If the election of President Obama hasn't changed racial attitudes, what will?
That was the question that interested the audience this weekend in Goodson Chapel during the "Still Two Nations? The Resilience of the Color Line" conference sponsored by Duke's Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Gender in the Social Sciences.
Pointing to recent research, race scholars from the fields of politics, sociology, health and gender concluded that despite the election of the country's first African American president, significant disparities between whites, blacks, Asians and Latinos have not decreased. In fact, income and wealth disparities have increased. Some said Obama's election as the first African American may do harm in giving the illusion of racial progress.
Vincent Hutchings of the University of Michigan kicked off the conference with data indicating that racial attitudes have hardly changed in the past 20 years, since the 1988 election. Hutchings said that, contrary to belief, white support for Obama was not historically high in the 2008 election. He attributed Obama's victory to Latinos shifting support from Bush in 2004 to Obama in 2008.
The racial divide, Hutchings said, is "as wide as it's ever been."
Ben Reese, Duke's vice president of institutional equity, asked about the trend toward more young people choosing "multi" or "other" on college applications. Some see the trend as indicative of a "post-racial America," where people are less likely to embrace stereotypes.
"There are social structures that reinforce [racial] categories," said Jane Junn of Rutgers. "If pressed, I'd say the four categories - [black, white, Latino and Asian] - will hold strong for some time."
If Obama did change anything in America, at least one panelist said the divide was across age. North Carolina representative Ty Harrell (D) of Wake County said the quick pace of news and multiple networks helped create a groundswell of enthusiasm among university-age voters.
"Folk would be wise to see that these young people got a taste of victory" when Obama won the election, Harrell said. "They want to be do-ers, to volunteer their time and to have their fingerprint on directional change."