What's Wrong with Obamamania?


Book Description

Barack Obama's sudden arrival on the national scene has created a wave of excitement in American politics, a phenomenon that has been dubbed "Obamamania." In What's Wrong with Obamamania?, Ricky L. Jones places Obama's run for the presidency in the context of deep and often disturbing shifts in black leadership since the 1960s. From Charles Hamilton Houston to Thurgood Marshall to Jesse Jackson, from prosperity preachers to megachurches, from W. E. B. Du Bois's Talented Tenth and civil rights advocates to Black Entertainment Television and hip-hop culture, Jones paints a picture of lowered expectations, cynicism, and nihilism that should give us all pause.




What's Wrong with Obamamania?


Book Description

Juxtaposes the meteoric rise of Barack Obama with far-reaching—and disturbing—shifts in black leadership in post–Civil Rights America.




The Obama Effect


Book Description

Timely, multidisciplinary analysis of Obama’s presidential campaign, its context, and its impact.




The Obama Revolution


Book Description

The Obama Revolution is an in-the-trenches look at how President Barack Obama mobilized a generation to reclaim America. In this timely book, author Alan Kennedy-Shaffer draws a vivid picture of grassroots organizing, from the grueling all-nighters to the endless canvassing. His rhetorical analysis also explores what exactly Obama did to clinch the Democratic nomination, how he won the election and what he plans to do as President.




Obama Mania


Book Description

"Anything We Love Can Be Saved" by Alice Walker. America I Love. Nothing can match the Euphoria of Obama Mania, the Mystique, the Vision, the Call for Change he can Deliver! Barack is challenging America to reclaim the American Dream. Barack calls for a new kind of politics, one of Hope, Change, Reform and Bipartisanship unity. Grounded in his inexorable faith in the founding principles of America, the Constitution. America is truly blessed to have a man with great wisdom, perception, and sound judgement.




The Presidential Campaign of Barack Obama


Book Description

The Presidential Candidacy of Barack Obama provides students of politics, inside and outside of the classroom, a unique opportunity to explore the challenges an African American faces in becoming the president of the United States.




The Hip Hop & Obama Reader


Book Description

Featuring a foreword by Tricia Rose and an Afterword by Cathy J. Cohen Barack Obama flipped the script on more than three decades of conventional wisdom when he openly embraced hip hop--often regarded as politically radioactive--in his presidential campaigns. Just as important was the extent to which hip hop artists and activists embraced him in return. This new relationship fundamentally altered the dynamics between popular culture, race, youth, and national politics. But what does this relationship look like now, and what will it look like in the decades to come? The Hip Hop & Obama Reader attempts to answer these questions by offering the first systematic analysis of hip hop and politics in the Obama era and beyond. Over the course of 14 chapters, leading scholars and activists offer new perspectives on hip hop's role in political mobilization, grassroots organizing, campaign branding, and voter turnout, as well as the ever-changing linguistic, cultural, racial, and gendered dimensions of hip hop in the U.S. and abroad. Inviting readers to reassess how Obama's presidency continues to be shaped by the voice of hip hop and, conversely, how hip hop music and politics have been shaped by Obama, The Hip Hop & Obama Reader critically examines hip hop's potential to effect social change in the 21st century. This volume is essential reading for scholars and fans of hip hop, as well as those interested in the shifting relationship between democracy and popular culture.




The Obama Administration and Educational Reform


Book Description

The Obama Administration and Educational Reform seeks to situate, problematize, and bring to light the goals, accomplishments, experienced blockades, and disappointments of the Obama administration's educational policies.




Neo-race Realities in the Obama Era


Book Description

Considers the impact of neo-racism during the Obama presidency. Neo-race Realities in the Obama Era expands the discourse about Barack Obama’s two terms as president by reflecting upon the impact of neo-racism during his tenure. Continually in conversation with Étienne Balibar’s conceptualization of neo-racism as being racism without race, the contributors examine how identities become the target of neo-racist discriminatory practices and policies in the United States. Individual chapters explore how President Obama’s multiple and intersecting identities beyond the racial binaries of Black and White were perceived, as well as how his presence impacted certain marginalized groups in our society as a result of his administration’s policies. Evidencing the hegemonic complexity of neo-racism in the United States, the contributors illustrate how the mythic post-race society that many wished for on election night in 2008 was deferred, in order to return to the uncomfortable comfort zone of the way America used to be. “Well organized and compelling, this book covers everything from perspectives on the AIDS epidemic to racial authenticity, yet the reader never forgets that he/she is on a journey through the Age of Obama and its many contested nuances.” — Ricky L. Jones, author of What’s Wrong with Obamamania? Black America, Black Leadership, and the Death of Political Imagination




Beyond the Boundaries


Book Description

In the past, African American aspirations for political offi ce were assumed to be limited to areas with sizeable black population bases. By and large, black candidates have rarely been successful in statewide or national elections. This has been attributed to several factors: limited resources available to African American candidates, or identifi cation with a black liberationist ideological thrust. Other factors have been a relatively small and spatially concentrated primary support base of black voters, and the persistent resistance of many white voters to support black candidates. For these reasons, the possibility of black candidates winning elections to national offi ce was presumably just a dream. Conventional wisdom conceded a virtual cap on both the possible number of black elected officials and the level of elective offi ce to which they could ascend. But objective political analysis has not always made sufficient allowances for the more universal phenomenon of individual political ambitions. Th e contributors to this volume explore the ways ambitious individuals identifi ed and seized upon strategies that are expanding the boundaries of African American electoral politics. This volume is anchored by a symposium that focuses on new possibiities in African American politics. Both the electoral contests of 2006 and the Barack Obama presidential campaign represent an emergent dynamic in American electoral politics. Analysts are beginning to agree that the contours of social change now make the electoral successes of black candidates who are perceived as ideologically and culturally mainstream increasingly likely. The debate captured in this volume will likely inspire further scholarly inquiry into the changing nature and dimensions of the larger dynamic of race in American politics and the subsequent changing political fortunes of African American candidates.