Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T23:28:00.755Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

THE PERMEABILITY OF RACIAL ATTITUDES IN THE AGE OF OBAMA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2010

Karen M. Kaufmann*
Affiliation:
Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland, College Park
*
Karen M. Kaufmann, Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland, 3140 Tydings Hall, College Park, MD 20742. E-mail: kkaufmann@gvpt.umd.edu

Extract

During the historic 2008 election, media pundits from far and wide proclaimed that Barack Obama was coming to power in a new post-racial era. The most enduring divide in American politics had apparently become passé, and the racial cleavages that have defined the social, economic, and political landscape since the country's founding somehow had become transformed. The actual election results did little to support this point of view, however. Approximately ninety-five percent of Black Americans supported Obama, as did approximately two-thirds of Latinos and Asian Americans. White Americans did not reject Obama out of hand, with forty-three percent supporting him, but race was not inconsequential to the vote (Pasek et al., 2009). Race clearly mattered in 2008, as it does now.

Type
State of the Discourse
Copyright
Copyright © W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Pasek, Josh, Tahk, Alexander, Lelkes, Yphtach, Krosnick, Jon A., Payne, B. Keith, Akhtar, Omair, and Thompson, Trevor (2009). Determinants of Turnout and Candidate Choice in the 2008 Presidential Election: Illuminating the Impact of Racial Prejudice and Other Considerations. Public Opinion Quarterly, 73(5): 943994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reed, Adolph Jr. (1999). Stirrings in the Jug: Black Politics in the Post-segregation Era. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Sidanius, Jim and Pratto, Felicia (1999). Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar