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The Black presidency : Barack Obama and the politics of race in America / Michael Eric Dyson.

by Dyson, Michael Eric, author.

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Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.

Obama, Barack -- Influence.

Race -- Political aspects -- United States.

Racism -- Political aspects -- United States.

African Americans -- Politics and government -- 21st century.

United States -- Race relations -- Political aspects.

United States -- Politics and government -- 2009-2017.

9780544387669 (hardcover) :

054438766X (hardcover)

xvi, 346 pages ; 24 cm

The burden of representation -- How to be a Black president : "I can't sound like Martin" -- "Invisible man got the whole world watching" : race, bi-race, post-race in the Obama presidency -- Black presidency, Black rhetoric : Pharaoh and Moses speak -- Re-founding father : patriotism, citizenship, and Obama's America -- The scold of Black folk : the bully pulpit and Black responsibility -- Dying to speak of race : policing Black America -- Going Bulworth : Black truth and white terror in the age of Obama -- Amazing grace : Obama's African American theology -- President Obama's speeches and statements on race.

Michael Eric Dyson delivers a provocative exploration of the politics of race and the Obama presidency. Barack Obama's presidency unfolded against the national traumas of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and Walter Scott. The nation's first African American president was careful to give few major race speeches, yet he faced criticism from all sides, including from African Americans. How has Obama's race affected his presidency and the nation's identity? Dyson explores whether Obama's use of his own biracialism as a symbol has been driven by the president's desire to avoid a painful moral reckoning on race. And he sheds light on identity issues within the black power structure, telling how Obama has spurned traditional black power brokers, significantly reducing their leverage. Perhaps most movingly, Dyson illuminates the transformative moments, especially in his second term, when Obama has publicly embraced his blackness and used it as a powerful lens onto America, black and white. President Obama's own voice--from an Oval Office interview granted to Dyson for the book--along with that of Eric Holder, Al Sharpton, and Andrew Young, among others, adds depth to this tour of the nation's first black presidency.--Adapted from book jacket.

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