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The two worlds of race revisited: a meditation on race in the age of Obama.
- Source :
-
Daedalus [Daedalus] 2011; Vol. 140 (1), pp. 11-27. - Publication Year :
- 2011
-
Abstract
- Nearly fifty years ago, the American Academy organized a conference and two issues of its journal "Daedalus" on the topic of "The Negro American." The project engaged top intellectuals and policy-makers around the conflicts and limitations of mid-1960s liberalism in dealing with race. Specifically, they grappled with the persistent question of how to integrate a forced-worker population that had been needed but that was socially undesirable once its original purpose no longer existed. Today, racism has been discredited as an idea and legally sanctioned segregation belongs to the past, yet the question the conference participants explored -- in essence, how to make the unwanted wanted -- still remains. Recent political developments and anticipated demographic shifts, however, have recast the terms of the debate. Gerald Early, guest editor for the present volume, uses Barack Obama's election to the presidency as a pretext for returning to the central question of "The Negro American" project and, in turn, asking how white liberalism will fare in the context of a growing minority population in the United States. Placing his observations alongside those made by John Hope Franklin in 1965, Early positions his essay, and this issue overall, as a meditation on how far we have come in America to reach "the age of Obama" and at the same time how far we have to go before we can overcome "the two worlds of race."
- Subjects :
- History, 20th Century
History, 21st Century
Humans
Population Groups education
Population Groups ethnology
Population Groups history
Population Groups legislation & jurisprudence
Population Groups psychology
Prejudice
Social Problems economics
Social Problems ethnology
Social Problems history
Social Problems legislation & jurisprudence
Social Problems psychology
United States ethnology
Black or African American education
Black or African American ethnology
Black or African American history
Black or African American legislation & jurisprudence
Black or African American psychology
Cultural Characteristics history
Political Systems history
Race Relations history
Race Relations legislation & jurisprudence
Race Relations psychology
Social Change history
Social Conditions economics
Social Conditions history
Social Conditions legislation & jurisprudence
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 0011-5266
- Volume :
- 140
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Daedalus
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 21465840
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_00055