With all of the present crises confronting the American political and policy systems under the administration of President Donald Trump—a pandemic, racial and social rebellion, a reeling economy—it may be difficult to train our analytical lenses upon the previous administration of President Barack Obama. Yet, with an adept command of the political science literature, meticulous attention to detail, and an extensive marshalling and examining of qualitative and quantitative data, this is precisely what Andra Gillespie does in her book Race and the Obama Administration: Substance, Symbols, and Hope. She not only writes a book that is a concise and fairly comprehensive assessment of the Obama presidency’s responsiveness to African American interests, but she squarely places this examination within the context of Black politics’ “deracialization” literature. This literature presumes that Black candidates must be careful if they invoke questions of race, especially among white voters and audiences. Toward these ends,...
University of California Press