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The Fragility of Post-Racial Ideology in American (Visual) Culture

BLM March

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Obama's Non-Post-Racial Adminstration

While many believed that Obama’s presidency meant that America was post-racial, a closer look at his administration in office exposes that this ideology is only based on taking race out of the equation or being “colorblind,” which ignores the fact that race and racism work on deep structural levels in the US. During Obama’s time in office major issues of institutionalized racism were not addressed as problems that are affecting people of color, of which continue to support the power structures and dynamics that have been present for centuries, which in turn keep racial hierarchies in place. This post-racial ideology failed to see the “entrenched patterns of poverty, segregation, gaps in educational attainment and achievement, racial identity formation, and disparaging racial stereotypes,” that are still operating in the present.7
Further, the Obama administration continued to play a part in the racialized criminalization of individuals, seen through the ever-growing number of mass incarcerated Black and Brown people, and Obama’s nickname “deporter in chief,” gained through his deportation policy that resulted in 2.5 million individuals being deported from the U.S., a number that exceeds all the other presidents who have preceded him.8 Another major factor that plays into dismantling the belief of post-racialism in America, can be seen through the backlash against the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, through the rhetoric of the “All Lives Matter,” and “Blue Lives Matter,” rhetoric. BLM came out of calling attention to the police violence and murder of Black and Brown individuals, and the failure of the U.S. justice system to indict the perpetrators of this abuse. The adverse response to BLM exposes the fragility of post-racialism by showing how white Americans are still unable to see how racial hierarchy has historically produced violence and oppression against certain individuals.