Knowing Obama: How High School Students of Color Learn About the 44th President

Abstract

Drawing from a theory of racial literacy and literature on phenomenon after 2008 election, this case study examines how high school students of color have learned about Barack as a racial and political figure. Findings suggest that schools can be unfriendly spaces for learning about these topics, with history and social studies courses failing to address Barack or election in a meaningful way. However, students pick up rich, though scattered, information through out-of-school sources such as family, community, and media. These findings suggest a need for greater consideration of Obama-related content in formal curriculum. The findings also imply that teachers must provide opportunities for students to contextualize, extend, and make sense of their out-of-school learning about race and in academic safety of school environment. Keywords: Race, Barack Obama, Social Studies, Racial Literacy ********** Educators need to know what happens in world of children with whom they work. They need to know universe of their dreams, language with which they skillfully defend themselves from aggressiveness of their world, what they know independently of school, and how they know it. (Freire, 2005, p.130, italics added) Few single events in recent decades could match sociopolitical and racial significance of Barack Obama's election in 2008. Obama's resounding victory over Senator John McCain signaled a milestone with national and global import (Smith & King, 2012). In his inaugural speech, himself acknowledged historic significance of his election: This is meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath. (President Obama's Inaugural Address, 2009, January 21) As and others have suggested, 2008 election represented a crucial step toward increased rights and prosperity for people of color in U.S., a step many civil rights leaders feared they might not see in their lifetimes (Bell, 2009; Bobo, 2011). The Post-Racial Era With historic 2008 election came public conversations about extent to which a new era had been inaugurated alongside Obama, a time and place broadly referred to as post-racial America. Bobo (2011) described ethos as one in which American society has genuinely moved beyond race, so much so that we as a nation are now ready to transcend disabling racial divisions of past (p. 14). To cite a few examples of presence of this narrative in popular media, The New York Times ran its November 4th headline, Obama Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls (Nagoumey, 2008), Thomas Friedman (2008) declared that Nov. 4, 2008 officially ended American Civil War, and Time's Joe Klein noted that older forms of racial identity had now been replaced by the celebration of pluralism and cross-racial synergy (cited in Giroux, 2010). And as MSNBC's Chris Mathews infamously reflected after watching Obama's second State of Union address: I was trying to think about who he was tonight. It's interesting: he is post-racial, by all appearances. I forgot he was black tonight for an hour. You know, he's gone a long way to become a leader of this country, and passed so much history, in just a year or two. I mean, it's something we don't even think about. (Calderone, 2010, January 27) Mathews' fraught sentiments, as well as aforementioned headlines and commentary, suggest that nation need not consider Obama's background again. The country has put scar of race behind itself. Despite euphoria in wake of Obama's election, critics sought to counter or temper narrative of post-racialism. …