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Analysis: Are Race Relations Really Worse Under President Obama?

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Many find it quick and easy to assume that with Barack Obama as President of the United States the condition of race relations in our country would be substantially better than they were prior to his first election in 2008. There are some who argue Obama’s election is actually to blame for any and all existing racial divisions in the country. Although the cause remains unclear, it has been observed that race relations are seen to have gone from better to worse under President Obama. In the article entitled “Are Race Relations Really Worse Under President Obama?”, Janelle Ross uses comparative statistics, logical arguments, and allusion to illustrate the deteriorating condition of racial equality since Obama assumed his role as President.
Ross …show more content…

Polls conducted through the New York Times and CBS News ask Americans to describe race relations during the time the poll was being conducted. A graphical representation is provided in which we see the fluctuation of opinions from 1990 to presently in 2015. In 2009, just months after Obama was sworn in as President, 66% of Americans considered the country to be in a good place with regard to racial equality (Ross 1). Inauguration of the very first black President in the United States makes this being the highest positive demographic recorded within this time frame logical since many believed Obama’s inauguration would motivate other African Americans to pursue dreams that would have seemed impossible to achieve just months prior. When comparing 66% of those who were content with race relations in 2009 to the 43% who were content in 1990, and the lowest recorded 25% in 1992, we see a massive improvement that deserves to be celebrated. For a few years, it’s seen that 66% remains constant, but later in 2015, that percentage is reduced by almost half to 37%. This …show more content…

While we are provided with statistics and explanations necessary to support them, we become uncertain as to what it has to do with Obama. There is no simple answer and it begs the question as to why it is that Obama remains central to the way we determine the conditions of racial equality (Ross 3). Ross quotes Obama back in 2004 when he said “There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America” (Ross 4). Despite him saying this, we see that society must become gentrified in order to fulfill this

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