Table Of ContentAfter Obama
After Obama
African American Politics in a Post- Obama Era
Edited by
Todd C. Shaw,
Robert A. Brown, and
Joseph P. McCormick II
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
www.nyupress.org
© 2021 by New York University
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author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or
changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Shaw, Todd Cameron, editor. | Brown, Robert A., 1963– editor. |
McCormick, Joseph P., II, editor.
Title: After Obama : African American politics in a post-Obama era /
edited by Todd C. Shaw, Robert A. Brown, and Joseph P. McCormick II.
Description: New York : New York University Press, 2020. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020012642 | ISBN 9781479807277 (cloth) | ISBN 9781479818037
(paperback) | ISBN 9781479821976 (ebook) | ISBN 9781479896578 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Obama, Barack. | Obama, Barack—Influence. |
African Americans—Politics and government—21st century. |
United States—Politics and government—2009–2017.
Classification: LCC E907 .A35 2020 | DDC 320.973089/96073—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020012642
New York University Press books are printed on acid- free paper, and their binding materials
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Manufactured in the United States of America
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Also available as an ebook
To the memory of my father and aunt—
James Curtis and Annie Vivian
(Todd Shaw)
To my daughters—
Elena and Isabela
(Robert Brown)
To the three most important women in my life—
Helen, Janet, and JaiSun
(Joseph McCormick II)
Contents
Introduction: There’s No Such Thing as a “Black President” 1
Todd C. Shaw, Robert A. Brown, and Joseph P. McCormick II
Part I. Constituencies
1. Race, Trust, and the American Presidency: Black- White
Confidence in the Executive Branch in the Obama Era
and Beyond 45
Shayla C. Nunnally
2. Invitations to the Dance: The Obama Administration’s
Complex Engagement with Black Elected Officials and
Advocacy Groups 72
Tyson D. King- Meadows
3. The “Obama Effect” Revisited: A Macrolevel and
Longitudinal Exploration of the Influence of
Barack Obama’s Media Presence on Racialized
Political Party Polarization 104
Ray Block Jr. and Angela K. Lewis- Maddox
4. “It’s Complicated”: The Obama Administration’s Relationship
with Black Faith Communities and Lessons for
Future Presidents 131
Brian D. McKenzie
5. Obama, African American Women, and the Limitations of
the Politics of Recognition 149
Wendy G. Smooth
6. Moving the Needle? Obama, Targeted Universalism, and
the Black LGBTQ Community 170
Ravi K. Perry
vii
viii | Contents
Part II. Public Policies
7. Black Federal Judges and Civil Rights in the Age of Obama 201
Shenita Brazelton with Dianne M. Pinderhughes
8. Monumental Promises, Incremental Gains: Criminal
Justice Reform in the Obama Era 222
Khalilah L. Brown- Dean
9. What about Black Women? How Economic Policies
Targeting Urban Americans Disappear Black Women 245
Julia S. Jordan- Zachery
10. Barack Obama and the Racial Politics of the
Affordable Care Act 270
Sekou Franklin, Pearl K. Ford Dowe, and
Angela K. Lewis- Maddox
11. Race, Real Estate, and Responsiveness: The Obama
Administration’s Legacy on Housing Policy
and Outcomes 296
Andra Gillespie
12. The Obama Era and Black Attitudes toward Undocumented
Immigration Policies 318
Lorrie Frasure and Stacey Greene
13. Foreign Policy during and after Barack Obama 340
Robert B. Packer
Conclusion: The Next “Black President” and the Next
Black Politics 369
Joseph P. McCormick II, Todd C. Shaw, and Robert A. Brown
About the Editors 385
About the Contributors 387
Index 395
Introduction
There’s No Such Thing as a “Black President”
Todd C. Shaw, Robert A. Brown, and
Joseph P. McCormick II
By law I can’t pass laws saying I’m just helping black folks. I am
president of the entire United States.
— President Barack Obama, New York Times, February 9, 2010
When we began this journey coming on ten years now, we said
this was not about us. It wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about Mi-
chelle. It wasn’t just to be a black president, or the president of
black America. We understood the power of the symbol. We
know what it means for a generation of children, of all races, to
see folks like us in the White House. (Applause.)
— President Barack Obama, 46th Annual Congressional Black
Caucus Foundation Awards Dinner, September 18, 2016
Obama is expected to lead black America to the Promised Land
not as a voice of opposition to the government, demanding it
act on behalf of the poor and the outcast, but as the commander
in chief of the American empire.
— Fredrick Harris, The Price of the Ticket
What the hell do you have to lose?
— Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate’s appeal to
African American voters, August 19, 2016
1
2 | Introduction
With all the political turmoil that Black Americans and all Americans
have endured under the very conservative and often erratic presidency
of Donald Trump (including a 2020 COVID- 19 pandemic and racial
as well as economic unrest), many aspects of the presidency of Barack
Obama feel like distant memories. We contend, however, that now, years
after the Obama administration, it is very important to be sanguine
about the legacy— the contributions and problems— Obama’s presidency
left for Black politics now and well into the future. Stated differently, this
book provides a substantive accounting and examination of the many
political and policy gains African Americans did and did not have to
lose as Trump succeeded Obama.
Near the end of Barack Obama’s presidency in 2016, Virginia McLau-
rin expressed an exuberance that reflected some of the joy and hope
African Americans felt at the beginning of Obama’s presidency in 2009.
Much of this joy and hope turned into a disheartened fear and anger
with the election of Donald J. Trump as Obama’s successor. Still, during
McLaurin’s audience with Barack and Michelle Obama at the White
House, though she was a 106- year- old African American woman, she lit-
erally danced as spryly as a young girl while laughing and holding the
hands of the president of the United States and the First Lady.
“I tell you, I am so happy,” McLaurin declared. “A black president, yay,
and his black wife!”
The Obamas joined McLaurin in her gleeful dance. She had previ-
ously stated in a letter to the president, “I’ve never met a President. I
didn’t think I would live to see a Colored President. I was born in the
South and didn’t think it would happen.”1 For all of the understand-
able personal joy and racial symbolism of this moment— after all, it was
Black History Month— ironically, McLaurin later had some difficulty
in getting an identification card to ensure she could vote in the Dis-
trict of Columbia’s 2016 elections. Initially, photo identification was not
a requirement in the district. But due to Republican-l ed electoral law
changes across the nation, it became a measure its critics considered
the newest form of Black voter disenfranchisement in several states, in-
cluding McLaurin’s native South Carolina. McLaurin’s struggle to en-
sure she could vote despite her delightful encounter story with the first
“Black president” is emblematic of the ongoing barriers confronting
