Week 9_Tianyi Cui_A01

In this week’s reading “Barack Obama as the post-racial candidate fora post-racial America: perspectives from Asian America and Hawai‘i”, the author Jonathan Y. Okamura discussed “Obama’s presidential campaign and election victory” regarding “post-racialism”. Post-racialism means being free from racial preference, discrimination and injustice. Okamura focused on “color blindness” and “multiculturalism”. We all had to admit that Barack Obama being the president of the United States was a milestone in American history. He, as an African American, led the United States walk into a color-blind society in the beginning of the post-racial era. He was also proclaimed as the first Asian American president since he was a “honorary local” born and raised in Hawaii. He is considered a local not only because he is born in Hawaii, but also because he acted local during speeches, campaigns and daily life according to his supporters. His victory in election definitely contributed enormously to Asian American representation. However, though Obama led Americans into post-racialism, we still see racism everywhere. Asian Americans are still being underrepresented. Therefore, I think there is still a long way to go to make the society really color blind and achieve post-racialism.

Question: Is it really possible that we can live in a post-racial society, especially when we live in the Trump presidency right now?

Reference:

Jonathan.Y Okamura (2011). Barrack Obama as the post-racial candidate for a post racial America: perspectives from Asian America and Hawaii. Patterns of Prejudice, 45:1-2, 133-153, DOI: 10.1080/0031322X.2011.563159