Introduction

We increasingly hear that the United States is a “postracial” society in the 21st century. Barack Obama's ascendance to the presidency is heralded as evidence of just how profoundly race relations have transformed since the enacting of civil-rights legislation several decades ago. Obama's biography is thought to symbolize the seemingly boundless opportunities now available to racial minorities in this country and therefore the needlessness of affirmative-action programs and racially focused social-justice movements today. Indeed, colorblindness seems to have become the new progressive position on race, as racial consciousness is deemed irrelevant at best and racist at worst.