The United States is founded upon many stories and scripts. Individualism, property, ownership, rights, democracy, white supremacy, patriarchy, and empire are some of the stories that have been woven into the fabric of dominant U.S. institutions and interpersonal relationships. There are also embroidered patterns etched upon this fabric—us/them, individual/structure, black/white, men/women, etc. Such a fabric also structures the scripts from which individuals, like the President of the United States, can draw to resonate with the people, create laws and policies, and to do the job. Acknowledgement of this reality helps us to begin understanding that President Barack Obama cannot effectively address racial issues during his presidency.

In this chapter we look at how Obama, as a black/multiracial President, has operated within the racial scripts available to him during the recessionary period of the colorblind era. Recognizing the dominant lens through which Americans view the racial world—colorblindness—and its associated ideology is crucial to insights about the scripts from which it is possible to draw and which scripts will resonate with audiences in the twenty-first century. We look closely at a key speech of Obama’s—”A More Perfect Union” or the “Race” speech—to analyze the scripts utilized in the speech and how the American public responded to them. We also describe the influence of the Great Recession on Obama's ability to address racial inequality in the United States.

Obama's racial identity

Barack Obama's racial identity, like so much else about President Obama, tends to be defined and interpreted in various ways by those who observe him. Though people hold a dizzying array of identities and statuses and exist in a matrix of identities (Brunsma and Delgado, 2008) and meanings—racial scripts in the United States have historically and contemporarily worked to limit that variation and to portray individuals’ racial identities as monolithic. Many older Americans, raised when the “one-drop rule” was prevalent, are wary of what they see as Obama's “obvious” black racial background and fear that he may take a special interest in—and favor—racial minorities because of it.