The social significance of Barak Obama, Blog 3

What “the social significance of Barack Obama”, lead to a round table online exchange of multiple reader’s opinion on this discussion. Enid Logan contributed her opinion entitled, “Gender & Race in Post-Civil Rights, “Post-Feminist” US”. She discusses multiple issues that were brought up during the presidential race between Obama and Hilary Clinton.


The 2008 run for Presidency is remembered as a historical year because it is the first time that a woman and an African American man ran for the Presidency. Since the “Post-Civil Rights” movement, all people, no matter their race or gender are to be treated equaled. With the first woman and African American running for President in the year 2008, it is assumed that racism is still active along with anti-feminism. Logan first mentions a divide “within the feminist movement” regarding women under the age of forty voting for Obama, however, women over forty, true “feminists”, voted for Clinton. There were “accusations of betrayal, capitulation” to the “patriarchal” among women,spread by the Internet and newspapers from the separation in voting created by younger women voting for Obama and older women voting for Clinton. Is this not why women have fought for feminism in the past, so women can declare their own ideas and beliefs and not be discriminated upon?


The race also raised controversy between race and gender among white women and women of color. The black and Latina women were accused of having “points of views” that distracted them from “true, women issues” if they supported Obama instead of Hilary Clinton.Logan claims that Clinton supporters focused more on “primacy of gender” instead of race and racism as a whole. Obama’s candidacy seemed to acquire more attention regarding racism making his run in the race more historical versus any sexist remark made about Clinton.


Logan closes with several rhetorical questions asking the reader to consider if race helped or damaged Obama in the race, did being male “override” being black, and if gender is more discriminated against than race. The question that most likely will not be answered is, was Barack Obama picked to be the Democratic Candidate for Presidency because he was a man? America is still far from discrimination as evidence by how the 2008 Presidential elections uprooted debates among feminists, women of color versus the “women’s movement”, racism towards Clinton and Obama, and an “undercurrent of misogyny among liberal white man”. With all these issues between race and gender, how does America move forward, united? Women have the right to vote for whom ever regardless of race or gender. The same with women or men of any color. Discrimination is voting for someone because they are a certain race or gender with no consideration of their credentials for the Presidency.

Savannah Moore