Barack Obama as the Great Man: Communicative Constructions of Racial Transcendence in White-Male Elite Discourses

Abstract

This study examined responses on the potential impact of Barack Obama's presidency from 16 semi-structured interviews with White males in leadership positions in various organizations across the United States. While numerous studies examine the circulating racial discourses on Obama, few studies explore how he is represented in first-hand accounts from those in the public, specifically from White-male elites. This study examined interview discourses from White-male elites to reveal how they imagine race through Obama. In positioning Obama among the pantheon of great-man leaders, this study showed how dominant racial ideologies get legitimatized and reworked when members of the dominant group desire to construct racial meanings onto a popular Black leader.

Keywords:

• Barack Obama
• White-Male Elite Discourse
• Great-Man Theory
• Race Transcendence

Notes

1. I have placed a hyphen between African and American as an indication of President Obama's biracial identity. Studies already have discussed, even in passing, the social implications of President Obama's identity (Atwater, 2007; Parameswaran, 2009; Walters, 2007). They provide insights into the transnational discourse of President Obama's blackness and into how he expands and reduces meanings of blackness in the United States. I am sure the complexities of his identity will be debated further as his Presidency transpires.

2. Hence, the great-man theory cannot be claimed to galvanize the profile of the many illustrious, highly distinguished, and great women in history like Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Madeleine Albright, Dorothy Day, Amelia Earhart, Betty Friedan, Althea Gibson, Barbara Jordan, Helen Keller, Margaret Mead, Sandra Day O'Connor, Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sojourner Truth, and Mildred “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias, among others.

3. Details of this story are available on ABC News at http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=8148986&page=1

4. Details of this story are available on CBS News at http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/09/16/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5315789.shtml

5. Details of this story are available on MSNNBC News at http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/01/11/2170786.aspx

6. A complete transcription of Blagojevich's interview is available in Esquire at http://www.esquire.com/features/people-who-matter-2010/rod-blagojevich-interview-0210?click=pp