however incomplete, to white privilege in terms of colorism, access to schools denied those who did not live in a (presumably mostly white) New Jersey suburb, etc., he can more effectively draw attention to how anti-black racism continues to function and even thrive in an environment where a “black” (but not really *wink, wink*) man can be president. It is conceivable that less privileged African Americans (those without access to white privilege) may be faring even worse under Obama than they did under W [George W. Bush] or Clinton. In my view, it is precisely because so many Americans are now looking for Obama to betray a bias towards black people that he cannot afford to even consider some policies that could specifically target the effects of anti-black racism that a “white” president could. To the chagrin of Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, et al., he has had to avoid race in a way other presidents before him did not have to, had they been so inclined.

In short, by identifying as “purely black,” Chatterton Williams’s essay seems more like self-congratulation masquerading as progressive politics. Chatterton Williams proudly proclaiming, “I’m one of them” in 2012 does not have anything like the same impact as it did for Ellison in the shadow of Jim Crow segregation. When Ellison did it, he was exposing those efforts to cast him as the “exceptional Negro” and therefore not like other “Negros” who “deserved” or “earned” their poor treatment. His saying, “I am one of them” raised the real question of, “Well, how many Ellisons are there that just don’t have a chance because of the explicitly anti-black racism that has been in practice since the founding of this country?” It was a spur to push for more civil rights for all African Americans. When Chatterton Williams does it in a post Civil Rights environment where so many are looking for proof that America has done quite enough on this score, they are more likely to say, “Yes, yes, YES!!! I accept that you are one of them! Therefore, we need do no more!”

^©2012, Mark S. James

As Black as We Wish to Be

The New York Times
2012-03-16

Thomas Chatterton Williams

My first encounter with my own blackness occurred in the checkout line at the grocery store. I was horsing around with my older brother, as bored children sometimes do. My blond-haired, blue-eyed mother, exasperated and trying hard to count out her cash and coupons in peace, wheeled around furiously and commanded us both to be still. When she finished scolding us, an older white woman standing nearby leaned over and whispered sympathetically: “It must be so tough adopting those kids from the ghetto.”

The thought that two tawny-skinned bundles of stress with Afros could have emerged from my mother’s womb never crossed the lady’s mind. That was in the early 1980s, when the sight of interracial families like mine was still an oddity, even in a New Jersey suburb within commuting distance from Manhattan. What strikes me most today is that despite how insulting the woman’s remark was, we could nonetheless all agree on one thing: my brother and I were black…

…Until the year 2000, the census didn’t even recognize citizens as belonging to more than one racial group. And yet, so rapid has the change been that just 10 years later, when Barack Obama marked the “Black, African Am., or Negro,” box on his 2010 census form, many people wondered why he left it at that.

If today we’ve become freer to concoct our own identities, to check the “white” box or write in “multiracial” on the form, the question then forces itself upon us: are there better or worse choices to be made?

I believe there are. Mixed-race blacks have an ethical obligation to identify as black — and interracial couples share a similar moral imperative to inculcate certain ideas of black heritage and racial identity in their mixed-race children, regardless of how they look…

…As the example of President Obama demonstrates par excellence, the black community can and does benefit directly from the contributions and continued allegiance of its mixed-race members, and it benefits in ways that far outweigh the private joys of freer self-expression…

Read the entire article here.

Studs Terkel’s study of race in the US: 20 years on

The Guardian
2012-03-13

Gary Younge

What have we learned in the two decades since the oral historian Studs Terkel published his classic book Race? In the introduction to a new edition, Gary Younge weighs up what has changed – and what hasn’t

Cultures do not come by their obsessions lightly. They tend them over generations, feeding them with myths, truths, pain, resentment, collective generalisations and individual exceptions. They pick at them like scabs until they bleed, and then mistake the consequent infection for the original wound. And then, like a hardy virus, the obsessions survive all attempts at inoculation by mutating into new and more stubborn strains.

Race in America, as Studs Terkel points out in the subtitle to his book (“What Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession”), published 20 years ago this year, is one such obsession. “No African came in freedom to the shores of the New World,” wrote 19th-century French intellectual Alexis de Tocqueville in his landmark book Democracy in America. “The Negro transmits to his descendants at birth the external mark of his ignominy. The law can abolish servitude, but only God can obliterate its traces.”

By 1992, when Race was published, the laws had been abolished two generations prior, leaving the traces to engrave a deep and treacherous crevice between de jure and de facto. So there was never any risk that in the two decades since Terkel conducted most of these interviews, the book would be relegated to a period piece. True, numerous references to Louis Farrakhan, Harold Washington and Ronald Reagan certainly root the contributions in their time. Remarkable things have also happened to race in America since the book came out: black Americans have been eclipsed by Latinos as the largest minority; the black prison population has increased exponentially; a Republican right wing is on the ascendancy; and there is, of course, a black president…

Read the entire article here.

Barack Obama is a White Man

The Language Guy
2008-06-09

Michael Geis, Professor Emeritus in Linguistics
Ohio State University

I don’t get it. Obama is seen as a Black man. Why not see him as a White man. He is, if I understand his parentage, 50% White and 50% Black. Moreover, he went to Harvard. This constitutes unimpeachable evidence (sort of) that Obama is a White man. Tiger Woods is 50% Black and 50% Thai. How in hell does that make him into a Black man. His father raised him, it seems, to be White in that he taught him a mostly White sport and sent him to mostly White Stanford University (the last is a guess). I suspect that Tiger has more White friends than Black ones. I hereby claim him as a White man.

Back when I was a full time faculty remember I looked over a class I was about to teach Sociolinguistics for the first time and remarked that it was too bad there were no African Americans in the class since we would be talking about issues of interest to them. A girl right in front of me said, “What makes you think that there aren’t any Blacks in this room?” I took a good look at her essentially White freckled face and her red hair and said, on observing that her hair was “kinky” in the way the hair of Blacks can be and replied, “If you say so.” The next class two relatively clear cases of Black students showed up.

Since that “error” on my part, I have observed all manner of athletes on TV whose race I find it impossible to tell. They could be very light skinned “Black” people or White people. Certainly their skin color is often lighter than that of certain so-called “White” people from Europe…

Read the entire article here.

Obama and the Biracial Factor: The Battle for a New American Majority

Policy Press
February 2012
256 pages
234 x 156 mm
Hardback ISBN-10: 1447301005; ISBN-13: 978-1447301004

Andrew J. Jolivétte, Associate Professor of American Indian Studies (Also see biographies at Speak Out! and Native Wiki.)
Center for Health Disparities Research and Training
San Fransisco State University

Since the election in 2008 of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States there have been a plethora of books, films, and articles about the role of race in the election of the first person of color to the White House. None of these works though delves into the intricacies of Mr. Obama’s biracial background and what it means, not only in terms of how the President was elected and is now governing, but what multiraciality may mean in the context of a changing U.S. demographic. Obama and the Biracial Factor is the first book to explore the significance of mixed-race identity as a key factor in the election of President Obama and examines the sociological and political relationship between race, power, and public policy in the United States with an emphasis on public discourse and ethnic representation in his election. Jolivette and his co-authors bring biracial identity and multiraciality to forefront of our understanding of racial projects since his election. Additionally, the authors assert the salience of mixed-race identity in U.S. policy and the on-going impact of the media and popular culture on the development, implementation, and interpretation of government policy and ethnic relations in the U.S. and globally. This timely work offers foundational analysis and theorization of key new concepts such as mixed-race hegemony and critical mixed race pedagogy and a nuanced exploration of the on-going significance of race in the contemporary political context of the United States with international examples of the impact on U.S. foreign relations and a shifting American electorate. Demographic issues are explained as they relate to gender, race, class, and religion. These new and innovative essays provide a template for re-thinking race in a ‘postcolonial’, decolonial, and ever increasing global context. In articulating new frameworks for thinking about race and multiraciality this work challenges readers to contemplate whether we should strive for a ‘post-racist’ rather than a ‘post-racial’ society. Obama and the Biracial Factor speaks to a wide array of academic disciplines ranging from political science and public policy to sociology and ethnic studies. Scholars, researchers, undergraduate and graduate students as well as community organizers and general audiences interested in issues of equity, social justice, cross-cultural coalitions and political reform will gain new insights into critical mixed race theory and social class in multiracial contexts and beyond.

Contents

• Part I
  • Obama and the biracial factor: An introduction – Andrew Jolivette
  • Race, multiraciality, and the election of Barack Obama: Toward a more perfect union? – G. Reginald Daniel
  • “A Patchwork Heritage” Multiracial citation in Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father – Justin Ponder
  • Racial revisionism, caste revisited: Whiteness, blackness and Barack Obama – Darryl G. Barthé, Jr.
• Part II: Beyond black and white identity politics
  • Obama mamas and mixed race: Hoping for “A More Perfect Union” – Wei Ming Dariotis and Grace Yoo
  • Is ‘no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama’? Racial authenticity, cognitive flexibility and the racial Rorschach test – Rebecca Chiyoko King O’Riain
  • Mixed race kin-aesthetics in the Age of Obama – Wei Ming Dariotis
  • Mutt like me: Barack Obama and the mixed race experience in historical perspective – Zebulon Miletsky
• Part III: The battle for a new American majority
  • A different kind of blackness: The question of Obama’s blackness and intraracial variation among African Americans – Robert Keith Collins
  • Obama and race in the recessionary period of the colorblind era – Kathleen Odel Korgen and David L. Brunsma
  • Barack Obama and the rise to power: Emmett Till revisited – Andrew Jolivette

A Textual Analysis of Barack Obama’s Campaign Discourse Regarding His Race

Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana
April 2011
44 pages

Andrea Dawn Andrews

This study is a textual analysis of Barack Obama’s nine most noteworthy speeches from 2004 to 2009 during his rise to prominence and presidential campaign. Because Obama was considered an inspiring speaker and because he was the first African American to win either a major party’s presidential nomination or a general presidential election, this study examines how Obama’s use of language about his race may have contributed to his success. Previous research has shown that use of six rhetorical devices resonates with the American people: abstraction, democratic speech conversational speech, valence messages, conciliatory messages and imagery. The study analyzed Obama’s speeches for use of these devices in relation to his race. In the nine speeches studied, Obama addressed his race twenty-nine times and used all six rhetorical devices frequently when doing so. Recurring themes he discussed using these devices were the American dream, heritage and family, and unity. His overarching message about his race was that racial differences and a negative history of race relations could be overcome because the U.S. is a land of possibility, and he offered himself as proof of that idea. Previous research shows that the rhetorical devices Obama used to present this message about his race are those that would have helped him connect with his audience and appeal to the public. Thus, Obama’s use of rhetorical devices and presentation of a positive message about his race may have helped him win votes to become the first African American president of the United States.

Read the entire thesis here.

Obama & The Biracial Factor Book Release & Roundtable Discussion

Richard Oakes Multicultu​ral Center-SF State Student Center
1650 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco, California
2012-04-05, 16:00-18:00 PDT (Local Time)

Join book contributors, Dr. Robert Collins, Dr. Wei Ming Dariotis, Dr. Grace Yoo, Dr. Andrew Jolivétte and Cesar Chavez Research Institute Director, Dr. Belinda Reyes in a lively conversation about the 2012 Presidential election campaign and the new book, Obama and the Biracial Factor: The Battle for a New American Majority.

Books will be available at the event.

Obama Has Shattered America’s Racial Ceiling

San Diego Union-Tribune
2012-02-12

Constance M. Carroll, Chancellor
San Diego Community College District

If he could visit 21st-century America, Alexis de Tocqueville would be amazed to find Barack Obama, an African-American, as president of the United States. However, he would not be surprised to find that, despite this powerful symbolism of progress, race is still a divisive force in the country.
 
Following his tour of this young nation in the 19th century, Tocqueville, a French historian and political activist, published “Democracy in America” in 1835. In this book, he described slavery as “the most formidable evil threatening the future of the United States.” Aware of the growing impetus to abolish this practice, Tocqueville noted, “I see that slavery is in retreat, but the prejudice from which it arose is immovable.”
 
173 years later, Americans elected an African American to hold the highest office in the nation. During election eve on Nov. 4, 2008, many wept, shared their enthusiasm with friends and family across the country, and actually believed that this was it: the end of racial strife in America. Given the nation’s difficult journey from slavery and its abolition, from Jim Crow laws and their dissolution, from segregation and its demise, to the continuing civil rights struggle to eliminate the vestiges of this dark history, Barack Obama’s election was heralded by many as the start of a new era of equality and racial peace…

Read the entire article here.

Post-Racial? Americans and Race in the Age of Obama

The Greenlining Institute
Berkeley, California
November 2011
26 pages

Dr. Daniel Byrd, Research Director

Bruce Mirken, Media Relations Coordinator

Since the election of Barack Obama as the United States’ first African American president, there has been much discussion of whether this means the U.S. has become a “post-racial” society. Does race still matter in America? This question is particularly significant in light of the fact that within about three decades, people of color are projected to become the majority. Policy based on mistaken assumptions could cripple efforts to revive the U.S. economy. Using the most definitive survey data available, we investigated perceptions of race in America among different racial and ethnic groups and how those perceptions compare to measurable realities of U.S. society.

Table of Contents

• Executive Summary
• Recommendations
• Introduction
  • Methodology
  • America’s Changing Demographics
  • Race Relations in America
  • Perceptions of Discrimination and Inequality in America
  • Race and Health
  • Race and Income
  • Race and Treatment of Groups by the Federal Government
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Summary
  • A Call to Action
• References
• Appendix I
• Appendix II

Read the entire report here.