The contradiction between Barack Obama’s exceptionality and his mitigated effect on racial prejudice.

Abstract

Although the United States has undeniably done significant progress in the struggle against racism, racial prejudice persists. Nevertheless, the 2008 historical election of the first Afro-American Barack Obama as president of the United States was widely acclaimed as evidence of American post-racialism and even of the toll of racism. Although Obama seemed the ideal person to confront the race problem, he could obtain only mitigated results. This research examines the state of racial prejudice in the American society in relation to Obama’s candidacy, election and presidency. It also strives to assess the president’s personal responsibility in its persistence. At the core of this thesis is a tentative explanation of the contradiction between Obama’s exceptionality and his mitigated results in the struggle against the race problem. This research concludes that Barack Obama certainly bears some responsibility in the persistence of racial prejudice. Nevertheless, his personal burden needs to be tempered with in view of the impossibility of the task due to the presence of insuperable external factors on which the president himself had little or no ascendancy.