Michael P. Jeffries, "Paint the White House Black: Barack Obama and the Meaning of Race in America" (Stanford UP, 2013)

Summary

Over the last year, this podcast has featured several authors who've examined the presidency of Barack Obama. John Sides, Daniel Kriess, and Enid Logan each wrote about the election campaign of the President. Michael P. Jeffries steps back and places the President into a larger theoretical conversation about race and language. Jeffries is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at Welleseley College and also writes for The Atlantic magazine and The Guardian newspaper. He is the author of Paint the White House Black: Barack Obama and the Meaning of Race in America (Stanford University Press, 2013) and published his first book, Thug Life: Race, Gender, and the Meaning of Hip-Hop in 2011. Jeffries peels back the debate over exactly "post-racial" life in America really is in 2013. Using the presidency of Barack Obama as a focal point, he draws from sociology, feminist theory, and political science to situate the president in long-standing debates about the state of race in America. The book is provocative, timely, and an enjoyable read

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