Sunday, March 3, 2019

Week 9 - Alex Nguyen - A03

Okamura in his article on post-racialism places emphasis on the importance of acknowledging race and racial inequality in a society where systemic racism is rampant. The idea of post-racialism, explains Okamura, connotes an idea of post-racism, which is something neoconservatives and white supremacists push for in order to stifle cries of race-based oppression. He uses Obama as an example of post-racial politics from a leftist viewpoint — Obama appealed to all races, but particularly to white voters by remaining silent on issues of racial justice, and backing down from important positions on police brutality against black communities. Similar to last week’s article on sexuality, race thus becomes a null subject. Post racialism does not remove the onus of racial discrimination, but rather, it pretends it doesn’t exist, and in doing so, perpetuates systemic racism.

I believe his criticism of Obama’s post-racial politics is justified. Even though Obama needed to run on a post-racial platform in order to stand the best chance of being elected, it was certainly not racially progressive to do so. Like Okamura points out, it also allows for neoconservatives to claim that racism is a thing of the past, since Obama being elected clearly meant America had become a colorblind nation.

This article brings to mind the concept of dog whistle politics, which is a sort of political language where an ideology, commonly a racist ideology, is implied, even though no specific hateful language is used. Examples are the War on Drugs — which targets racial minorities and black and Latinx communities in particular — and Reagan’s Welfare Queens — claiming that certain people — mostly African Americans — on welfare are getting rich off of taxpayers’ contributions. Law professor Ian Haney Lopez describes this phenomenon in his book Dog Whistle Politics as having originated from topics of race being rendered taboo in the American political sphere. While dog whistle politics, and similarly, the idea of post-racialism and color blindness, allows for those in support of structural racism to continue to spread their ideologies, it makes it difficult for those attempting to ameliorate race-based oppression to do so.

What are other spheres in which it is made intentionally difficult to speak about race and racial oppression?


Jonathan Y. Okamura. “Barack Obama as the Post-racial Candidate for a Post-racial America:Perspectives from Asian America and Hawai‘i.”
Lopez, I.H. [Tedx Talks]. (2013, March 8). Dog Whistle Politics: Ian Haney López at TEDxUOregon [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qibFwUNDZX4

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