Race, Politics and Obama's Presidency: A Study

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In the “Between Barack and a hard place” by Tim Wise, Wise explains that Obama’s victory or candidate as a president could mean anything where it talks about race debate to new levels. Wise explores the real issues of race in Obama’s campaign and his presidency by citing some arguments and statistics of how the past and the present racism affect people. He states some two questions that arise in the media based on Obama as a nominee as a president. First question: “What does it say about race in AmerIn aica that a black man now stands… the most powerful person in the world?” (Wise 17) Second question: “Is white America really ready for a black president?” (Wise 18) Based on these two questions, it portrays that people’s interrogations means that these are new for people where they had not experienced of having a black president and they do not know what would be the result of it. According to Wise, he asserts that Obama’s victory might signify the end of racism. (Wise 27) It means that some people think that it will end racism since people are open minded or give the chance to the potentiality effective black leadership. In addition, Wise shows: “In the wake of Obama’s victory… hope and expectations that race relations will improve in coming years.” (Wise 32) Wise also mentions the legacy and ongoing institutional racism where he provides some arguments and statistics in terms of …show more content…

He states: “the concept of race is now regarded by the majority biologists as having no credible scientific foundation.” (Rattansi 75) Rattansi asserts: “The continual expansion of the category of ‘coloured’ in apartheid South Africa to include…is one of many examples that testify to the absurdities of attempts to provide coherent racial labels.” (Rattansi 75) He shows that race is just an idea where people create the word to portrays people’s

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