ABSTRACT
When Obama came into office, there were hopes of a post-partisan and a post-racial presidency. Neither hope was fulfilled. It is hard to measure the extent of white displeasure with a black president, but the signs are hard to ignore. The birther controversy, the insidious use of Obama’s middle name by hard right opponents, the demand to see the transcripts of his grades in college, the charge that he hates white people, all seem counters for what cannot be openly said—an unqualified black man occupies the highest office of the land. In rejecting the charge of racism, hard right opponents of Obama may point to the blacks among them who command their support. Herman Cain had an enthusiastic constituency of white voters. If Clarence Thomas chose to enter the political arena, would his race matter? It is not Obama’s blackness alone that provokes a racist animus, but the toxic mixture of his blackness and his perceived liberal or, worse, socialist disposition. Cain and Thomas are safe blacks, unthreatening to the conservative establishment, their blackness in a sense irrelevant to their roles in public life—in the eyes of their supporters. In Obama’s case, blackness and a threat to the status quo are mutually reinforcing in the eyes of his racist opponents. The false charge of “socialist” leveled against him is provoked by the fact that he is black and not, so to speak, a house Negro.
