Maddy Merrill

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

identity more prevalent to voters.

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

of community that intimidated white voters.

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

Obama and an image of McCain would hypothetically pick the latter.

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.

Journal of African American Studies19: 105-119.

Junn, Jane and David J. Anderson 2010. “De-Racializing Obama: White Voters’ Evaluation of

Minority Candidates,” American Politics Research, 38:3 443-470.

Kteily, Nour. “How Are Black–White Biracial People Perceived in Terms of Race?” Kellogg

Insight, Northwestern University , 6 Dec. 2017,

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,

23 Aug. 2019, www.thoughtco.com/does-president-need-political-experience-4046139.

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

on Voters. Trinity University, 2005.