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Thoughts on an Obama Win, or Loss

September 15, 2008

Writing in Sunday’s Washington Post, Klein professor of law Randall Kennedy argues that Barack Obama’s nomination as a major-party candidate is a milestone in itself—it “has opened the public mind to the idea of a black president and made that idea broadly attractive,” he writes.

But Kennedy also believes an Obama loss is a distinct possibility, due at least in part to lingering prejudice. He writes:

If Obama loses, I personally will feel disappointed, frustrated, hurt. I’ll conclude that a fabulous opportunity has been lost. I’ll believe that American voters have made a huge mistake. And I’ll think that an important ingredient of their error is racial prejudice—not the hateful, snarling, open bigotry that terrorized my parents in their youth, but rather a vague, sophisticated, low-key prejudice that is chameleonlike in its ability to adapt to new surroundings and to hide even from those firmly in its grip.

Read more about Kennedy’s work and, specifically, his latest book, Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal, in this article from the November-December 2007 issue of Harvard Magazine.