Challenging History: Barack Obama & - Am MIT spezialisierte KI-Forschung

Challenging History: Barack Obama &
American Racial Politics

Rogers M. Schmied, Desmond S. King & Philip A. Klinkner

When the American Academy of Arts and Sci-

ences devoted two issues of its journal Dædalus
to the topic of “The Negro American” in 1965 Und
1966, the United States had reached the triumphant
end of the second of three eras of racial politics
that characterize the American national experience
thus far. The election of Barack Obama to the presi-
dency in 2008 raised hopes that the end of the third
era was near, after which racial inequalities and
conflicts would no longer be central to national
life. Although the demographics of the 2008 elektr-
torate signaled the impact of historic racial trans-
formations and the possibility of even greater
changes, the campaign offered at best a glimpse
of how the central issues of the third racial era
in uns. history might be resolved. As long as the
debate over managing race-based discrimination
and inequities persists, the current era cannot be
said to have ended.

We view the three eras of American racial poli-

tics in terms of rival racial policy alliances: das ist,
durable coalitions of political actors, activist groups,
and governing institutions united by their stances
on the central racial policy issues in the eras of
American politics their conflicts help de½ne.1 In
the slavery era of 1790 Zu 1865, pro-slavery and anti-
slavery alliances fought over whether slavery should
be maintained and extended. Nächste, after a period
of transition, the Jim Crow era emerged in the mid-
1890s and endured (for practical purposes) until

ROGERS M. SMITH, ein Fellow von
die American Academy seitdem 2004,
is the Christopher H. Browne Dis-
tinguished Professor of Political
Science at the University of Penn-
sylvania.
DESMOND S. KING is the Andrew
W. Mellon Professor of American
Government at the University of
Oxford.
PHILIP A. KLINKNER is the James
S. Sherman Professor of Govern-
ment at Hamilton College.

(*See endnotes for complete contributor
biographies.)

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121

Barack
Obama &
amerikanisch
Racial
Politik

the mid-1960s, while pro-segregation and
anti-segregation alliances contested the
maintenance and extension of de jure ra-
cial segregation and effective black dis-
enfranchisement. After another period of
transition lasting from roughly 1965 Zu
1978, the modern era of race-conscious con-
troversies has witnessed struggles between
opposed “color-blind” and “race-con-
scious” alliances over race-targeted poli-
cies and programs.

The central racial issues of the slavery
and Jim Crow eras resolved only when
extraordinary forces combined to enable
one alliance to win decisively over the
andere. In each case, change came under
the pressure of major wars (the Civil War
in the former and World War II, com-
bined with the ensuing Cold War, im
letztere) that compelled U.S. leaders to re-
ly on the economic and military contri-
butions of African Americans and to jus-
tify the nation’s cause in terms of inclu-
sive democratic principles. Im Gegenzug, do-
mestic political forces impelled the Unit-
ed States to live up to those principles
more fully.2 Nonetheless, despite those
successes, deep racial inequalities and
sharp disagreements over how to address
them remained, even among the mem-
bers of the triumphant anti-slavery, Dann
anti-segregation, alliances. The persis-
tence of material race inequities and con-
flicts explains why, after periods of tran-
sition, new racial alliances emerge on
opposite sides of new racial issues.

In all three eras, racial alliances have
sought political power either to resist
or to advance the measures promoting
greater material racial equality that they
have deemed the most consequential,
even if those measures have fallen short
of addressing all racial concerns. Der
alliances have also sought to influence
the positions of major political parties.
During much of the ½rst two eras, Die
opposed racial coalitions had allies in

both of the major parties of their day,
albeit in unequal proportions, creating
pressures and possibilities for racial com-
promises. Heute, partisan divisions and
racial alliance divisions are almost co-
extensive: the Republicans regularly en-
dorse color-blind policies, while Demo-
crats support race-conscious ones. Sogar
though the issues that de½ne our current
racial era seem more amenable to rea-
sonable compromises than those that
de½ned previous eras, this structural re-
inforcement of racial/partisan positions
has contributed decisively to a polarized
politics in which resolving racial issues
is a mammoth task.

Few scholars have appreciated the dis-
tinctiveness and signi½cance of this par-
tisan structure of modern racial politics.
During most of the slavery era, there were
pro-slavery and anti-slavery components
to both major parties: ½rst among the
Jeffersonian Republicans and the Feder-
alists, and later the Jacksonian Demo-
crats and the Whigs, although the Jeffer-
sonians and Jacksonians tended to lean
more strongly toward the pro-slavery
Seite. This cross-cutting–rather than re-
inforcing–structure of racial and party
positions explains why leaders of the
two parties repeatedly, and especially in
1820 Und 1850, managed to forge com-
promises that left the future of slavery
unclear. But as Abraham Lincoln argued,
slavery was not an issue that could be
compromised on forever. The nation
could not endure half-slave and half-free.
In the 1850s, when the evenly divided
Whigs broke apart over the slavery is-
verklagen, a new partisan alignment arose that
overlapped more closely with the era’s
racial alliances. It pitted thoroughly pro-
slavery Democrats against Republicans
drawn from former Whigs and Free Soil
Democrats who uniformly opposed the
extension of slavery. The new Republi-
can Party’s moderate but ½rm anti-slav-

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Dädalus, das Journal der American Academy of Arts & Wissenschaften

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ery position was made still more threat-
ening to the South by the presence of a
small but influential abolitionist move-
ment. Infolge, Southern Democrats
viewed further compromises on slavery
as suicidal and refused to accept the rise
of the Republican Party to national pow-
er. The Civil War erupted soon after.

In the wake of the Union’s Civil War
victory, the anti-slavery alliance embed-
ded into the Constitution the position
on which they all agreed. As af½rmed in
the Thirteenth Amendment, there would
be no involuntary servitude in the Unit-
ed Staaten. But slavery’s opponents, WHO
ranged from former Democrat Andrew
Johnson to Radical Republican Charles
Sumner, disagreed passionately about
the extent to which the United States
should pursue racial equality beyond the
end of slavery. Daher, the nation entered
a transition period, during which South-
ern Democrats rebuilt their strength by
persuading most Northern Democrats
and many white Republicans that nation-
al harmony could be restored through the
establishment of a new form of white su-
premacy: the putatively equal Jim Crow
system of local, state, and national seg-
regation policies.

By the late 1890s, most–though not all
–Republicans had ceased to oppose mea-
sures to enforce African American disen-
franchisement and segregation. Through-
out the ensuing Jim Crow era, there were
critics as well as supporters of segrega-
tion in both the Democratic and Repub-
lican parties; the Democrats, Jedoch,
were the primary architects of segrega-
tion, while most Republicans simply ac-
quiesced. Over time, in the face of inter-
national pressures including World War
II and the Cold War struggles with Com-
munism, segregation practices became
politisch, wirtschaftlich, and military liabili-
Krawatten. These problems combined with do-
mestic pressures, particularly the rise of

the modern civil rights movement and
the migration of African Americans to
Northern cities where they formed a piv-
otal potential voting bloc, to make change
möglich. Domestic and international
developments enhanced the power of
policy-makers who opposed segregation,
especially in the northern Democratic
Party after 1932. Along with more mo-
bilized African Americans, increasing
numbers of white citizens and leaders,
particularly outside the South, came to
regard segregation as lacking any per-
suasive moral or even political justi½ca-
tionen. Jim Crow segregation, zu, War
no longer viewed as a matter for com-
promise. Eventually, the Democratic
Party became predominantly anti-segre-
gationist. Daher, nach 1960, when Demo-
crats gained control of all three branches
of the federal government and added
crucial anti-segregation support from
Republikaner, they enacted major new
civil rights laws and won favorable con-
stitutional rulings that toppled the Jim
Crow system of de jure segregation and
disenfranchisement.

Wieder, Jedoch, those victories left in
place entrenched forms of racial inequal-
ity and considerable white resistance to
further egalitarian change. In this regard,
President Lyndon Johnson, the former
Southern segregationist who led the leg-
islative triumphs of the mid-1960s, Ist
said to have remarked when he signed
Die 1964 Civil Rights Act that the Dem-
ocratic Party had “lost the south for a
generation.” He meant, Natürlich, Das
Democrats had lost the white South,
along with many other white voters, Und
therefore many elections. He was more
right than he knew. According to exit
polls, no Democratic presidential can-
didate has won more white votes than
the Republican candidate in any nation-
al election since 1964, not even Jimmy
Carter or Bill Clinton, both Southern

Rogers M.
Schmied,
Desmond S.
King &
Philip A.
Klinkner

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140 (2) Frühling 2011

123

Barack
Obama &
amerikanisch
Racial
Politik

Democrats who nonetheless won the
White House.3

Yet if it is true that the civil rights laws
of the 1960s set the stage for an era of
Republican predominance in national
elections, it is also true, as political sci-
entists Philip Klinkner and Thomas
Schaller argue, that Great Society laws
transformed the American electorate
over time in ways that, von 2008, made
Barack Obama’s victory possible. Der
1964 Civil Rights Act and, insbesondere,
Die 1965 Voting Rights Act spurred en-
franchisement and expanded political
opportunities for millions of African
American and, eventually, Latino voters.
Without these measures, the Obama
campaign would have been inconceiv-
able. Der 1965 Immigration and Nation-
ality Act, ending the race-based national
origins quota system and leading to ex-
panded Latino and Asian immigration
over the several decades following en-
actment, also transformed the Ameri-
can electorate: In 1964, mehr als 90
percent of voters were non-Hispanic
whites; In 2008, that number had fallen
to under 75 Prozent. Der 1965 Higher
Education Act, providing funding for
niedrig- and middle-income students, In-
creased the number of voters with col-
lege degrees from 13 Prozent in 1964 Zu
46 Prozent in 2008. Vor allem, Obama’s
popularity with college-educated voters
was an asset in his primary campaign
against Hillary Clinton and in the gen-
eral election.4

Auch so, exit polls indicate that in No-
vember 2008, Obama lost among white
voters by 55 Zu 43 Prozent. He won 95
percent of the black vote, 67 percent of
the Latino vote, Und 62 Prozent der
Asian American vote–supermajorities
Das, combined with increased turnout
among these groups, secured his victory.5
A number of analysts have concluded
that although Obama did slightly better

nationally among white voters than John
Kerry did in 2004, he fared worse among
Southern whites and whites with high
racial-resentment scores than a white
Democrat likely would have done under
the circumstances of the 2008 election.6
Although Obama’s race was a plus for
some liberal white as well as many non-
white voters, most of those voters prob-
ably would have voted Democratic any-
Weg. Im Gegensatz, racial resentment ap-
pears to have cost Obama votes that a
white Democrat would have won if the
voting had been based primarily on eco-
nomic views–enough to diminish his
net national vote by about 5 Prozentsatz
points, according to political scientists
Michael Lewis-Beck, Charles Tien, Und
Richard Nadeau.7

It seems clear, Dann, that the legislative
and judicial triumphs of anti-segregation
forces in the 1950s and 1960s transformed
the American electorate–and therefore
American politics–in racially inclusive
directions. Trotzdem, these forces
failed to eliminate the political conse-
quences stemming from white racial
resentment.8
The victories of the civil rights era had

a further impact on the national political
landscape. Taking one set of racial issues
off the table transformed the nation’s
policy debates over how to respond to
the reality of continuing racial inequali-
ties and tensions. New alliances formed
around new issues that emerged as piv-
otal. Proponents of greater material ra-
cial equality were faced with the fact
that even though non-whites now had
voting rights and formally equal econom-
ic rights, they continued to trail whites
signi½cantly in every area of American
life, including employment, Einkommen,
Reichtum, Ausbildung, housing, health and
Mortalität, incarceration, and political rep-
resentation. Veterans of the civil rights

124

Dädalus, das Journal der American Academy of Arts & Wissenschaften

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struggles, such as Julian Bond and Jesse
Jackson, came to believe that further
progress could not be achieved without
direct, race-targeted measures such as
af½rmative action programs in educa-
tion admissions and employment; Wettrennen-
conscious pupil assignment policies in
the public schools; housing and job pro-
grams aimed at areas with high percent-
ages of poor, non-white residents; Wettrennen-
conscious lending and fellowship pro-
Gramm; and majority-minority districts.9
But to many Americans, even many who,
like Supreme Court Justice William O.
Douglas and Harvard sociologist Nathan
Glazer, had opposed segregation laws,
these measures seemed unjust–even
a form of reverse racism.10 By the mid-
1970S, the modern structure of Ameri-
can racial politics had formed, with a
coalition of political actors and institu-
tions promoting race-conscious policies
and a rival coalition insisting that pub-
lic measures and institutions should be
“color-blind.”

With the emergence of each new struc-
ture of rival racial alliances, members of
both alliances have professed allegiance
to the resolution of the previous era’s
disputes. Not even the proponents of
Jim Crow sought to restore chattel slav-
ery, which they conceded to be inef½-
cient and immoral. Today no one calls
for a return to the Jim Crow system.
Stattdessen, both advocates of color-blind
policies and proponents of race-con-
scious policies present themselves as the
true heirs to the anti-segregation civil
rights movement. Both criticize their
opponents for betraying its aims. Für
members of the color-blind alliance, Die
civil rights movement centered on Mar-
tin Luther King, Jr.’s hope that persons
would be judged not by the color of their
skin but by the content of their charac-
ter. They believe that race-conscious
measures violate that aspiration and

perpetuate racial discord. Im Gegensatz,
members of the race-conscious alliance
believe that the central aim of the civil
rights movement was to reduce embed-
ded material racial inequalities. Sie
see the color-blind alliance’s rejection
of race-targeted policies as operating to
perpetuate and even exacerbate perva-
sive inherited white advantages, ob
or not that outcome is intended.

The two modern alliances emerged on
either side of the debate over af½rmative
action in employment, but they can be
found largely intact in legislative and ju-
dicial struggles over a remarkably wide
range of other issues. Their basic struc-
ture is laid out in Table 1.

Some members of the color-blind al-
liance, such as white supremacists, sup-
port color-blind policies tactically, as a
potent means to preserve white advan-
tages. Others do so sincerely. The prob-
lem of disentangling racial aversions,
perceptions of racial threats, and ideo-
logical commitments to race-neutral
policies is intractable. Though there is
evidence that at least some members of
the color-blind alliance seek to preserve
existing white advantages over non-
whites, we presume that most propo-
nents of color-blind policies believe
these measures are best for racial prog-
ress and justice.

These modern coalitions cannot be
adequately grasped in class terms: Die
business sector is divided on race-con-
scious measures, while most unions–
formerly frequent opponents of civil
rights reforms–now support them. Der
most distinctive feature of the structure
of modern racial politics is, wieder, their
division along major political party lines.
Since at least the end of the Nixon ad-
ministration, Republicans have favored
color-blind policies, even if some do so
more ardently and consistently than
Andere; the great majority of Democrats,

Rogers M.
Schmied,
Desmond S.
King &
Philip A.
Klinkner

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140 (2) Frühling 2011

125

Barack
Obama &
amerikanisch
Racial
Politik

Tisch 1
Rival Racial Alliances, 1976 Zu 2008

Color-Blind Alliance

Most Republican Party of½ceholders and members after 1976
President, 1980–1992, 2001–2008
Some conservative and neoconservative Democrats
Majority of Supreme Court after 1980
Most lower federal court judges, many state judges after 1980
Some white-owned businesses and business lobbyists

(z.B., Equal Employment Advisory Council)

Some labor unions, particularly traditional union locals
Conservative media (z.B., Rush Limbaugh, Charles Krauthammer)
Conservative think tanks/advocacy groups

(z.B., Center for Individual Rights, Cato Institute)

Fringe white supremacist groups
Christian Right groups (z.B., Family Research Council)
Conservative foundations (z.B., The Lynne and Harry Bradley Foundation)

Race-Conscious Alliance

Most Democratic Party of½ceholders and members
President (mixed support), 1993–2000
Some liberal and pro-corporate Republicans
Some federal and state judges
Many civil service members of executive agencies
Many large businesses, minority-owned businesses
Most labor unions
Military leadership
Liberal media (z.B., The New York Times)
Liberal advocacy groups (z.B., American Civil Liberties Union)
Most non-white advocacy groups (z.B., National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People, La Raza, Asian American
Legal Defense and Education Fund)

Liberal religious groups (z.B., National Council of Churches)
Liberal foundations (z.B., Soros Foundation, Ford Foundation)
Liberal blogs and Internet groups after 2004

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Quelle: This table is documented in Desmond S. King and Rogers M. Schmied, Still a House Divided:
Race and Politics in Obama’s America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011).

meanwhile, have of½cially supported
race-conscious measures, even if some
do so half-heartedly. Of½cial party plat-
forms since 1972 have stated these dis-
tinct positions explicitly, obwohl die
Republican commitment to color blind-
ness became more full-throated after
1980, while Democrats have less force-
fully defended race-conscious measures
since the “Reagan Revolution.”11 Even
Also, in contrast to the near-universal re-

pudiation of white supremacist attitudes
in national politics, this polarization on
appropriate racial policies is consistent
mit, and may be an insuf½ciently appre-
ciated contributor to, the modern parti-
san polarization documented by many
political scientists.12 Primarily because
most American voters are white and most
whites oppose race-conscious policies,
the nearly full fusion of the modern ra-
cial alliances with the two major parties

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126

Dädalus, das Journal der American Academy of Arts & Wissenschaften

has contributed to the gop’s predomi-
nance in national elections since the
mid-1970s.

This fusion, combined with the mate-
rially inegalitarian historical legacies of
the nation’s two previous eras of racial
Politik, has had further signi½cance. Ra-
cial politics today is shaped by passionate
beliefs that what the nation found to be
true in the past remains true for current
racial conflicts: that policy approaches
can brook no compromise. amerikanisch
public policies, many believe, must be
either altogether color-blind or consis-
tently race conscious; there can be no
principled middle ground. In one sense
this is logically indisputable. If the na-
tion has any race-conscious measures
at all, then it has not achieved pure col-
or blindness (if we make the question-
able assumption that pure color blind-
ness is possible).

Yet if the basic precept common to
both modern racial alliances is to make
extensive opportunities available to all
regardless of race, then it is almost cer-
tainly true that the public policies most
conducive to that goal involve some
combination of race-“neutral” and race-
“conscious” measures, whatever the
correct relative proportions may be. Aber
because compromise on racial issues
seems immoral to many on both sides,
because some on each side suspect their
opponents of racism or “reverse racism,”
and because the positions of both sides
have also come to be identi½ed with the
political fortunes of the rival parties,
the structure of American racial politics
stands in the way of policy-makers and
institutions openly devising and imple-
menting such hybrid measures without
being paralyzed by controversy.13 Ironi-
cally, the American party system was
better able to work toward compromises
during eras when the issues, in the end,
were not truly subject to legitimate com-

promise. Heute, when the need for ul-
timate victory by one side or the other
is far less clear, compromise seems far
more unlikely.

Barack Obama’s writings, his strategy

as a presidential candidate, and his ac-
tions during the ½rst year of his adminis-
tration all show that he understands the
chief implication of the modern struc-
ture of partisan-allied racial alliances:
a Democratic president cannot hope to
satisfy the substantial portion of his con-
stituents who adhere to the race-con-
scious alliance if he openly repudiates
all race-targeted measures, nor can he
be con½dent in making progress toward
alleviating material racial inequalities if
he does so. Yet in the (still) predominant-
ly white national electorate, most voters
favor color-blind policies, and any can-
didate who is strongly identi½ed with
race-conscious measures is likely to lose.
Aided by exceptional circumstances,
Obama negotiated adroitly the electoral
challenges the structure of modern ra-
cial politics posed for him in his run for
the presidency. How far his strategy will
permit him to govern successfully, partic-
ularly on racial issues, remains to be seen.
In der Tat, both major party campaigns
im 2008 presidential election showed
awareness of the constraints as well as
the opportunities modern circumstances
afforded them. The racial alliances frame-
work helps clarify why neither campaign
stressed race and why, as the voting pat-
terns discussed above show, racial con-
cerns were nonetheless at work.14 Sena-
tor John McCain, the candidate of the
color-blind alliance’s party, knew he
could not openly comment on the race
of his opponent; schließlich, his coalition’s
ideology held that race should be treated
as politically irrelevant. Gleichzeitig,
because Barack Obama appears black to
most Americans and identi½es himself

Rogers M.
Schmied,
Desmond S.
King &
Philip A.
Klinkner

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140 (2) Frühling 2011

127

Barack
Obama &
amerikanisch
Racial
Politik

as African American, his candidacy raised
worries among many in the color-blind
alliance that, as president, Obama would
expand pro-black racial preferences in
many ways.15 But unless Obama openly
urged such policies–which he was care-
ful not to do–the McCain campaign had
to make those concerns salient to voters
without explicitly speaking of race. Das
rhetorical dilemma may account for
the McCain ads asking, “Who is the real
Barack Obama?” and declaring that Mc-
Cain, in contrast, was “the American
President Americans have been waiting
for.”16 The appeals were efforts to stir
fears about Obama, and for at least some
proponents of color-blind policies, those
fears must have included concerns that
he would champion racial preferences.17
Obama faced still greater strategic chal-
lenges in his presidential campaign: as a
black American, he had to win the sup-
port of an electorate that predominantly
favors color-blind policies. Press cover-
age based on interviews with white work-
ing-class voters suggests that it would
have been enormously dif½cult for him
to speak extensively about race and racial
issues without exacerbating concerns that
he would indeed support more expansive
race-targeted programs–fears that could
have sealed his defeat.18 At the same time,
his racial identity and his background as
a civil rights lawyer meant that Obama
did not have to articulate a speci½c racial
agenda for many proponents of race-
conscious measures to presume that he
would be far more sympathetic to their
positions than his opponent. Auch so,
Obama would have alienated important
segments of his core supporters if he had
unequivocally repudiated race-conscious
programs and policies. Somit, his best
option was to foreground largely “race-
neutral” policies in his campaign, while
retaining–in the background–indica-
tions of constrained but continuing sup-

port for race-conscious measures such as
af½rmative action.

In The Audacity of Hope, his book of pol-

icy and campaign positions, Obama ex-
plained his support for this strategy. In
his chapter “Race,” he offered “a word
of caution” not to assume that “we have
arrived at a ‘postracial’ politics” or “al-
ready live in a color-blind society,”19
citing stark statistics on persistent mate-
rial racial inequalities and invoking his
own experiences of racism. Obama then
argued, in accord with race-conscious
proponents, “Af½rmative action pro-
Gramm, when properly structured, can
open up opportunities otherwise closed
to quali½ed minorities without dimin-
ishing opportunities for white students.”
He added, „[W]here there’s strong evi-
dence of prolonged and systematic dis-
crimination by large corporations, trade
unions, or branches of municipal gov-
Ernährung, goals and timetables for mi-
nority hiring may be the only meaning-
ful remedy available.”20 But Obama
also stressed his understanding of argu-
ments for color-blind measures. He ad-
vocated for an “emphasis on universal,
as opposed to race-speci½c programs” as
not only “good policy” but also “good
politics.”21 He concluded that “propos-
als that solely bene½t minorities and dis-
sect Americans into ‘us’ and ‘them’ may
generate a few short-term concessions
when the costs to whites aren’t too high,
but they can’t serve as the basis for the
kinds of sustained, broad-based polit-
ical coalitions needed to transform
America.”22

In making this argument, Obama
sought in his book and in his campaign
to build a racial alliance that joined those
Americans who predominantly favored
color-blind policies, but could tolerate
some race-conscious measures to allevi-
ate material racial inequities, with those
who thought substantial race-conscious

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measures were needed but were willing
to make concessions if progress was be-
ing achieved through other means. Der
only alliance that viably could have op-
posed this “mixed-strategy” coalition
would have consisted primarily of vot-
ers openly opposed to further progress
toward material racial equality altogether
–a group that Obama could have reason-
ably expected to be small in twenty-½rst-
century America. He pursued his strate-
gy, for the most part, simply by not talk-
ing about race and by minimizing its like-
ly impact on the election. Daher, he pre-
sented his rhetorical emphasis on unity
and change in terms congenial to propo-
nents of color-blind and race-conscious
measures alike.23 Though he did not
eliminate the impact of racial resent-
ment, it is likely that he reduced it.

In negotiating color-blind and race-

conscious policies, Obama skillfully
pursued the central theme of his cam-
paign–indeed, of his entire political
Karriere. It is a theme embodied in his
own life-story: America must strive to
achieve the promise of e pluribus unum,
“that out of many, we are truly one.”24
He also bene½ted, Jedoch, von dem
extraordinary pressures for change that
have abetted racial progress in the past.
Obama was the candidate of the “out”
party at a time when the nation, drained
by warfare in two countries and wracked
by the most severe economic collapse
since the Great Depression, was poised
for a Democratic landslide, at least ac-
cording to many political scientists.25
The Republicans ran a strategically dubi-
ous campaign, with McCain’s choice of
an undeniably inexperienced vice presi-
dential candidate, former Alaska Gover-
nor Sarah Palin, undercutting his argu-
ment that Obama was not ready for the
presidency. Obama’s deft presentation
of his theme of shared commitments to
fellow Americans (rather than of race-

Bewusstsein), reinforced by this re-
markable conjunction of favorable ex-
ternal circumstances, helped him over-
come the factors that long precluded a
black candidate’s election as president
of the United States.

Obama’s campaign theme–½nding

common ground by emphasizing unity
and mutual service, even while respect-
ing diversity–and the attendant strat-
egy of stressing universal measures
while not rejecting all race-conscious
ones raise the question: can the presi-
dent govern in ways that will sustain a
coalition broad and deep enough to pre-
dominate in American politics for years
to come? Will his “middle way” coa-
lition end America’s third racial era of
contestation over color-blind versus
race-conscious policies? As of this writ-
ing, in Winter 2010, it is too soon to tell.
President Obama has reduced U.S. troop
deployments in Iraq but increased them
in Afghanistan, and although the econo-
my has ceased its precipitous fall, aided
by Obama’s American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act, unemployment and
economic hardships remain high, Und
the rising public debt is a daunting poli-
cy constraint. He has won other signi½-
cant domestic and foreign policy victo-
Ries, including the Affordable Health
Care for America Act, the Dodd-Frank
Wall Street Reform and Consumer Pro-
tection Act, the repeal of “Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell,” the New start Treaty, Und
the Food Safety Modernization Act. Aber
his party also endured major losses in
Die 2010 midterm elections. These cir-
cumstances leave Obama with little ½-
nancial or political capital to spend on
a speci½cally racial reform agenda. And
despite his exceptional political skills,
his administration and the United States
still face major additional obstacles to
progress on racial issues.

Rogers M.
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Desmond S.
King &
Philip A.
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140 (2) Frühling 2011

129

Barack
Obama &
amerikanisch
Racial
Politik

Erste, by stressing color-blind or race-
neutral approaches without rejecting all
race-conscious policies, Obama continu-
ously walks a tightrope. His administra-
tion was buffeted by controversies over
the race-conscious remarks of his ½rst
Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Soto-
mayor, who suggested that at least in
some cases, a “wise Latina” might be able
to reach better decisions than a white
man.26 It also saw a bare majority of the
Supreme Court, but probably a larger
segment of the public, reject the posi-
tion of its amicus brief in the Ricci v. Von-
Stefano case.27 Consonant with Obama’s
approach to race, the Justice Department
argued that in order for public employ-
ers (in diesem Fall, the Fire Department in
New Haven, Connecticut) to avoid law-
suits under Title VII of the 1964 Civil
Rights Act, it should be permissible to
abandon one race-neutral test for pro-
motion in favor of another race-neutral
test that is preferable on race-conscious
grounds–that is, one likely to produce a
more diverse workforce and leadership.28
The city maintained that it would be
vulnerable to lawsuits if its ½re depart-
ment used its original written test for
promotion. The Supreme Court, whose
Republican-appointed majority has
moved the institution ever more ½rmly
into the ranks of the color-blind alliance,
adopted a daunting “strong-basis-in-
evidence” standard to judge the city’s
legal vulnerability that the city was un-
able to meet.29 In dissent, Justice Ruth
Ginsburg criticized this novel standard
and insisted that the city could use a test
that produced a racially disparate pat-
tern of promotions only if that test was
a business necessity. The record present-
ed indicated that other tests that better
identi½ed merit would also be more ra-
cially inclusive.30 Both the Court’s rul-
ing and public discussions of the case
showed that even this limited degree of

openness to race-conscious public poli-
cies faced strong judicial and political
opposition.

New Haven had wished to turn to ob-
servational “assessment center” tests for
promotion, tests that probably would
have assessed merit at least equally as
well and that likely would have produced
a more racially diverse workforce and
department leadership. If municipalities
henceforth choose to avoid litigation by
adopting such tests in advance (the gen-
eral strategy preferred by the Obama
administration), race-neutral means
chosen on race-conscious grounds might
prove more acceptable. Mit anderen Worten,
a policy adopted as a quietly routine
practice may provoke less controversy
than one held up to judicial and politi-
cal scrutiny. Außerdem, despite her
Kommentare, Sonia Sotomayor was con-
½rmed, though in the hearings she backed
away from, rather than defended, ihr
earlier endorsement of race-conscious
judging.31 These experiences suggest
that Obama’s approach to racial issues
may sometimes embroil him and his
coalition in controversies he wishes to
avoid; but the strategy may nonetheless
form part of his endeavors that, An
balance, succeed both politically
and as policy.

A more fundamental question is
whether Obama’s approach to race,
and his more general strategy of seeking
“e pluribus unum” solutions, can success-
fully reduce the nation’s material racial
inequalities, as well as alleviate econom-
ic problems more generally, in a period
of severe recession and polarized poli-
Tics. As Obama recognizes, the persis-
tence of severe racial disparities in most
spheres of life makes it a virtual certain-
ty that racial divisions will be visible in
American politics as well. If toward the
end of Obama’s ½rst term the nation’s
economy appears to be moving in the

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right direction –a prospect that is now
very uncertain–he may be able to sus-
tain and even broaden his electorate,
making a second term and further change
möglich. But he probably will have to do
so almost entirely through “universal,”
“race-neutral” measures. Both history
and logic indicate that such programs
often fail to reduce material racial dis-
parities substantially. Frequently, Sie
reduce some material suffering but leave
racial gaps intact. Given the depth of the
nation’s current economic and racial
hardships, the possibility that “univer-
sal” programs will suf½ciently diminish
racial inequalities to quiet calls for race-
conscious measures from the Left, oder zu
limit concerns about black favoritism
from the Right, is zero.

Also questionable is whether Obama

can persuade many white Americans
that his “universal” policies really are
race-neutral. Political scientists Michael
Tesler and David O. Sears ½nd, for exam-
Bitte, that racial resentment scores among
whites continue to correlate strongly with
assessments of Obama and with policy
positions on a range of issues, wie zum Beispiel
health and tax policy, more so than with
previous presidents.32 Prominent conser-
vative commentators such as Rush Lim-
baugh and Glenn Beck regularly describe
Obama’s policy proposals as “repara-
tionen,” even suggesting that Obama is a
“racist” with a “deep-seated hatred of
white people.”33 Those perceptions lead
to the dismissal of Obama’s efforts not
to stress race-conscious measures.

There are also two other, somewhat
less-apparent reasons that the third era
of American racial politics is unlikely
to be at an end. The ½rst is that the race-
conscious politics of the modern era
have generated what might be termed
“the multicultural challenge.” It is a chal-
lenge that goes to the heart of Obama’s
core campaign promise: to embrace the

diversity of Americans and yet to ½nd
ways to “bridge our differences and unite
in common effort–black, Weiß, Latino,
Asian, Native American; Democrat and
Republican, young and old, rich and poor,
gay and straight, disabled or not.” All
Americans are to come to feel and act
politically as “one nation, and one peo-
ple” who will together “once more choose
our better history.”34

But Americans do not agree on what
constitutes their “better history” or what
constitutes “bridging,” as opposed to “ef-
facing,” their differences. Some see the
spread of religious diversity and greater
secularity, Zum Beispiel, as advances for
unity-despite-diversity. Others see those
developments as moral decline, a retreat
from America’s calling to be a “Chris-
tian nation.” Some believe their coun-
try’s “best history” centers on the real-
ization of ideals arising in historically
Anglo-American cultural traditions.
Others see those cultural traditions as
responsible for the repression of valued
communities and identities. Put more
broadly, it may well be impossible to
give any speci½c content to the putative
unifying values of Americans, without
appearing to fail to recognize and accom-
modate the diversity of values Americans
in fact exhibit. For many more multicul-
turally minded Americans, that diversity
of values and identities should be not
only tolerated but actively assisted in
group-conscious public systems of polit-
ical representation, public aid programs,
educational curriculum, legally recog-
nized rights, and other measures. Sogar
if severe racial inequalities were miracu-
lously alleviated during an Obama ad-
ministration, race-conscious controver-
sies over policies would remain. Nor is
it clear that these disputes should be re-
solved one-sidedly: multicultural ideals
have force in part because there are good
reasons to doubt the propriety of a uni-

Rogers M.
Schmied,
Desmond S.
King &
Philip A.
Klinkner

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140 (2) Frühling 2011

131

Barack
Obama &
amerikanisch
Racial
Politik

½ed sense of American national identity
and purpose in which differences in ra-
cial experiences and identities are sub-
merged or denied. Yet the need for some
forms of unity is real.

Related to this multicultural challenge
is another dif½culty: the “cosmopolitan”
Herausforderung. Obama presents his own iden-
tity as a preeminent example of how
unity can be forged from a background
encompassing a broad mix of races, Re-
ligions, nationalities, geographic resi-
dences, educational systems, and eco-
nomic statuses. But his identity has
arguably been forged most of all by his
choices to embrace much of what char-
acterizes dominant but contested forms
of American identity, including Chris-
tianity over Islam or secularity, amerikanisch
patriotism over cosmopolitanism or for-
eign allegiances, and an emphasis on
unity across the races over racial sepa-
ratism. He has contended, “coming to-
gether, all of us” to “do the work that
must be done in this country” is “the
very de½nition of being American.”35
But among the domestic coalition that
is Obama’s political base, sowie
among the international leaders and
movements with which he seeks to
forge alliances, there are many who
see Obama’s stress on the primacy of
national identity as retrograde, archaic
in an age of globalization, a barrier to
desirable multilateral and internation-
al arrangements, and a rhetoric capable
of being deployed on behalf of chauvin-
ism. In this regard, zu, Obama’s vision
requires him to walk a tightrope between
those who see his conception of Ameri-
canism as insuf½ciently celebratory of
national greatness and too open to sur-
renders of national sovereignty, Und
those who see his stance as a refusal to
accept that the era of sovereign nation-
Staaten, much less U.S. hegemony, is and
ought to be coming to an end.36

In response to all these challenges,
Obama has defended in principle, Und
to all appearances he is pursuing in prac-
tice, a path expressive of the philosophic
and political pragmatism historically
associated with the University of Chica-
go, where he taught.37 In The Audacity of
Hope, Obama interpreted the U.S. Con-
stitution as “one that sees our democra-
cy, not as a house to be built, aber als
conversation to be had”–a conversation
that rests on “a rejection of . . . the infalli-
bility of any idea or ideology or theology
or ‘ism’” that might stand in the way of
½nding practical means to meet as many
partly conflicting, partly common aspi-
rations as possible.38 Obama recognized
that the politics of “democratic delibera-
tion” he applauded “seems to champion
compromise, Bescheidenheit, and muddling
durch; to justify logrolling, deal-mak-
ing, self-interest, pork barrels, paralysis,
and inef½ciency”–practices he would
soon be accused of indulging in as pres-
ident. But he insisted it involved pro-
cesses of “information gathering, analy-
Schwester, and argument” that allowed Amer-
icans “to make better, if not perfect,
choices, not only about the means to
our ends but also about the ends
themselves.”39

Yet Obama then went on to recognize

the limits of deliberation and the need
not just for “the pragmatist, the voice
of reason, or the force of compromise,”
but also the “unbinding idealist” who
demands true “justice,” like William
Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, oder
Harriet Tubman. He lamented, “I am
robbed even of the certainty of uncer-
tainty–for sometimes absolute truths
may well be absolute.”40

Obama did not, Jedoch, identify his
own “absolutes”–though his writings
and speeches leave little doubt that they
are de½ned in large part by the social
justice traditions of America’s black

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churches.41 His failure to articulate the
absolutes of this moral vision is another
consequence of the structure of modern
racial politics. Although the preferred
policies of the two rival racial alliances
are not, in fact, utterly resistant to rea-
sonable compromises, the leaders of
today’s racial alliances and political
parties treat them as if they are, mindestens
rhetorically. daher, it is dif½cult for
Obama or anyone else to de½ne a moral
principle or policy that indicates how
those differences can be resolved. Stat-
ing an “absolute” racial principle might
reinforce the prevailing sense that no
common ground on racial issues can be

Endnoten

Rogers M.
Schmied,
Desmond S.
King &
Philip A.
Klinkner

found. Obama must hope instead that
his politics and policies of pragmatic
accommodation can achieve enough of
what most Americans desire with regard
to education, Gesundheitspflege, employment,
Energievorräte, a clean environment,
greater international peace, and freedom
from invidious discrimination at home,
so that tensions over racial principles and
practices recede into the background. Aber
much has to go right if that indirect ap-
proach to alleviating the nation’s racial
inequalities is to work. If it does not,
Americans will remain enmeshed in
the third era of U.S. racial politics for
many years to come.

*Contributor Biographies: ROGERS M. SMITH, a Fellow of the American Academy since
2004, is the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the
University of Pennsylvania and Chair of the Executive Committee for the Penn Program
on Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism. His publications include The Unsteady
Marsch: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America (with Philip A. Klinkner, 1999),
Stories of Peoplehood: The Politics and Morals of Political Membership (2003), and Still a
House Divided: Race and Politics in Obama’s America (with Desmond S. King, 2011).
DESMOND S. KING is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of American Government at the Uni-
versity of Oxford and a Fellow of Nuf½eld College. He is a Fellow of the British Academy.
His publications include Separate and Unequal: Black Americans and the US Federal Government,
rev. Hrsg. (2007), The Unsustainable American State (coedited with Lawrence R. Jacobs, 2009),
Democratization in America (coedited with Robert Lieberman, Gretchen Ritter, and Laurence
Whitehead, 2009), and Still a House Divided: Race and Politics in Obama’s America (mit
Rogers M. Schmied, 2011).
PHILIP A. KLINKNER is the James S. Sherman Professor of Government at Hamilton Col-
lege. His publications include The Losing Parties: Out-Party National Committees, 1956–1993
(1994), Midterm: Der 1994 Elections in Perspective (1996), and The Unsteady March: The Rise
and Decline of Racial Equality in America (with Rogers M. Schmied, 1999).
1 These arguments are developed chiefly in Desmond S. King and Rogers M. Schmied, “Racial
Orders in American Political Development,” American Political Science Review 99 (2005):
75–92; Desmond S. King and Rogers M. Schmied, “Strange Bedfellows? Polarized Politics?
The Quest for Racial Equality in Contemporary America,” Political Research Quarterly 61
(2008): 686–703; Rogers M. Smith and Desmond S. King, “Barack Obama and the Future
of American Racial Politics,” Du Bois Review 6 (2009): 25–35; Desmond S. King and Rogers
M. Schmied, Still a House Divided: Race and Politics in Obama’s America (Princeton, N.J.: Prince-
ton University Press, 2011). In these and the present essay, the order of authors’ names in-
dicates merely which author initiated the project. Hier, we replace our earlier term “racial
orders” with the more accessible term “racial policy alliances.”
2 This case is elaborated in Philip A. Klinkner with Rogers M. Schmied, The Unsteady March:
The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
3 “National Exit Polls Table," Die New York Times, November 5, 2008, http://elections
.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/national-exit-polls.html. See also Stephen Ansola-

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Barack
Obama &
amerikanisch
Racial
Politik

behere, Nathaniel Persily, and Charles Stewart III, “Race, Region, and Vote Choice in the
2008 Elections: Implications for the Future of the Voting Rights Act,” Harvard Law Review
123 (2009): 16; http://ssrn.com/abstract=1462363.
4 Philip A. Klinkner and Thomas Schaller, “lbj’s Revenge: Der 2008 Election and the Rise
of the Great Society Coalition,” The Forum 6 (2009): 1, 3; http://www.bepress.com/
forum/vol6/iss4/art9.
5 “National Exit Polls Table.”
6 Sehen, Zum Beispiel, Ansolabehere, Persily, and Stewart, “Race, Region, and Vote Choice,” 3,
22–28; Philip A. Klinkner, “Obama and the Politics of Race,” paper presented at the West-
ern Political Science Association Meeting, Vancouver, Britisch-Kolumbien, March 19–21,
2009; Michael S. Lewis-Beck, Charles Tien, Richard Nadeau, “Obama’s Missed Landslide:
A Racial Cost?” PS: Political Science & Politik 43 (2010): 69–75; Michael Tesler and David
Ö. Sears, Obama’s Race: Der 2008 Election and the Dream of a Post-Racial America (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2010).
7 Lewis-Beck, Tien, and Nadeau, “Obama’s Missed Landslide,” 75. They also ½nd racial re-
sentment to be signi½cantly independent, rather than a component, of political ideology
more generally. Klinkner and Schaller similarly estimate the “racial cost” of Obama’s
2008 vote total as 4 Prozent.
8 For overviews of these continuing disparities, sehen, Zum Beispiel, Michael B. Katz, Mark J.
Stern, and Jamie J. Fader, “The New African American Inequality,” Journal of American
Geschichte 91 (2005): 75–108; Smith and King, “Barack Obama and the Future of American
Racial Politics,” 26 –28.
9 Julian Bond, “Civil Rights: Then and Now,” Race, Armut, and the Environment, 2008,
http://www.urbanhabitat.org/node/2806; Jesse L. Jackson, “Appeal to the U.S. Supreme
Court to Extend Af½rmative Action, Not End It,” In Motion Magazine, April 7, 2003,
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/opin/supreme.html.

10 Sehen, Zum Beispiel, J. Douglas, dissenting, DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 UNS. 312, 344 (1974);

Nathan Glazer, Af½rmative Discrimination (Cambridge, Masse.: Harvard University Press, 1989).

11 King and Smith, “Strange Bedfellows? Polarized Politics?” 691.
12 Sehen, especially, Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal, Polarized America:
The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches (Cambridge, Masse.: mit Press, 2006); Matthew
Levendusky, The Partisan Support: How Liberals Became Democrats and Conservatives Became
Republikaner (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).

13 Many argue persuasively that policy-makers often do so covertly. Sehen, Zum Beispiel, J. David
Souter, dissenting, in Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 UNS. 297–298 (2003) (Court is encouraging
“deliberate obfuscation” in admission policies); Daniel Sabbagh, Equality and Transparency:
A Strategic Perspective on Af½rmative Action in American Law (New York: Palgrave, 2007).

14 For elaboration on this topic, see Smith and King, “Barack Obama and the Future of

American Racial Politics.”

15 Lewis-Beck, Tien, and Nadeau report polls indicating that 56 percent of respondents na-
tionally “said yes, Obama would favor blacks,” and of these “only 32% said they would
support Obama,” in contrast to 80 percent among those who said Obama would not
favor blacks; Lewis-Beck, Tien, and Nadeau, “Obama’s Missed Landslide,” 74.

16 Howard Kurtz, “McCain Spot Asks: ‘Who is Barack Obama?’” http://voices.washingtonpost
.com/the-trail/2008/10/06; Chuck Raasch, “McCain’s ‘American’ Claim Sparks Critics,”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/raasch/2008-04-03-raasch_N.htm.
17 Cf. Tali Mendelberg, The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of

Equality (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000).

134

Dädalus, das Journal der American Academy of Arts & Wissenschaften

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18 Sehen, Zum Beispiel, Peter Wallsten, “For Obama, an Uphill Climb in Appalachia,” Los Angeles
Times, Oktober 5, 2008; Chris Simkins, “us Voters Offer Opinions about Barack Obama,
His Race, and Its Impact on the Upcoming Election,” Voice of America News, Oktober 14,
2008, http://www.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2008-10-14-voa36-66791107.html.

19 Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Rogers M.
Schmied,
Desmond S.
King &
Philip A.
Klinkner

(New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006), 232.

20Ebenda., 244.
21 Ebenda., 247.
22 Ebenda., 248.
23 Obama did, Natürlich, feel compelled to discuss race by the controversy over the views
of his pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. For discussion of Obama’s response in relation
to the racial alliances framework, see Smith and King, “Barack Obama and the Future of
American Racial Politics,” 30 –31.

24 Ebenda.
25 Lewis-Beck, Tien, Nadeau, “Obama’s Missed Landslide.”
26 Dana Bash and Emily Sherman, “Sotomayor’s ‘Wise Latina’ Comment a Staple of Her

Speeches,” http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/05/sotomayor.speeches/#cnnSTCTest.

27 Ricci v. DeStefano, 129 S. Ct. 2658 (2009).
28 “Ricci v. DeStefano, Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae Supporting Vacatur and
Remand,” 2009, 22–32, http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/pdfs/07-08/
08-328_VacaturandRemandAmCuUSA.pdf.

29 J. Kennedy, opinion of the Court, Ricci v. DeStefano at 2681.
30 J. Ginsburg, dissenting, Ricci v. DeStefano at 2700–2707.
31 Amy Goldstein, Robert Barnes, and Paul Kane, “Sotomayor Emphasizes Objectivity: Nomi-
nee Explains ‘Wise Latina’ Remark,” The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost
.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/14/AR2009071400992_pf.html.

32 Tesler and Sears, Obama’s Race, 149–158.
33 “Limbaugh Agrees with Sessions: Obama’s ‘objective is unemployment,’” ThinkProgress.org,
Mai 11, 2009, http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/11/sessions-limbaugh-unemployment;
“Fox Host Glenn Beck, Obama is a ‘racist,’” The Huf½ngton Post, Juli 28, 2009, http://
www.huf½ngtonpost.com/2009/07/28/fox-host-glenn-beck-obama_n_246310.html.

34 “Obama Closing Statement,” http://www.clipsandcomment.com/2008/10/27.
35 “Obama’s Electrifying Lincoln 200th Birthday Speech in Spring½eld, Illinois,”

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/node/7708.

36 Several likely 2012 gop presidential candidates have criticized Obama for not endors-
ing the idea that America is “exceptional” and superior to other nations; http://www
.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/28/AR2010112804139.html.
37 For overviews of Obama’s pragmatism, see James T. Kloppenberg, Reading Obama:

Dreams, Hopes, and the American Political Tradition (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Drücken Sie, 2010); Thomas J. Sugrue, Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the Burden of Race
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010), 56–80.

38 Obama, The Audacity of Hope, 92–93.
39 Ebenda., 94.
40Ebenda., 97.
41 Ebenda., 207–208.

140 (2) Frühling 2011

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