The successes of Barrack Obama in the two presidential elections have raised scholars’ curiosities in understanding how race impacts the views of voters and the wider American society. Some argue that America has entered another era known as post-racial era while others argue that this is not the case. Despite this, many researchers and scholars agree that although the president himself was not campaigning on a racial ground, racism did affect his election in a negative way since some votes lost were related to racial views. A detailed explanation of this last statement from a deeper perspective helps in determining how race impacts the views of voters and people of American society and how Obama directed and structured his campaign to be viewed as a “leader of the people and not aligning himself with a particular race.
A look at the history of race and politics in the US shows that black Americans have always been faced with challenges when it comes to politics. They rarely get the necessary support for them to be elected in government offices. Most of American history includes cases of black citizens who in most cases were excluded from voting or being elected as officials. For example, during the slavery era, blacks were not allowed to vote especially in the North and the South. Despite their large population, they were being excluded even by the law. It is from 1790s that changes started although this was not a complete change since the law restricted blacks from their political rights. It is in the 1860s that black Americans began serving in the US government as elected officials. In many cases, these individuals acted to represent their own people because of the injustices and the cruelty they faced.
Nevertheless, black politicians have always been few in the government. At one point in the history of the nation, it became difficult for blacks to express their political views let alone being elected in office and voting. When this came to an end, they could only be allowed to serve in black towns and not any other area. After their complete approval to vote and be elected in office as a way of exercising their political rights, it was hard for them to win any election. Those that won after this used various tactics so to be approved by both the white and the black groups. For example, they could affiliate themselves with civil rights movements or use a conservative agenda like abortion and gay rights in order to gain popularity (Wingfield and Feagin).
Similarly, racism played its role on Barrack Obama’s presidency and campaign in 2008 and 2012. For example, in their reference to the 2008 and 2012 elections, Kinder and Dale Riddle verifies this after analyzing the two historical elections in the country. They approach the issue of racial politics in a unique perspective. This is because their discussion approaches Obama’s win from a group perspective where groups have a strong opinion in the political world. A comparison of the 2008 presidential candidates by these authors shows that Clinton had less charisma when compared to Obama.
Nevertheless, Clinton had higher points when compared to Obama at one time before the elections. The 2008 presidential election in the US would have been historic if either of the two won the elections. This is because groups were divided into race and gender. An analysis of this election by Kinder and Dale-Riddle shows that Clinton was less affected by gender in this election than the way Obama was affected because of being black. The study shows that Obama obtained 2.2% votes in maximum among the blacks, but lost10.2 percent votes in the white group. Thus, race made him lose more votes than how it earned him. The authors argue that although Clinton conceded defeat, she almost won.
The two authors argue that Obama would have won the ballot vote in a landslide against Romney during the 2012 presidential elections, but race prevented this from happening. However, Obama was not black enough to elicit full racism among the whites since he had a white mother, and his father was not entirely away from the country because he could visit now and then. When Obama’s educational background is coupled with all these factors, he does not have a black American experience. Besides this, his history is not like that of other black Americans. Thus, Obama faced racial scrutiny from his own black race and also a form of doubt from the white community, which affected his win in one way or the other.
This fact is well outlined from his book, Dreams from My Father. He writes that at first, he used to identify himself with the whites, or in his words, people from his mother’s side (Obama). He did this until he realized that he was identifying himself so much with the whites. He says that after his journey of identifying himself with the whites began when he entered Punahou School, where he shed his name from Barry Soetoro to his current name, Hussein Barrack Obama. He says that he could constantly try to raise himself as a black although no one understood what he was undergoing. He could use the media in his endeavors to entangle himself from the white community and view. He talks of incidences when he was angry with his grandparents for showing racism.
While in campus, he could gather in areas meant to be for blacks while using the strategy of good manners to fit in this group. Obama explains how he would be in a fix when his black friends tried to talk anything negative about the white. By remembering his mother, he was unable to engage in such discussions. He shows a desire to live in a country that does not divide people in different races. He seemed interested at the reconciliation of blacks and whites as he lay between the two with no desire to discriminate on any group. He notes that his friends were well chosen for the purpose of solidarity. At one time, Obama says that he almost fell in love with a woman who was white, but held himself with a desire of not having to assimilate him into her world.
The fact that Obama was not well situated among black Americans is also discussed by Tesler and Sears who note that the most pressing issue in 2007 political campaigns was of Obama’s race. Most blacks could claim that he was not black enough. In addition to these claims, the fact that he was not brought up inside the continental United States was also a big issue. This was seen as being alienated from the black Americans civil rights movements. In addition to this, Obama’s stand was on a non racial ground, and some blacks doubted his genuineness. This non racial stand was also criticized by some well-known African Americans especially when he canceled a black American annual meeting in 2007. In one occasion, someone described him from a racial perspective by claiming that he was acting white. This was after the president to be at this time failed to attend a protest that was meant to refute the incarceration of some six black teenagers. In the debate held in 2007, there was a question posed on him that was in the racial line. The question was in his being black enough. Surprisingly, researchers showed that in some areas, Clinton had higher votes from the blacks than Obama himself.
Another reason why Obama may not be popular among his own is the fact that he did very little to satisfy the needs of blacks according to their expectations of him in the first round. This brought some racial prejudice against him (Pierre and Jeter). He is not left out to be just a mere president by the people since man by have expectations from him. Black Americans believed that the first black president would be an indication of an end of their struggles. Because of this, they had numerous expectations from whoever it would be.
From better schools, better health care, better jobs, more unions and lower taxes, their lists of expectations seems endless (Jacobs, Lawrence and Skocpol). Thus, the fact that Obama has not been able to accomplish some of these expectations makes him unpopular amongst some blacks. His case is similar to the case of David Paterson, who was once a New York governor and the first one from the black community. At first, he was warmly received by the people. However, his popularity subsided after he was unable to attend to all the needs of his fellow black people. Because of this, there is a tension that exists between elation and hope on the black political leader elected in office (Pierre and Jeter).
This view is supported by Wingfield and Feagin who look discuss about the issue racial framing. The two argue that amongst all the other issues that arose in relation to Obama and politics, the question on race was the earliest and the strongest. This question was witnessed during the early stages of the elections where questions on how race would impact Obama in the presidential race arose from many people. There was great hostility towards Obama and his family from the white Americans especially in the 2008 elections.
For example, an email circulating before the election showed a high level of animosity against the family and fear on the likelihood of a black American becoming the next president. Because of racial framing, most whites did not vote for Obama (Wingfield and Feagin). Mostly, the white racial framing played a bigger role. Wingfiled and Feagin argue that this racial framing may be hard or soft, where hard framing is open and unconcealed through stereotyping, a show of emotions and other ways. On the other hand, the soft framing remains hidden from the public, but the feelings of racism are within. All in all, the fact remains that hidden or not hidden, racial framing affected the two elections profoundly.
Still, another author by the name Kennedy agrees that race played its role in recent presidential elections. According to the author, the circumstances faced by the president before and after winning the elections depicts that the country is not post racial. Kennedy argues that the only thing that helped Obama is that he was not very black or black enough. Otherwise, he would not have made it to the Statehouse. The author says that Obama’s wife, who is black, won the president some favor from the black community. What Kennedy is trying to imply is that if Obama was black enough, which means having parents from the black community, he would not have been elected in the statehouse. Still, he is trying to argue that Obama would have lost a considerable amount of votes among the blacks since he is not “black enough”, were it not that the wife is purely black American and bi racial. On the same issue, Kennedy argues that by committing himself to racial fairness, Obama was able to win some trust from the black community. However, Kennedy does not argue that Obama was not popular among the blacks.
Tesler and Sears summarize the effect of race in the 2008 and 2012 campaigns as inevitable. They use the term, chronically accessible to denote this inevitability. They equate the two presidential elections to the Vietnam War where racism was greatly accessible in the minds of the voters even if there were other notable differences among the candidates. Because of this fact, racial attitude was left to be the major determinant of how the people evaluated Obama. Therefore, there is no doubt that the choice of whom to vote in the two elections was highly racialised though all the candidates in these elections tried their best to minimize the people’s attention to race in the entire campaign period. Tesler and Sears divide the voting groups in the last two elections into racial liberals and racially resentful individuals. These two groups are what influenced the 2008 and the 2012 elections, although the 2008 campaign was the most affected. The two authors note that the factor that divided Americans at these two campaigns was the racial attitude among them. They argue that these racial dispositions has a continuity nature of dampening the effects of race by producing racialization spillovers where policies and are associated to the president.
How Obama Made It through the Presidential Campaigns
With such findings, the question that comes in mind is how Obama made it through the campaign to become the 44th president of the United States. Various scholars, researchers have come to agree that Obama’s campaigns were far from racial. The fact that he greatly supported the racial liberals propelled him to become the president of the United States for two consecutive terms. Obama managed to erect an image for himself by using the color blind version instead of racial framing. As seen earlier black Americans in their quest to influence their being elected in office, use some strategies like conservative agendas.
A study of the politics used by Obama shows that he did not use any of the models used by other black American politicians. For example, he refused to take part in a right wing electorate. He also refused to align himself with civil rights movements. Because of this, he is thought to have outgrown this, which is sometimes attributed to his time in an environment that is racially integrated. His politics are new and different from the old politics carried out by the blacks since he takes a color blind stand. Harris argues that Obama’s politics support people like Bayard Rustin who saw the need of black Americans in supporting universal policies that are race neutral. However, Obama politics denounce the views of some notable characters like Malcom X who argued that blacks should have a voting bloc that is independent from others and not associated to any of the main parties (Harris).
It is believed that his color blind tactics was what propelled the president into what he is today. This stand and character from Obama was well outlined in one of his speech where he says that that all Americans are Americans despite being framed as Latinos, blacks or whites. Even after his 2008 campaigns, the president did not divert from his stand on racism. He acted to build the bridge that existed between the whites and the blacks in America. For example, after Hurricane Katrina, he criticized the response to the hurricane by the federal authorities where claims were made that this response would have been faster if the society was full of white citizens.
By framing the non response on a lack of catering for the poor by the Bush Administration, the president was able to capture the hearts of all by not offending any race. His statement was very neutral since he was able to approach this subject in a neutral yet a strategic statement. Even after being elected the first time, he kept on with his neutral stand. For example, his continual reference of a country free from racism in his book, The audacity of Hope he continued to address the issue of racism from a neutral yet a strategic way. It is reported that at one time in his first campaigns, he confirmed to a group of African Americans that his campaign was not based on race. He argued that the fact that he was an African American did not mean that he was limited by that. This is what made him be achieving nomination in the first place. By eliminating Reverend Wright from his sight worked to show all Americans that he was not based on any racial ground.
In fact, the atmosphere of his campaigns was very racial free. For example, he used some notable campaign strategist like David Axelrod and Deval Patrick, which led to the unifying theme known as ‘together we can’ in his campaigns. All the primaries in his campaign showed the free nature of his campaign in relation to racism. When Bidden’s statement acted to cause division, the president was there to defend him and return the air of freedom from racism. In fact, it is believed that his racial free nature was an asset to the whole party and to him if they were to make it in the first presidential elections. This is because he could claim votes from all sides, being a black American, a post racial and a biracial. This strategy brought in excellent results in all his campaigns and in his election and reelection as the president in 2012. His first time victories were astounding with his hope and messages coupled with the neutral race attitude. The president was able to enter the history record of being the first president ever to divide the racial conservatives from the racial liberals in a sharp way.
Harris argues that just like Obama, his predecessors were faced with a hard task of dealing with the issue of race in order to win amongst the white voters. Because of this, the black community has agreed not to press Obama on issues relating to the black community in an open manner. However, Jackson notes that this move is hurting black Americans since they have nowhere else to face to for their issues to be heard. It is the price that the black community is paying for having a member of their own in the white house. Jackson sees this as a failure of not the president, but the democratic politics that has not been successful in dealing with the concern of income and inequality of wealth (Harris).
Kennedy looks at Obama’s politics in relation to the white community supporting the claim that had discussed earlier on Obama not making any race feel bad. He says that Obama worked hard to ensure that the white did not feel left out by not making them feel less white. One way he did this was to use a passive speech when referring to the slavery and Jim Crowers. This careful expression was received with a lot of appreciation by many whites since they were confident that the president did not hate them. By doing this, Obama did not entirely overcome white’s racism, but what he did was to neutralize it (Kennedy). Kennedy supports the fact that race may be somehow an asset to a candidate. He claims that the role played by Obama in politics was important since it showed that blacks can govern responsibly.
Obama’s ability to focus his role as a leader of the people is witnessed in his recent approval on gay marriages. This move was viewed by many as a compulsion by politics as opposed to personal views. People believe that he does not personally support gay marriages. Most people expected that he would take an African American stand on this issue, but his failure to do so came as a surprise to many people. This is because most blacks do not support gay marriages. As seen earlier, Obama had cautioned black people that he was not running in racial grounds and they were not to expect this from him. This statement is argued by Jelani Cobb who says that some people failed to elect Obama during 2008 elections fearing that he would not make. The author says that he was among such individuals who supported Clinton. This explains earlier claims that Clinton had higher number of blacks by her side during the 2008 elections. However, Jelani Cobb argues that right now he is behind the president in whatever move he takes since according to him; none of us is perfect (Jelani Cobb).
The fact that Obama has been able to embrace the white and the black races successfully also positioned him among the two groups and contributed to his political success. For example, Kennedy argues that the president does not have to say that he has embraced the black culture since his walk shows it all. He notes that when the president is walking in the white house, one cannot help but note his jazzy walk, which is attributed to black American. Kennedy notes that such a move comes out with positive acceptance from black Americans who see Obama as embracing black atheistic though he was raised in Hawaii, Indonesia. Kennedy notes that the president is aware and knows how to use his physical self as a way of communication and eloquence. This is an additional to his verbal eloquence and ability to choose his words in a careful way as not to elicit bad emotions from the different races in America.
Unlike any other American, politician has managed to exploit and straddle one of the tender spots in America. He has proven to be a self made politician, and the people have given him room to do this. The astounding capability of Obama to become multilingual with a lot of ease unlike any other and an exclusive ability to shift his accent based on the audience he is addressing. In an interview done by Remnick himself to Obama, the president lets him know that the fact that he can speak in different voice makes it possible for him to address a white audience in a comfortable way and also address a black audience in still a comfortable way.
Obama also claims that he does not have the self consciousness that most black have when speaking to their people. Remnick notes the politician in Obama by the way he does his things in a calculated move to fit in the larger American society that does not identify itself with a certain tribe. The fact that Obama was able to shift situation for his own benefit is astounding. For example, he was able to embrace his choice of church, enacting of the health bill and also to do many other things that were politically calculated, and would bring excellent results. The president affirms this by explaining how he was able to impress people by passing 26 bills in Illinois (Remnick).
Another tactic used by the president in his campaigns was language, which is seen by some scholars to be as big as politics. However, this does not simply happen since it calls for a person that understands the cultural traditions behind every culture that one wants to be a part. This includes an ability to understand engage in the environments in which speech is structured. The fact that the president was whiter and not as much of a black person implied that he had to prove to black people that he does understand their culture and their language despite having been brought up in a white community. Obama was able to accomplish this through the use of language. He had to represent the black community by proving this instead of a mere claim that he was one. This was achieved by integrating the black American language in some of his speech.
Thus, he had to integrate styles of speech in his speech to prove that he is black and understand the black language. The reason why he concentrated too much on the black language as opposed to the white language is because the language and form of speech by the white was undeniable as he had spent most of his time with the white. Some authors explain this form of speech as a language democracy that is needed by all blacks to be black. Thus, the president had to employ the politics of language in his bid to integrate all people into a united nation with neutral racism (Alim and Smitherman). Thus, Obama’s success though affected by racial views was attained because of his character and his strategies in using various tactics to present himself as a leader of the people. This was done while in a strong opposition of divisions based on racism, which is what led to the yes we can theme (Harvey and Joe).
In conclusion, race is one of the strongest factor that influenced Barack Obama’s campaigns and his election as the US president. In various ways, race was seen to affect American voters in different ways as explained by different scholars who have studied this fact. Because of this, Obama had to watch out in everything he did to make sure that he did not hurt his relationship with any racial group in the country. Because of this all, his campaigns were structured on neutral racism where he painted his own picture as a “leader of the people.” He did this instead of aligning himself with a particular group, which helped him a lot during his political career.
Works Cited
Alim, H. Samy, and Geneva Smitherman. Articulate while Black: Barack Obama, language, and race in the U.S.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.
Cobb, William Jelani. The substance of hope: Barack Obama and the paradox of progress. New York: Walker & Co., 2010. Print.
Harris, Fredrick C.. The price of the ticket: Barack Obama and the rise and decline of Black politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.
Jacobs, Lawrence R., and Theda Skocpol. Health care reform and American politics: what everyone needs to know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print.
Kinder, Donald R., and Allison Riddle. The end of race?: Obama, 2008, and racial politics in America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. Print.
Obama, Barack. Dreams from my father: a story of race and inheritance. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004. Print.
Remnick, David. The bridge: the life and rise of Barack Obama. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. Print.
Tesler, Michael, and David O. Sears. Obama’s race: the 2008 election and the dream of a post-racial America. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2010. Print.
Kennedy, R.. The Persistence of the Color Line, Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency. London: Kennedy. 2012. Print.
Harvey Wingfield and Joe. R. Feagin.Yes We Can?, White Racial Framing and the 2008 Presidential Campaign. New York: Routledge. 2013. Print.
Pierre, Robert E., Jeter, Jon. A Day Late and A Dollar Short, High Hopes and Deferred Dreams in Obama’s “Postracial” America. New Jersey. John Wiley. 2010.