Abstract
Since Barack Obama appeared on the political scene, questions regarding the authenticity of his blackness have remained at the forefront because of his mixed race parentage and nontraditional upbringing. These factors proved to be variously a political asset and liability as his blackness was often framed as scary to white voters who were essential to his electoral coalition. We argue that in order for whites to trust Obama politically, they divorced him from his black identity making him the “racial exception,” which made him more palatable. This, in part, was influenced by the deracialized electoral strategies deployed by Barack Obama. Still, we find race influences evaluations of Barack Obama differently by blacks and whites. Relying on data from the Pew Research Center, we find evidence that Barack Obama’s racial identity is more ambiguous for whites and evaluations of his favorability, values, and tenor of his opposition to fall along racial lines in significant ways despite the rhetoric of a post-racial America.
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Carter, N.M., Dowe, P.F. The Racial Exceptionalism of Barack Obama. J Afr Am St 19, 105–119 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-015-9298-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-015-9298-9