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A Word: The Rise of Post-Obama Racism

Slate Daily Feed

Slate

News, Society & Culture, Business

3.91.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For some, the election of Barack Obama signified hope. For others, it intensified hate. But what role did mainstream political rhetoric play in fueling subsequent violent racially charged incidents? On today’s episode of A Word, guest host Ahyiana Angel is joined by Wesley Lowery, journalist and author of American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress. Lowery details how he used first-hand reporting and historical analysis to explore the role of race in politics and the new wave of racial division in our society. Podcast production by Ahyiana Angel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is a word, a podcast from Slate, I'm a Yana Angel sitting in for Jason Johnson.

0:06.4

Barack Obama's election as president brought on a racist backlash in America that culminated

0:11.6

in the election of Donald Trump.

0:14.2

But prize-winning journalist Wesley Laurie wants more focus on how and why racist rhetoric

0:20.1

reaches beyond politics and sparks real-life violence against people of color.

0:25.4

At the end of Barack Obama's timing office, 55% of white Americans believed they faced

0:31.8

racial discrimination.

0:33.3

American White Lash, a changing nation in the cost of progress coming up on a word, stay

0:39.4

with us.

0:55.4

I really needed that.

0:57.6

Love what you love, Diet Coke.

1:00.6

Get runaway ready, a chance to win the ultimate shopping experience plus hundreds of prizes

1:05.2

curated by Kate Moss, promo packs in store, 18 plus T's and C's visit Coke.co.uk-slashbreak.

1:16.2

Welcome to a word, a podcast about race in politics and everything else.

1:22.1

I'm a Yana Angel sitting in for Jason Johnson.

1:25.3

It's hard to imagine now, but a few serious people once believed the election of America's

1:31.0

first black president meant the country was post-racial.

1:35.8

That Barack Obama symbolized the end of inequality and open racism.

1:41.5

Of course, almost everyone understands now that the idea was garbage.

1:47.1

And that if anything, Obama's election reinvigorated a particularly poisonous kind of racism

1:54.4

that has degraded our politics and made race's violence more common.

2:00.3

Some have called it a backlash, but our guest today calls it something else.

...

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