Week 9_Christine Chau_A04

In this week's reading, it struck me a lot about race and how that plays a part in a presidential race. The term "post racial candidate" was a new term to me when I was first reading this article. The one thing that struck to me the most was the way people really thought about his race. I remember during the times of elections people claimed he wasn't born in the US, or that he was part Asian and that technically we had an Asian president. At some point, I just thought of Obama was a president who can represent the underrepresented. I did not know that there was much more about his race then I intended there to be. But then again, politics to me was a topic I never really got into or discussed because it made me how frustrated of people's mentalities when it came to things like that. The lines "However, while most Americans are quite willing to accept successful African Americans in stereotypes roles, such as entertainers and athletes, if Blacks are to achieve unexpected success in another field, they are 'subsequently stripped of color'" in Barack Obama as the post-racial candidate for a post-racial America: perspectives from Asian America and Hawai'i really showed that America is built on a social construct that will never change no matter what success minorities bring. There's so many arguments and perspectives into race that makes it a really sensitive subject to debate about nowadays. There are two sides to it, the way I see it. There is a side where we want to acknowledge the difference of the way people are treated due to their skin color, the side that wants to use those differences and continue to succeed to show that we can still succeed despite the obstacle courses we face. Then there is a side where we want to ignore the color of our skin and believe that everyone has equal opportunity and we shouldn't bring in race or the color of our skin in arguments or success. It's sad though to think that when it comes to success they want to wash away the color of our skin and mainly build our success with equal-ness but when it comes to crime, poverty, hatred, or anything negative, the first thing to be addressed is the color of the skin. So it's true to say that they want to strip our color when it comes to success. Makes me wonder will there ever be a time where we abolish this mentality? Probably not



I chose this photo because it reminds me of how we used to have a president who actually cared, or who actually has a brain

References:

Okamura, Jonathan Y. Barack Obama as the post-racial candidate for a post-racial America: 

          perspectives from Asian America and Hawai'i. Routledge. 2016.

Indianz. (n.d.). Harlan McKosato: President Obama must keep his promises to our people. Retrieved from https://www.indianz.com/News/2016/09/23/harlan-mckosato-president-obama-must-kee.asp