The Effect of Obama's Presidency on Race in America

As the races for the candidacies in the next presidential election begin to come to a close, the same happens for Barack Obama’s two terms as President of the United States.  As he comes closer and closer to lame-duck status, we can begin to look back and see how the country has changed during his eight years as commander-in-chief.  And as America’s first black president, the progression of the discussion on race is going to be one of the changes he is most remembered for.  Fair or not, it is an undeniable and indelible part of the evolution of the United States during the course of his presidency.

                  When Obama was first campaigning in the mid-2000’s, the major topic, of course, became his race and the fact that, if elected, he would be the first black president in America’s history.  He won the presidency largely on the back of a disproportionately large part of the black vote.  These realities made the debate on race, which was already burning as hot as it always has in a country as diverse as the United States, even more hypersensitive than it already was.  Views on race began to split down party lines; Obama’s approval ratings were split between those with racially liberal or conservative views more than any other president before him.  The issue was no longer white vs black, but, now more than ever, Democrat vs Republican.  In reaction to the OJ Simpson verdict, only four percent more Republicans disapproved of the acquittal than Democrats (both around fifty percent).  The same poll after the George Zimmerman case twenty years later saw a forty-three percent gap the other way.  Episodes such as Michael Brown, Eric Garner, the University of Missouri, a certain sock monkey, and countless other less-known instances see the opposing parties splitting more and more down partisan lines instead of race.

                  This partisan split on race issues has resulted in what I think has become the stalemate we find ourselves in with regards to race.  Using the president as an example, if Republicans try to critique some of Obama’s policies or actions, one of the first arguments they are met with, after debating politics for some time, is that they simply don’t like the president because he is black.  Ideas on race have become so paired with party lines that it is almost impossible to avoid them when discussing anything even slightly relating to race issues.  Liberals accuse their conservative counterparts of racism, and conservatives react with disgust that their opposition dare charge them with such a horrifying indictment.  Of course there are some racist Republicans, and of course there are some over-accusatory Democrats, but in order to truly make progress on race issues, we must shed the idea that opinions on race correlate at all to what political party you belong to, an idea that I think was birthed as a result of the Obama administration, completely by accident but undeniable in its impact.