States: A Retrospective Look
places and prohibited racial discrimina-tion
by employers and unions. The Voting
Rights Act of 1965, in turn, invalidated
literacy tests, poll taxes, and other prac-tices
used to exclude African Americans
from voting. These legislative gains in
the United States ignited a global freedom
struggle for groups of people grappling
with histories of slavery, colonialism,
and imperialism.
“Post-racial era”
After the election of President Barack
Obama in 2008, some scholars and com-mentators
suggested that an African
American presidency signified a de facto
“post-racial” era. The claim made was
that if a black man could become presi-dent
of the United States, racism must
be over.
The proponents of a “post-racial”
United States failed to see the multiple
ways in which race, class, and gender
intersected in U.S. society. African Ame-rican
and Latino men from lower socioe-conomic
positions, in particular, became
targets of race, class, and gender-based
violence. Moreover, minorities continued
to grapple with unequal distributions of
wealth and income, residential segrega-tion,
and mass incarceration.
The Obama presidency was marked by
an ebb and flow of progressive accomp-lishments
and counterattacks. The Tea
Party, the birtherism movement, and
the populism reflected in the 2016 elec-tion
fought the administration’s agenda,
while Republicans in the Senate open-ly
refused to support any of the Pre-sident’s
initiatives, stalling bipartisan
collaboration.
The most significant policy effect of
the black power movement was that it
destroyed the legal basis for segregation.
Obama’s various progressive agendas,
such as the Affordable Care Act, Ober-gefell
v. Hodges’ legalization of same-sex
marriage, the Paris Climate Accord,
and DACA, each resulted in reactionary
backlash, racial and sexual profiling, and
overt acts of violence.
Ongoing negotiation
The 2016 presidential election called at-tention
to existing socioeconomic, cul-tural,
and political tensions in the con-temporary
United States, with lingering
questions of voter suppression and voter
ID laws, mechanisms by means of which
minority voters in particular can be hin-dered
from voting.
Growing rifts between various groups
were expressed in the Black Lives Mat-ter
grassroots movement as well as the
resurgence of various white nationalist
movements. While the Black Lives Matter
group’s mission is to build local power
and to intervene in violence inflicted on
black communities, the most prominent
white supremacist group, the Alt Right,
believes that white civilization is threa-tened
by immigration, multiculturalism,
and political correctness.
The 2016 election also gave rise to
the #MeToo movement, which prompted
thousands of women to break the silen-ce
about their suppressed experiences of
sexual harassment and violence, resul-ting
in the resignation of public figures
in politics, media, and the entertainme-nt
industry.
In sum, while we have obviously ma-de
much legal, political, and social pro-gress
since the Civil War ended 153 years
ago, civil rights are on ongoing nego-tiation
and our work is nowhere near
completion.
Benita Heiskanen is Director of the John
Morton Center for North American Studies at
the University of Turku. Heiskanen’s areas of
interest include the U.S.-Mexico border re-gion,
USA-Cuba relations, race & ethnicity in
the United States, popular culture, and sport.
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