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Selective Amnesia and Racial Transcendence in News Coverage of President Obama’s Inauguration

Selective Amnesia and Racial Transcendence in News Coverage of President Obama’s Inauguration

Quarterly Journal of Speech
Volume 98, Issue 2, 2012
pages 178-202
DOI: 10.1080/00335630.2012.663499

Kristen Hoerl, Associate Professor of Communication Studies
Butler University,  Indianapolis, Indiana

The mainstream press frequently characterized the election of President Barack Obama the first African American US President as the realization of Martin Luther King’s dream, thus crafting a postracial narrative of national transcendence. I argue that this routine characterization of Obama’s election functions as a site for the production of selective amnesia, a form of remembrance that routinely negates and silences those who would contest hegemonic narratives of national progress and unity.

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