Barack Obama

When Barack Obama first ran for the presidency he had to make the decision on whether or not to play on his race or act 'color blind', the decision he made for himself is debatable but no matter what he decided his race would become an important factor in the race for the presidency. his race is an inescapable factor and this is where the article 'Barack Obama and the new politics of race' comes in.

The new politics of race, as claimed by this article, is one of predominantly color-blindness, in the sense that one needs to ignore factors of race in order to give truly equal opportunities, effectively leading to the notion of ethnicity becoming obsolete and ignored by all participants, which although sounds effectively good does lead to people becoming disjointed with their racial past and even separate them more so due to perhaps children being taught as if there were no difference in skin color and then upon noticing that there is they may feel excluded as america, in this case, is still, for the time being, mainly white and so its likely that the color-blind theory is more an 'everyone is white' approach to things, and this is not the way to approach race; diversity needs to be celebrated rather then suppressed.
although the article states that new race politics is mainly color-blindness it does also state that things have and are running deeper than simply that. the author argues that the new age of race politics is defined also by class, that Obama is one of the good black people, he has the advantage of being relatively well-off, a good education, and a history as a lawyer, before he even went into politics. this leading to his positive image where he was loved despite, and perhaps even because, of his race.
Obamas race is claimed to have helped him succeed in nomination and in the presidency, African Americans had the appeal of one of their likeness to an extent in the White House, and white people had a sort of self awarded forgiveness for their racism so they 'loved' him rather than talking about their real feelings toward him which was, at the time of nomination, most likely indifference.
 

Article: http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/command/detail?sid=0cced61c-44bf-475c-8381-c71518e6f310%40sessionmgr4003&vid=4&hid=4113