Race and the Obama Administration: Substance, symbols, and hope |
Race and the Obama Administration: Substance, symbols, and hope
Manchester University Press
2019-03-01
256 pages
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-5261-0501-1
eBook ISBN: 978-1-5261-0503-5
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5261-0502-8
Andra Gillespie, Associate Professor of Political Science
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
- Timely publication in the aftermath of the Obama leaving The White House. Obama’s handling of race and equality is expected to determine his legacy as President.
- Compares the Clinton, Bush and Obama Administrations to determine if Obama’s performance on racial issues differed significantly from his immediate predecessors
- Analyses Barack Obama’s performance on substantive and symbolic issues of importance to African Americans
- Uses opinion polls of black voters to probe attitudes toward President Obama and explanations for his performance on racial issues
- Encourages readers to consider the ways that institutional constraints on the presidency and candidates’ campaign choices limit the role of the president to address racial issues
The election of Barack Obama marked a critical point in American political and social history. Did the historic election of a black president actually change the status of blacks in the United States? Did these changes (or lack thereof) inform blacks’ perceptions of the President?
This book explores these questions by comparing Obama’s promotion of substantive and symbolic initiatives for blacks to efforts by the two previous presidential administrations. By employing a comparative analysis, the reader can judge whether Obama did more or less to promote black interests than his predecessors. Taking a more empirical approach to judging Barack Obama, this book hopes to contribute to current debates about the significance of the first African American presidency. It takes care to make distinctions between Obama’s substantive and symbolic accomplishments and to explore the significance of both.
Table of Contents
- Introduction: how’s he doing? And what does that say about black politics?
- 1 The triple bind
- Part I: Substance
- 2 How he did: the racial successes, failures and impact of the Obama presidency
- 3 Executive orders
- 4 Winks, nods and day-to-day bureaucratic work: a case study of three cabinet departments
- Part II: Symbols
- 5 Race, appointments and descriptive diversity
- 6 Rhetoric and racial eruptions
- 7 Artistic representation and the presidency: an examination of PBS performances
- 8 Michelle Obama
- Part III: Hope
- 9 Public opinion
- 10 Race, Obama and the fourth quarter
- Conclusion: was it worth it?
- Index