Obama: Ripples of a landmark election

Hindsight reflections of race in the presidential election

Ange-Marie Hancock, a political science professor at the University of Southern California, is an expert in race relations and comments that talk about race and Obama, a half-black, half-white child raised by white grandparents, were unavoidable. Obama's election has certain ramifications and ripples all across the globe.

The Virgin Vote: How did race play into this election? Should it have been?

Ange-Marie Hancock: In this election, race was unavoidable. And it’s not so much about “should it have been” but that this election was historic. Race played a very interesting and unexpected role in the election. People were expecting it to be more of a problem than it was.

VV: What do you mean by that?

H: A lot of people of color didn’t have a lot of faith in the white people. But they were pleasantly surprised that Obama won in the way that he did. The second reason why it was unexpected was that there was a much more frank discussion of race in the white community than anybody expected.

VV: What does the election of Barack Obama mean, in hindsight?

H: I see it as a big signal, there’s going to be spillover effects. People in the cabinet are going to be more diverse. He is an important symbol, and people see him as a rolemodel. There is going to be some blowback, as some people are uncomfortable with change. The challenge is going to be what’s actually racially objective and what’s not.

VV: Why is America, as a nation, so fixated on race?

H: One of the reasons why we’re so fixated on race is because despite all of our attempts, it’s still really important to be 100 percent honest nationally about the meaning of race. Other people have tried, social movements and past presidents have tried to address race, but we still can’t get together as a nation and be honest with each other. It becomes the baggage we can’t get rid of.

VV: What is the perception of the international community about this election? What are the international effects of this historic moment?

H: I’ve talked to my friends in Brazil and overseas, and people seem extremely excited about the election, but I’m more afraid that they’re going to be more disappointed than America will be disappointed. They’ve placed so much emphasis on race as a proxy for Obama’s progressivism, his liberalism, but what they don’t know is that he’s likely to govern from the center.

VV: Why do you see Obama as more likely to be centrist than liberal?

H: One, he’s more of a centrist than people thought. A lot of people think of him as very liberal politically speaking, but he’s actually closer to the center than we credit him for. Two, he’s committed to bipartisanship, so he’s going to be more in the center than to the left.