TY - JOUR

T1 - Hamilton's Deracialization

T2 - Barack Obama’s Racial Politics in Context

AU - Johnson, Richard

PY - 2018/4/20

Y1 - 2018/4/20

N2 - Many commentators have described Barack Obama as a ‘deracialized’ politician. In contrast to ‘racialized’ Black candidates, deracialized politicians are said to deemphasize their Black racial identity, downplay the racial legacies of American inequality, and favor race-neutral over racially targeted policies. Puzzlingly, this narrative of Obama’s racial politics sits incongruously with his political curriculum vitae, spent largely in contexts which are difficult to describe as deracialized. This article holds that commentators have misjudged Barack Obama’s racial politics by conflating a contingent electoral strategy with a deeper expression of Obama’s racial philosophical commitments. In explaining these commitments, the article finds the deracialized/racialized framing inadequate. Instead, it favors the typology of racial policy alliances situating Obama within the “race-conscious” policy alliance rather than the “color-blind” alliance. By returning to the site of Obama’s political development, Hyde Park in Chicago, the paper uncovers a tradition of racial politics in which Blacks formed coalitions with progressive Whites but also embraced Black racial identity, acknowledged the enduring legacies of slavery and Jim Crow, and supported targeted policies to overturn these racial legacies. The article argues that Obama was an inheritor of this tradition.

AB - Many commentators have described Barack Obama as a ‘deracialized’ politician. In contrast to ‘racialized’ Black candidates, deracialized politicians are said to deemphasize their Black racial identity, downplay the racial legacies of American inequality, and favor race-neutral over racially targeted policies. Puzzlingly, this narrative of Obama’s racial politics sits incongruously with his political curriculum vitae, spent largely in contexts which are difficult to describe as deracialized. This article holds that commentators have misjudged Barack Obama’s racial politics by conflating a contingent electoral strategy with a deeper expression of Obama’s racial philosophical commitments. In explaining these commitments, the article finds the deracialized/racialized framing inadequate. Instead, it favors the typology of racial policy alliances situating Obama within the “race-conscious” policy alliance rather than the “color-blind” alliance. By returning to the site of Obama’s political development, Hyde Park in Chicago, the paper uncovers a tradition of racial politics in which Blacks formed coalitions with progressive Whites but also embraced Black racial identity, acknowledged the enduring legacies of slavery and Jim Crow, and supported targeted policies to overturn these racial legacies. The article argues that Obama was an inheritor of this tradition.

U2 - 10.1017/S1742058X17000182

DO - 10.1017/S1742058X17000182

M3 - Journal article

VL - 14

SP - 621

EP - 638

JO - Du Bois Review

JF - Du Bois Review

SN - 1742-058X

IS - 2

ER -