Week 9 Lohitashwa Garikipati A04

            Racial inequality is a large issue in the history of the United States. Given that this country was initially founded for whites, much of the systemic privilege that exists is in their favor. While it's important to not judge people or treat people differently based on race, its important that we are still aware of it. Jonathan Okamura's article, "Barack Obama as the post-racial Candidate for a post-racial America: perspectives from Asian America and Hawai'i," discusses this issue, using Obama as an an example. He states that once Obama was elected president conservatives made a huge effort to hush discussion about race and instead ignore the different heritages people had. This was an issue for several reasons. First, because of systematic inequalities as well as social inequalities, different races are treated differently, and its therefore important to acknowledge that there are groups in the country that are not treated fairly. Second, it demeans the heritage and ethnic relationship individuals share to their ancestry, as it suggests that everyone is actually the same, which they aren't. While its true that we are all human beings and should be treated the same, the fact is we are not. As a result, we can't ignore race, partially for the reason that we notice differences subconsciously, without meaning to. Obama was deemed the first "Asian-American" president by journalist Jeff Yang, primarily due to his upbringing and values. Having been born in Hawai'i, and grown up for several years in Jakarta, he had a childhood similar to many Asian-Americans, and as a result, many Asian- Americans felt that they could relate to him. Given that people's place of upbringing greatly affects their values, is race only determined by heritage? Or is race something that one can have honorarily?




Works Cited  
Jonathan Y. Okamura (2011) Barack Obama as the post-racial candidate
for a post-racial America: perspectives from Asian America and Hawai‘i,
Patterns of Prejudice, 45:1-2, 133-153, DOI:

10.1080/0031322X.2011.563159