With President Biden having just passed one full year in office, public opinion research shows that white Americans - and especially Republicans - see whites as victims of discrimination more than, say, Hispanic or Black Americans. Trump may be out of power, but those feelings aren’t. Indeed, Trump was successful in finding a predominately white audience who lapped up his overt racism toward people of color and who were eager to embrace a rising sense of white victimhood. Trump’s election killed any illusions anyone might have had about a “post-racial” America. And that backlash, in part, spurred the election of former President Donald Trump eight years later. What’s more, some white voters during this period started to become resentful of a Black man ascending to the highest political office. Moreover, a plurality of white Americans thought (or, perhaps, hoped) that his candidacy would have no impact on race relations, essentially upholding the status quo.
Moreover, in the lead up to Obama’s first election, some polls showed that only about one-third of white Americans (38 percent) thought Obama would help race relations, compared with 60 percent of Black Americans.
Even at the time, certain white voters refused to vote for Obama because of his race, and a rise in hate crimes followed his win. At long last - in the eyes of many, at least - there was hope that the racial wounds that have long divided Black and white Americans would heal. His election was seen as a hopeful moment in America and ushered in lots of think pieces and reporting that his presidency was the start of a new “post-racial” society. 4, 2008, Barack Obama, then a senator from Illinois, was elected the first Black president of the United States. Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
0 kommentar(er)
