week9-Zaige Wang-A04

For this week's reading, I read Barack Obama as the post-racial candidate fora post-racial America: perspectives from AsianAmerica and Hawai‘i by Jonathan Y. Okamura. From this article, I grew much more understanding to what Barack Obama's presidency means and impacts to the American society. The article mentioned a term, color-blind, which I think means not considering one with his/her race at all. During the 2008 election, people vote the candidates based on their policies, debates and personality, but not race. Barack Obama doesn't just represent African American: he was born in Hawaii, where he also got a background of Pacific Islander. When with Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Obama says that he consider himself as one of them, although he is not usually considered so by the public. In the article, the author also mentioned the issue of model minority and Honorary Whites that Barack Obama is so successful that some may consider him as one of the model minority and even "act like white", which is a problem omitted by many people. After reading the article, I think we should not only consider Obama as the first U.S. president, but also study more about what behind the public's understanding to his identity.

Question: is American society completely "color-blind" when a minority comes to a president candidate?

Reference:
Jonathan Y. Okamura (2011) Barack Obama as the post-racial candidatefor 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
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza [Public domain]