{"id":32254,"date":"2013-07-12T21:40:21","date_gmt":"2013-07-12T21:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=32254"},"modified":"2013-07-12T21:40:21","modified_gmt":"2013-07-12T21:40:21","slug":"fade-to-black-racelessness-in-the-age-of-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=32254","title":{"rendered":"Fade To Black: Racelessness In The Age of Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fade To Black: Racelessness In The Age of Obama<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A. Little Bit of Enlightenment<\/a>
\n2009-10-09<\/p>\n

Anita Little<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The new 21st century epithet of racelessness, which most associate with the positive qualities of a post-race society, can actually be a guise for a much more sinister motivation. The tendency of society to assign the quality of racelessness to only successful African-Americans and other minorities, denotes an underlying belief that a minority who doesn\u2019t let go of his racial identity gives up a chance at success. Racelessness becomes code for \u201cwhiteness,\u201d making it the norm that members must abide by to climb the social ladder. Raceless non-identity becomes the normative benchmark by which our society\u2019s hegemonic structure judges racial outsiders. If Barack Obama had marketed himself as the African-American candidate, he would have alienated white voters and potentially lost like so many other black politicians before him who were seen as the \u201cblack candidates\u201d such as Jesse Jackson<\/a> and Al Sharpton<\/a>. In the new era of race and ethnicity precipitated by President Obama\u2019s<\/a> election, the designation of racelessness to successful African-Americans reflects how America\u2019s hegemonic structure still strives to perpetuate negative stereotypes.<\/p>\n

Racelessness is a quickly rising form of cultureless non-identity that allows one to \u201crise above\u201d the labels of race and be seen as simply human, devoid of the epithets that subject many to stereotypes. President Obama has often been praised for his ability to transcend race and become \u201craceless,\u201d garnering a broad appeal to diverse demographics. Fordham suggests that academically or professionally successful African-Americans must adopt a \u201craceless\u201d persona and reject their cultural links in order to achieve social mobility. Success and intellectualism are qualities that are stereotypically not assigned to the black community, so in a form of internalized and structuralized oppression, successful African-American have the title of racelessness forced upon them. These transcendent individuals are allowed to break through barriers and be accepted by the hegemonic society as equals.<\/p>\n

The title of racelessness is often a double-edge sword however. The goal of being racially transcendent implies that race is a bog that must be overcome. One would only want to \u201ctranscend\u201d their ethnicity if they find the label oppressive. Giving an African-American the title of racelessness can actually be a way to disassociate that person\u2019s accomplishment from their race. Racelessness becomes code for normal and in America, the normative standard is often seen as white. Racelessness becomes the 21st century name for whiteness, a wolf dressed in sheep\u2019s clothing. The very fact that being raceless or racially transcendent is a quality only assigned to minorities, but never whites, shows that whites are perceived as already having this quality. The other races are abnormal and need to conform to the white standard Americanness. Calling President Obama raceless may seem an innocuous claim at first, but it is dissociating him from his accomplishments as a black man. In a hegemonic structure where European Americans have dominated for centuries, achievement and success is a designation reserved for whiteness only. High-achieving minorities defy social expectations. This threatens the white hegemony and in order to maintain the status quo the individual\u2019s race is simply erased. In order words, the black basketball player who also becomes a Rhodes Scholar is suddenly no longer seen as \u201cblack-black.\u201d He has crossed over into the realm of racelessness, lest his success defy stereotypes and introduce the dangerous idea that all minorities are capable of such multi-platform success…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fade To Black: Racelessness In The Age of Obama A. Little Bit of Enlightenment 2009-10-09 Anita Little The new 21st century epithet of racelessness, which most associate with the positive qualities of a post-race society, can actually be a guise for a much more sinister motivation. The tendency of society to assign the quality of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,8,26,394,20],"tags":[15153,15154],"class_list":["post-32254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-socialscience","category-usa","tag-a-little-bit-of-enlightenment","tag-anita-little"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32254","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=32254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}