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Did President Barak Obama's discussion of racial policies lead to a public backlash and invoke sentiments of racial resentment? Previous studies of citizens' racial attitudes suggest that the American public tends to have an unfavorable view of race-specific policies that provide advantages and unique resources to minorities. Moreover, these programs invoke sentiments of racial resentment. However, I argue that when the president leads on racial issues by implementing and discussing race-specific policies, he can guide perceptions on race in the direction of the public policy that was enacted. Through original experiments, I find strong support for this claim. I conclude with a discussion of the implications this work has for rhetorical approaches presidents take to address inequality from the Oval Office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of minority voters in the United States continues to rise, and politicians must increasingly appeal to a diverse electorate. Are ethnic cues effective with different groups of minority voters? In this article, we investigate this question across the two largest minority groups in the United States: Blacks and Latinos. Drawing on American politics research, we propose that Black respondents will react positively to coethnic and cominority cues, while Latinos will be less receptive to such cues, and that this difference will be due at least in part to varying perceptions of discrimination across the two groups. We test this argument with an experimental design that leverages Congressman Charles Rangel's mixed heritage as Black and Latino. Our results confirm that Black participants respond positively to both coethnic and cominority cues about Rangel, while Latino participants do not. Reactions to ethnic cues in turn correspond to differences in perceptions of discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Histories are re-writing what Sherna Berger Gluck famously called the ‘master historical narrative’ of the US WLM, especially in historicizing the efforts of feminists of colour. This paper echoes this by exploring how white feminists embraced racial justice politics, particularly during the early 1970s, when it is often assumed that white feminists failed to enact racial justice. In historicizing the efforts of white anti-imperialist feminists in greater Boston, I maintain that the ‘master historical narrative’ wrote not only black, Chicana and multiracial feminisms out of history, but that it skewed our understanding of the race politics of white, US feminists. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 was initially viewed as signaling a postracial era in American politics. However, since 2008, race and racial attitudes have appeared to pervade American political discourse and shape political attitudes and behavior to an even greater extent. Using data from the American National Election Studies, this article examines the extent to which white racial attitudes have shaped evaluations of perhaps the most visible African American in politics today after the president: the First Lady, Michelle Obama. Findings show that racial resentment played a large role in evaluations of Michelle Obama, even after controlling for other explanatory variables, which include partisanship, ideology, and affect toward Barack Obama. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Although scholars have cast doubt on Key's () racial threat hypothesis, race continues to play a central role in American politics. But does living in a racially diverse context lead to liberalization or a white backlash? We aim to test the validity of the racial threat hypothesis in the modern-day Deep South. Methods The data used for this analysis span multiple federal elections from the state of Louisiana, from 2000, 2004, and 2008, in addition to census data from 2000 and 2010. We utilize ArcGIS mapping software to construct a detailed depiction of voters' racial environments. Results We find that whites who live in racially diverse precincts exhibit lower rates of turnout than whites in homogenous precincts; however, segregation within the precinct mitigates the liberalizing effects of precinct-level diversity among whites. Conclusion The results of our analysis provide help to clarify the previously mixed empirical findings regarding the geographic distribution of minorities and white racial conservatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship between Cuba and African Americans during the period from the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s to the 1961 invasion of the Bay of Pigs by the United States. Topics discussed include political support from Cuba for African American activism for racial equality, the relationship between anti-colonialism and equality for African Americans, and African American interest in Cuban politics.

Much published research indicates that voting behavior in the 2008 presidential election and evaluations of Barack Obama were importantly influenced by anti-Black sentiment. Various psychological theories made opposing predictions as to whether exposure to the first Black president during his first term would strengthen or weaken the alignment between general attitudes toward African Americans and evaluations of the president in particular. Using data from national surveys conducted in 2008, 2009–2010, and 2012, we compared the associations of prejudice toward Blacks with presidential approval in those years and with electoral choices in 2008 and 2012. As predicted by theories of individuation, attitudes toward Blacks became increasingly disconnected from evaluations of Mr. Obama and from people’s electoral choices over time. However, levels of prejudice against Blacks rose between 2008 and 2012. Because of this increased prejudice and the diminishing individual-level influence of attitudes toward Blacks on electoral choices, prejudice toward Blacks seems to have reduced Mr. Obama’s vote share in the 2012 election by about the same extent as in 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Past research indicates that diversity at the level of larger geographic units (e.g., counties) is linked to white racial hostility. However, research has not addressed whether diverse local contexts may strengthen or weaken the relationship between racial stereotypes and policy attitudes. In a statewide opinion survey, we find that black-white racial diversity at the zip-code level strengthens the connection between racial stereotypes and race-related policy attitudes among whites. Moreover, this effect is most pronounced among low self-monitors, individuals who are relatively immune to the effects of egalitarian social norms likely to develop within a racially diverse local area. We find that this racializing effect is most evident for stereotypes (e.g., African Americans are 'violent') that are 'relevant' to a given policy (e.g., capital punishment). Our findings lend nuance to research on the political effects of racial attitudes and confirm the racializing political effects of diverse residential settings on white Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. The racial issue evolution theory has shaped our understanding of U.S. party politics since 1964. However, some scholars disagree that racial issues are the chief factors. Others argue that social identities are the key to understanding U.S. party politics. Methods. Using logistic regression, this analysis addresses this controversy and joins the debate with a different test of the social identity theory. Results. It demonstrates that relationships between three racial psychological attachments (categorization, identification, and consciousness) and political orientation (party identification and political ideology) exist even when controlling for other factors. Conclusion. The findings suggest that Americans rely on racial categorization and identification when identifying themselves with a political party, but not a political ideology. However, the findings suggest that Americans rely on racial and moral issues when adopting a political ideology, but not party identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conversation, hosted by the Harvard Book Store and moderated by Rev. Eugene Rivers, took place in conjunction with the Boston Review's (2012) forum on the power and potential of black movements. Featuring a lead article by Michael C. Dawson, the Future of Black Politics forum included responses from William Julius Wilson, Andra Gillespie, Tommie Shelby, Rev. Patrick H. O'Connor, Jennifer L. Hochschild, Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres, Dorian T. Warren, and Robin D. G. Kelley, with a reply by Michael C. Dawson. Here, the conversation continues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores popular representations of Barack Obama's relationship to sport during the 2008 US presidential campaign. It delineates how white normativity framed the candidate's passion for basketball and his participation in a highly publicized bowling game. We argue that Obama's athletic activities became key vehicles for reading his body and by extension his identity and his politics. The question that could only be asked in a white supremacist context – is Obama too black or not black enough to be President? – mirrored long-standing tensions in America's affective relation to black male athletes. Representations of Obama bowling further illuminate the complicated ways in which whiteness operates. The essay concludes with a brief discussion suggesting the importance of analyses of sport for ethnic and racial studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I trace the tensions between structure and agency, the racial and the postracial, as they intersect and clash in the body of Barack Obama, and the US Presidency more broadly. These tensions are examined in the context of contemporary neoliberal political economy and its hyper-extenuated condition, neo-neoliberalism. Finally, the condition of postraciality is read through a critical analysis of the writings of Shelby Steele on Obama and a conceptualization of Obama the Person and Obama the Phenom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech was widely viewed as a key rhetorical moment in the 2008 presidential campaign. The purpose of this essay is to unpack reasons why the speech was significant, focusing particularly on the complex historical and contemporary dynamics of African American oratory, black churches, race relations, and American politics. I argue that the significance of the speech lies in the specific rhetorical challenges posed by the immediate context, the rhetorical strategy that Obama used to negotiate those challenges, and the way in which this strategy resonated more broadly with the rhetorical themes underlying Obama's candidacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination into the representation of slavery in the United States at heritage preservation institutions surrounding the nation's plantation history. Debate surrounding the cultural citizenship paradigm is cited to examine the framing of race identity in U.S. historical instruction. The influence and centrality of judicial politics in the legitimization of rhetoric surrounding race identity is particularly explored. Additional topics addressed include the recognition of African Americans as persons and not property, their transition in the 19th-century to provisional citizens, and the contemporary manifestations of race-conflicted social memory.

This essay examines Spike Lee's Inside Man in a post-9/11 context. Contrary to reviews that saw the film as apolitical entertainment, it argues that Lee, disguising his former didacticism as escapism, maintains a politically engaged approach to filmmaking in his depictions of ethno-racial tensions in a globalized United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calls for reform in the wake of the 1919 Chicago race riot came to centre on the perceived need for greater order and oversight in the relations between the black and white residents of the city. This article examines the city's official response to the racial violence of 1919, which took the form of the Chicago Commission on Race Relations and its 1922 report, The Negro in Chicago. Demand for the interracial commission emanated from both progressive reformers and official political channels but many among Chicago's African American population resisted the undemocratic and segregationist implications of such a deliberating body. I assess the nature of the political ideas animating the commission's membership and the intellectual sustenance provided by its primary researcher, Charles S. Johnson, and his mentor, Robert E. Park. I argue that the report not only institutionalized Jim Crow in 1920s Chicago but by giving official sanction to racial marking, it embedded racial categorizations in the newly emerging conceptions of citizenship in the modern city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion of multiraciality in American culture. It analyzes three instances of American families connected to politics and mixed race identities. The ancestry of U.S. President Barack Obama is noted in this context. The relationship of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson with his slave Sally Hemings, and the efforts of their descendants to become an official part of the historical record, are discussed. The case of U.S. Senator Srom Thurmond, known for vigorously opposing the Civil Rights Act, and for siring a child by African American housemaid Carrie Butler, is also analyzed.

The article presents a discussion of multiraciality in American culture. It focuses on the election of U.S. President Barack Obama in 2008. A speech he gave, titled "A More Perfect Union," on March 18, 2008 is analyzed in terms of the history of race relations in America. Obama's ethnic heritage as the son of a white American mother and a black African father is noted, and his relationship to more traditionally constructed tropes of African American identity is addressed. His relative popularity among various demographic groups, and the differing views such groups have of his multiracial status, are also analyzed.

The article examines the concept of "benevolent colonization" in the United States in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, with regard to Native American removal to the West and African American colonization of Africa. Rather than examples of hardened race theory, these efforts are seen as manifestations of a national fascination with colonization as a process of spreading civilization, and an opportunity for Indians and blacks to potentially set up "separate but equal" societies. Topics discussed include early American thinking about racial differences, the American Colonization Society, the Indian Removal Act, the establishment of Liberia, and the views of prominent leaders like Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson.

How should the "problem" of race be conceptualized? This essay attempts to widen our understanding of the problem of race in American political discourse by examining its productive function in grounding the meaning of American liberalism. By tracing this relationship in W. E. B. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk, Woodrow Wilson's 1913 Gettysburg Reunion Speech, Louis Hartz's The Liberal Tradition in America, and Rogers M. Smith's Civic Ideals, the author argues that as long as race is conceived as the negative referent of American liberal identity, the problem of race will continue to obscure the possibilities for transformative change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This piece introduces the four articles in this issue's minisymposium by explaining how they fit in with an emerging body of scholarship that places race centrally in asking and answering questions about American political development. The author identifies common themes and debates among the articles that contribute to understandings of the role of race in American politics and to different approaches in American political development. The author suggests that these articles together generate a new critical purchase on American politics through placing questions about civic membership as a crucial developmental phenomenon at the center of the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the civil rights policies of the administration of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in the context of the politics of race relations in the United States since the end of the Second World War. The author outlines the attitudes of John F. Kennedy and of his brother, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, toward the decolonization process in Africa, the implementation of equal employment policies, and the impact of the civil rights movement and the governmental Civil Rights Commission on the policies of the federal government.