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Section 101
Reaction Paper Week 5: Obama’s Racial Identity
In the 2008 election Obama was perceived through a variety of unique lenses. Some
voters looked at him and saw the future--a young(ish) man with fresh ideas who was ready to
lead the country out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Others saw
someone who they believed wasn’t experienced, didn’t have the ability to be president, and
wasn’t empathetic enough to understand a wide array of concerns. But was this simply because
of his short period of time in office, or was another factor at play? In the history of America there
have been several candidates who achieved the office of president without having any prior
political experience. Donald Trump, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant, William Taft,
Herbert Hoover, and Zachary Taylor had never held office before moving into the White House,
yet it appears that they faced less backlash than Obama (Murse). Of course there is one key and
clear difference between these six former and current leaders and Obama: They’re all white. This
leads me to my argument, that no matter how strong of an effort Obama made to separate himself
from race by emphasizing a message of unity, his physical appearance made this aspect of his
One quote from the report “The Racial Exceptionalism of Barack Obama” by Carter and
Dowe that really stood out to me was that “there is still a common sense of understanding of
blackness that rests on phenotype” (page 12). For Obama, when a voter looked at him it was
clear, at least on a surface level, that his skin was not white. While understanding his policies and
plans took research, race was something a voter was reminded of each time a campaign ad aired
or Obama took the stage for a speech. In this way, it became a salient factor during the election
and informed vote selections for some people. For example, the study analysis by Andersen and
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Junn gave voters combinations of information that was racialized to different degrees. When a
Democratic voter received the most racialized grouping of information that alluded to race by
stating that Obama was a community organizer in the South Side of Chicago and was the first
Black president of the Harvard Law Review as well as including pictures of Obama with black
voters, he was rated lower in ability and empathy (page 458). I would argue that including the
images of Obama impacted voters more than the statements about his background. This point can
be supported by Nathaniel Swigger of Trinity University. In his paper “Seeing is Believing: The
Strategy Behind Campaign Imagery and Its Impact on Voters” he found that the public “believed
visuals could be more powerful than verbal messages, though they explicitly equated visuals
with emotional responses” (page 46). Additionally, the brain processes images 60,000 times
faster than it does text so literally seeing Obama’s blackness in the media everyday could have
impacted white voters who worried about their interests being fulfilled (Pant). The specific
image of Obama with black constituents may have had an even greater effect by showing a sense
According to Carter and Dowe, when voters have minimal knowledge about a candidate
they are more likely to make their choice based on stereotypes or generalizations. So, if a voter
were to see a picture of Obama without understanding his policies they might associate him with
someone like Jesse Jackson who is also black and aimed to claim the Democratic Party’s
nomination for president in 1984 and 1988. While I concede that it is unlikely that large numbers
of voters associated Obama with Jackson, especially because they had completely different
campaign strategies, it remains interesting to consider how such previously learned associations
or beliefs could have impacted the perception of Obama in 2008. One would hope that voters
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were aware of each candidate’s top policy goals, but if not, seeing a picture of Obama could
trigger beliefs about him that weren’t accurate. In fact, in their report Junn and Andersen
reference a study done by L. Sigelman and Sigelman in 1982 that evaluated sexism, racism, and
ageism in voting patterns. The researchers found that “when given the choice between a White
male and not–White male candidate, respondents tend to defer to the White male candidate”
(page 447). This occurs even when both candidates have identical policies and background
experience. If we apply this survey to the 2008 election, voters who simply saw an image of
Another conclusion made by Carter and Dowe to support the idea that Obama’s image
made race inescapable was that he actually had a different upbringing and background than most
previous black candidates. As a biracial candidate, Carter and Dowe explained that Obama didn’t
fit the “slavery to freedom narrative,” but 52 percent of black voters and 40 percent of white
voters still said they considered Obama to be black (page116 and 113). This could be because
Obama self-identified as black on multiple occasions. The article “Is Barack Obama ‘black’? A
majority of Americans say no” by Chris Cillizza referenced a study by the PEW Research Center
with different findings—53 percent of white people surveyed said Obama is mixed race, while
24 percent considered him black. The disparities between these studies could have to do with
timing. Nour Kteily of Northwestern University explained that white people are more likely to
classify biracial people as black when they “perceive economic scarcity or if black people appear
to be gaining in social status—thereby posing a threat to whites’ dominant position.” The first
study occurred before Obama’s presidency when there was certainly economic scarcity while the
second comes from after, in 2014. These three sources cross examined show the possibility that
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white people were feeling more threatened by Obama in the years leading up to 2008, and didn’t
want to acknowledge the similarities he and they shared by classifying him as biracial.
Either way if we don’t look at past trends and think simply about the fact that Obama had
a white mother and black father, he should have had considerable support from both of these
racial groups without much effort. But what we see in the election is that Obama had to work
much harder to gain white votes, constantly keeping a deracialized perspective. It was the black
community that turned out in overwhelming numbers for Obama. Junn and Andersen discovered
in their study that white Democrats had the greatest positive response to the deracialized
combination of information, which underscores the idea that even though Obama was technically
half white it was still difficult for white voters to identify with him because of how he looked.
Although the readings answered questions such as how voters reacted to different levels
of racialized media and how Obama wanted to identify himself, none of the mentioned surveys
gave voters statements about his policy. Instead they mostly provided biographical profiles and
images, and asked respondents questions that led to an ability and empathy score for the
candidate. I would’ve liked to see questions about how warmly people felt towards Obama when
given a concrete policy. The results could be compared with findings when voters were shown a
picture of Obama, which would more clearly show the impact of his racial image. Overall, the
readings all supported the argument that the image of Obama made his race extremely prevalent
in the campaign. With a few tweaks, this question could be explored and answered even more
definitively.
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Works Cited
Cilliza, Chris, Is Barack Obama ‘black’? A majority of Americans say no. Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/04/14/is-barack-obama-black/?ut
m_term=.705e6e700b5d
Carter, Niambi and Pearl Ford Dowe. 2015. The Racial Exceptionalism of Barack Obama.
Junn, Jane and David J. Anderson 2010. “De-Racializing Obama: White Voters’ Evaluation of
Kteily, Nour. “How Are Black–White Biracial People Perceived in Terms of Race?” Kellogg
insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/how-are-black-white-biracial-people-are-perceiv
ed-in-terms-of-race.
Murse, Tom. “Donald Trump Isn't the First President With No Political Experience.”
ThoughtCo,
Pant, Ritu. “Visual Marketing: A Picture's Worth 60,000 Words.” Business 2 Community, 16
Jan.
2015, www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/visual-marketing-pictures.
Swigger, Nathaniel. Seeing Is Believing: The Strategy Behind Campaign Imagers and Its Impact