The Justice

NPR defense correspondent for the Pentagon Guy Raz '96 moderated a panel with Brandeis professors about Obama's future as president. Photo by David Sheppard-Brick/the Justice

Profs. Peniel E. Joseph (AAAS), Mingus Mapps (POL), Joseph Ballantine Jr., adjunct professor at the International Business School, and Jill Greenlee (POL) discussed the effect of race, demographic results and political and economic implications of the election of President Elect Barack Obama at a panel last Thursday.

The panel, moderated by National Public Radio defense correspondent for the Pentagon Guy Raz '96, was titled "What Happened? What Next?" The Student Union and the Office of Communication sponsored the panel.

Raz said he was ecstatic when Bill Clinton was first elected in 1992, but those celebrations were incomparable to the celebrations that took place across America after Obama's election. He called Obama's election "the day America fulfilled its promise" of equal opportunity.

Joseph maintained that Obama's election is symbolic because it represents one achievement for minorities in the U.S., but added that "Obama's victory does not automatically end the disparities" in achievement between blacks and whites.

The impact of Obama's election on social justice in terms of racial equality is unclear and can only be measured at the end of the first term, Joseph said. As an example, he said, if there are more African-American faculty at elite universities in 2013 than there are today, this will be an indication that Obama's candidacy has helped transform race relations.

Joseph said Obama's victory shows that black politicians do not necessarily make race a focal issue of their campaigns and can succeed at the national level by transcending this issue. Obama did not make his race a core issue of his presidential campaign, which enabled him to succeed with the American electorate.

Mapps was also cautious not to exaggerate the effect of Obama's campaign on racial politics. He said he believes it is ambiguous whether Obama's election represents a post-racial moment. On one hand, Mapps said, party voting is still organized along racial lines in the sense that minorities generally gravitate toward the Democratic party, and the Republicans have a larger percentage of white voters. However, large numbers of Hispanic and white female voters who supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries later voted for Obama in the general election. Mapps said this showed that an African-American candidate does not drive potential voters away.

Continued...

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