Race: The American Cauldron

By Douglas A. Blackmon

In an increasingly polarized political environment, the first year of the new president’s term will be especially challenging. With a fresh mandate, however, the first year also offers opportunities that may never come again. The First Year Project is a fascinating initiative by the Miller Center of the University of Virginia that brings together top scholars on the American presidency and experienced officials to explore the first twelve months of past administrations, and draw practical lessons from that history, as we inaugurate a new president in January 2017.

This project is the basis for a new series of digital shorts published as Miller Center Studies on the Presidency. Presented as specially priced collections published exclusively in an ebook format, these timely examinations recognize the experiences of past presidents as an invaluable resource that can edify and instruct the incoming president.

Contributors: Michael Eric Dyuson, Georgetown University * Elizabeth Hinton, Harvard University * Orlando Patterson, Harvard University * Douglas A. Blackmon, Georgia State University

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Release date: Feb 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780813940175

Book preview

MILLER CENTER STUDIES ON THE PRESIDENCY

MARC J. SELVERSTONE, EDITOR

Miller Center Studies on the Presidency is a series of original works that draw on the Miller Center’s scholarly programs to shed light on the American presidency past and present.

THE FIRST YEAR PROJECT

Race

The American Cauldron

Edited by Douglas A. Blackmon

University of Virginia Press

Charlottesville and London

Contents

Introduction

Donald Trump, Racial Pioneer? Unlikely as It May Seem, the New President Could Transform Racial Dialogue

Douglas A. Blackmon

Learning Obama’s Lessons: Trump Must Immediately Rethink His Approach to Racial Issues

Michael Eric Dyson

American Apartheid: Blacks Are Central to America’s Identity, but Still Excluded from So Much

Orlando Patterson

Stop Blaming the Victims! The New President Should Fight the Root Causes of Inequality

Elizabeth Hinton

Contributors

Notes

Introduction

As the tumultuous first year of Donald J. Trump’s presidency neared its end in January 2018, the president and his advisers were exultant about what they said were extraordinary improvements in the economic conditions of American minorities.

The African-American unemployment rate fell to 6.8%, the lowest rate in 45 years, the president said on Twitter, the social media service. I am so happy about this News! Two days later, he wrote again that unemployment among black workers was the lowest ever recorded in our country and the Hispanic unemployment rate dropped a full point in the last year. Comparing himself to recent past presidents, he said: Dems did nothing for you but get your vote!

President Trump and his supporters savored the economic numbers as proof that his rising tide approach to the U.S. economy was lifting all boats, and a fulfillment of promises on the campaign trail to improve the lives of all Americans and of a lofty promise issued barely a month after his inauguration: I pledge . . . that every American, no matter his background, no matter her background, has the chance to climb that great ladder of success. I want every African American child, family and worker to have access to great schools, safe communities and good paying jobs.

The president also described the employment numbers as a dramatic demonstration that minority voters had been misguided in past support for Democrats and in their extraordinary rejection of him in the 2016 presidential election. Mr. Trump received the votes of only 8 percent of about 17 million votes cast by African Americans, and 80 percent of the more than 13 million Latino voters (a record high) supported Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Yet even in the light of those improving job numbers, a full assessment of President Trump’s impact on American race relations and the social and economic conditions of minority groups will ultimately involve a far more complex set of variables.

As part of its First Year Project, the Miller Center commissioned essays from four noted scholars who focus on African American history and the relationship between presidential leadership and the state of the nation’s minority citizens. I and the three other essayists come from a range of political views and expressed in these essays varying degrees of skepticism or hopefulness about the potential for President Trump to help bridge America’s deep racial divides.

Georgetown University’s Michael Eric Dyson criticized President Trump for racially divisive comments of the past and urged him to fundamentally and immediately alter his approach to the current national dialogue on race—especially to acknowledge distinct injuries to African Americans in the U.S. economic and judicial systems. Elizabeth Hinton at Harvard University urged the new president to, in effect, reverse the logic of the rising tide theory and embrace the notion that dismantling structural barriers to socioeconomic opportunities for any disadvantaged group benefits all of American society.

Cultural sociologist Orlando Patterson, also at Harvard, wrote that President Trump should have begun his tenure with a major address celebrating the genuine improvements in American racial relations over the past fifty years, urging optimism among all citizens about the future, but at the same time ordering dramatic new steps to curb police violence, school segregation, and other social ills that disproportionately affect black citizens. My essay explored how few presidents have advanced racial relations in any significant way. But it also suggested that despite—and partly because of—President Trump’s reputation for racial