American Identity in the Age of Obama
Northeastern University
Amilcar Cabral Center in the John D. O’Bryant African American Institute
Boston, Massachusetts
Friday, 2011-03-25, 08:30-15:30 EDT (Local Time)
The election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States has opened a new chapter in the country’s long and often tortured history of inter-racial and inter-ethnic relations. Many relished in the inauguration of the country’s first African American president—an event foreseen by another White House aspirant, Senator Robert Kennedy, four decades earlier. What could have only been categorized as a dream in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education was now a reality. Some dared to contemplate a post-racial America. Still, soon after Obama’s election a small but persistent faction questioned his eligibility to hold office; they insisted that Obama was foreign-born. Following the Civil Rights battles of the 20th century hate speech, at least in public, is no longer as free flowing as it had been. Perhaps xenophobia, in a land of immigrants, is the new rhetorical device to assail what which is non-white and hence un-American. Furthermore, recent debates about immigration and racial profiling in Arizona along with the battle over rewriting of history and civics textbooks in Texas suggest that a post-racial America is a long way off. Indeed, in his 1995 book, Dreams from My Father, Obama observed both how far we have come and how far we yet to traverse.
This conference will provide an opportunity to discuss changing and persistent notions of American identity in the Age of Obama. What roles do race, ethnicity, ancestry, immigration status, locus of birth play in the public and private conversations that defy and reinforce existing conceptions of what it means to be American?
Morning Session 08:30 – 12:00 EDT
Paper 2: “The First Black President?: Cross-racial Perceptions of Barack Obama’s Race”
Matthew Hunt, Associate Professor of Sociology
Northeastern University
David C. Wilson, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations
University of Delaware
Barack Obama’s ancestry can aptly be described as racially-mixed given his “black” Kenyan father and “white” American mother. At the same time, Obama self-identifies as African American and is widely regarded as the country’s first black president. These latter facts, of course, stem from the socially constructed nature of racial identities, America’s malevolent racial history and pattern of racial formation (think “one drop rule”), and (related) contemporary patterns of racial classification and experience. Nonetheless, the nature of Obama’s racial status does not go uncontested in the public arena. African Americans have questioned Obama’s racial authenticity (“Is he Black enough?”). And, among many whites, Obama is seen as something other than truly “black” – a fact that made him more palatable to whites as a candidate and likely contributed to his electoral success. These issues all point to the importance of understanding how and why people view Barack Obama as occupying one or another racial status/category in America. This paper explores these issues empirically via an analysis of 2009 polling data from the Pew Research Center’s “Racial Attitudes in America II” project (N = 2,850). Our analyses center on whether Obama is seen as “black” or “mixed race.” Specifically, we explore how a host of factors – including demographics, concerns about Obama’s political focus on Whites and Blacks, perceptions of discrimination, perceptions of the nature of Obama “values, racial stereotypes, and respondents” own racial identities (including a “mixed race” option) – shape how the public views the President in terms of race. In so doing, we hope to shed light on the ways in which persons’ social locations, identities, and views on racial and societal issues contribute to how Obama’s racial status is constructed by the lay public.
Paper 3: “Racial Identification in a Post Obama era: Multiracialism, Immigration and Identity Choice”
Natalie Masuoka, Assistant Professor of Political Science
Tufts University
In 2008, 2.2% of Americans identified with two or more racial categories. Indeed, assertions of non-traditional identities evoking a mixed race (or multiracial) back-ground are more prevalent in society today, particularly among younger generations. The rise of multiracial identification is indicative of new social norms that govern racial identification which offer a more inviting environment for individuals to assert multiracial identities. Yet, as a trend of multiracial self-identification grows, it demands the attention of those that self-identify with the established racial categories, such as white or black, who must then consider and respond to these identities. I anticipate that response to multiracial identities will vary by racial background. As a general pattern, I argue that whites tend to interpret multiracial identities with normative optimism about U.S. race relations while racial minorities generally respond more unfavorably to the assertions of these identities. Because of this, racial minorities will be more critical of multiracial identities and challenge the legitimacy of these identities. Using recent public opinion data, I examine the relationship between views on multiracial identities and other racial and political attitudes and compare how this relationship may differ across whites, blacks, Latinos and Asians.
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