Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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Category: Barack Obama

  • Barack Obama as the Great Man: Communicative Constructions of Racial Transcendence in White-Male Elite Discourses

    Barack Obama as the Great Man: Communicative Constructions of Racial Transcendence in White-Male Elite Discourses Communication Monographs Volume 78, Issue 4 (2011) pages 535-556 DOI: 10.1080/03637751.2011.618140 Christopher B. Brown, Assistant Professor of Communications Minnesota State University, Mankato This study examined responses on the potential impact of Barack Obama’s presidency from 16 semi-structured interviews with White…

  • A Response to Ben Pitcher’s “Obama and the Politics of Blackness: Antiracism in the ‘post-black’ Conjuncture” [Rickey Hill]

    A Response to Ben Pitcher’s “Obama and the Politics of Blackness: Antiracism in the ‘post-black’ Conjuncture” [Rickey Hill] Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society Volume 12, Issue 4 (2010) (Post-Racial Politics and Its Discontents) pages pages 347-350 DOI: 10.1080/10999949.2010.526058 Rickey Hill, Professor of Social Science Mississippi Valley State University, Itta Bena,…

  • Fear of a Black President

    Fear of a Black President The Atlantic September 2012 Ta-Nehisi Coates As a candidate, Barack Obama said we needed to reckon with race and with America’s original sin, slavery. But as our first black president, he has avoided mention of race almost entirely. In having to be “twice as good” and “half as black,” Obama…

  • Nation of Cowards: Black Activism in Barack Obama’s Post-Racial America

    Nation of Cowards: Black Activism in Barack Obama’s Post-Racial America Indiana University Press 2012-08-14 176 pages 6 x 9 Cloth ISBN: 978-0-253-00628-8 David H. Ikard, Associate Professor of English Florida State University Martell Lee Teasley, Professor of Social Work University of Texas, San Antonio In a speech from which Nation of Cowards derives its title,…

  • Obama and Myths of Racial Democracy

    Obama and Myths of Racial Democracy NACLA Report North American Congress on Latin America 2008-11-17 Marisol LeBrón Political pundits have celebrated president-elect Barack Obama’s sweeping and historic victory as evidence that the United States has taken an initial step toward a “post-racial” or “colorblind” society. In a recent Los Angeles Times Op-Ed, Shelby Steele provocatively…

  • Obama and the black wave: Deconstructing myths, building strategies

    Obama and the black wave: Deconstructing myths, building strategies Pambazuka News: Pan-African Voices for Freedom and Justice 2009-02-19 (Issue 420) Raquel Luciana de Souza Having closely followed Barack Obama’s electoral success, Raquel Luciana de Souza considers the prospects for a presidential candidate of African descent within the South American giant of Brazil. Scrutinising the historical…

  • Barack Obama’s Address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention: Trauma, Compromise, Consilience, and the (Im)possibility of Racial Reconciliation

    Barack Obama’s Address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention: Trauma, Compromise, Consilience, and the (Im)possibility of Racial Reconciliation Rhetoric & Public Affairs Volume 8, Number 4, Winter 2005 pages 571-593 DOI: 10.1353/rap.2006.0006 David A. Frank, Professor of Rhetoric Robert D. Clark Honors College University of Oregon Mark Lawrence McPhail, Dean of The College of Arts…

  • From deracialization to racial distinction: interpreting Obama’s successful racial narrative

    From deracialization to racial distinction: interpreting Obama’s successful racial narrative Social Semiotics Volume 23, Issue 1 (2013) pages 119-145 DOI: 10.1080/10350330.2012.707039 Charlton McIlwain, Associate Professor of Media, Culture and Communication New York University While many scholars attribute Barack Obama’s success in the 2008 presidential election to his so-called deracialized campaign strategy, I argue that Obama…

  • Is Obama Now Black (Enough) Because He’s White?

    Is Obama Now Black (Enough) Because He’s White? The Huffington Post 2012-08-02 Marcia Alesan Dawkins, Visiting Scholar Brown University With the November election less than 100 days away, the Obama campaign continues to come up against questions about the president’s racial identity. Most recently, reports that the president is “passing,” or claiming that he’s representing…

  • Is Being Biracial an Advantage for Obama?

    Is Being Biracial an Advantage for Obama? ABC News 2008-03-21 Emily Friedman The son of a black man and a white woman, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., says he’s seen and heard it all.   From his grandmother’s fear of black men on the street to his former pastor’s perceived anti-American rants, Obama said Tuesday that…