Aparna_Komarla_A04_Week9

Barack Obama’s election was without doubt a revolutionary moment in American history. He is the first black president to be president of a country that was built on slavery and the exploitation of the black man. However, to say that his election marks the turnover of the country into a “post-racial society” is doing injustice to even his own legacy. “Post-racial” seems to suggest that this society no longer sees race or color, and essentially all people are “equal”. The simplicity and naivety of the claim – that one black president can change the legacy of racial oppression in this country, is perhaps indicative of the problem itself. The problem being that a majority of the populous, lacks an elemental form of racial-consciousness. The consciousness to ask why the University of California system is predominantly white and Asian, or why the prison system is dominated by black and brown people. The statement that America is now a post-racial society marked by Obama’s presidency is paradoxical. His presidency might symbolize the movement of America’s society into a more inclusive and equalizing one. However, his presidency has not erased income inequality among different ethnic groups, police brutality, the growth and sustenance of the prison industrial complex, and many more issues rooted in race based injustice and white supremacy.



Reference:

Okamura, J. Y. (2011). Barack Obama as the post-racial candidate for a post-racial America:

Perspectives from Asian America and Hawai‘i. Patterns of Prejudice.