{"id":16238,"date":"2011-09-13T04:50:44","date_gmt":"2011-09-13T04:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=16238"},"modified":"2013-08-24T19:39:07","modified_gmt":"2013-08-24T19:39:07","slug":"whoa-we-have-a-black-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=16238","title":{"rendered":"Whoa, We Have a Black President"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whoa, We Have a Black President<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Z\u00f3calo: Public Square<\/a>
\n2011-09-08<\/p>\n

Randall Kennedy<\/a> Assesses Obama’s Triumphs\u2014and Shortcomings\u2014In Erasing the Color Line<\/em><\/p>\n

Randall Kennedy<\/a>, Harvard professor of law and author of The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency<\/a><\/em>, had an assignment: to answer whether or not Obama<\/a> has been erasing the color line. \u201cBy color line,\u201d explained Kennedy, \u201cI mean all of the sentiments, instincts, habits of mind, structures that wrongly stymie people because of race. Is Obama erasing that baleful aspect of political culture?\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nIn a word, said Kennedy, yes. But there was a caveat: the \u201cObama way\u201d is to avoiding talking about race at every turn.
\n\u00a0
\nAccording to Kennedy, Obama\u2019s most impressive feat was to treat making it to the White House as a realistic, tenable option. His legacy, Kennedy believes, will be the alteration of public psychology to a place of normalizing a black presidency. After four years, people will have accepted seeing a black man enter and exit Air Force One<\/a>.
\n\u00a0
\n\u201cIt was so audacious because of the history of the U.S.,\u201d he said.
\n\u00a0
\nAs Kennedy reminded the audience, a crowd of a few hundred gathered in an auditorium in the Hammer Museum<\/a>, African-Americans were largely excluded from politics until the Voting Rights Act of 1965<\/a><\/em>. \u201cBlacks were excluded by dint of terror throughout the deep South, excluded by dint of various legal shenanigans,\u201d Kennedy said….<\/p>\n

…Kennedy\u2019s own criticisms of Obama only came up in the question-and-answer portion of the evening. Kennedy said he believes that Obama didn\u2019t actively do enough to change the ideological landscape of the country and that he was sheepish about outwardly supporting liberal judges. Kennedy was most critical of Obama\u2019s stances surrounding gay rights, finding it ironic that when Obama\u2019s parents married across racial boundaries it was considered a felony in many places. Now Obama is pushing a \u201cseparate but equal\u201d equivalent in the gay community…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.
\nWatch the video and\/or listen to the audio here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whoa, We Have a Black President Z\u00f3calo: Public Square 2011-09-08 Randall Kennedy Assesses Obama’s Triumphs\u2014and Shortcomings\u2014In Erasing the Color Line Randall Kennedy, Harvard professor of law and author of The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency, had an assignment: to answer whether or not Obama has been erasing the color […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2850,63,26,394,20,842],"tags":[724,7519,7518],"class_list":["post-16238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-audio","category-barack-obama","category-politics","category-socialscience","category-usa","category-videos","tag-randall-kennedy","tag-zocalo","tag-zocalo-public-square"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}