Research On The American Race Relations

The United States acts as a gathering place for immigrants and their descendants in the long history, and the relations between all races are quite complex, in which the concept of racial discrimination is deeply rooted. The black and other minority groups have been treated unequally in the past two hundred years. After long and unremitting efforts, the status for them has been improved to some extent, however, racial discrimination still remains as one of the stubborn ills of American society.The2008U.S. presidential election came to an end, and the African-American presidential candidate Barack Obama emerged as the first nonwhite president in American history, which drew a high degree of domestic and international attention. The African-American candidate with the "hope" and "change" as his campaign slogan, continued to exceed people's expectations, and refreshed new records of U.S. political election in a row, which presented a real challenge to the traditional election pattern. The cyclone image caused by Barack Obama in more than two years in the political arena can be called as the "Obama phenomenon". This new political and cultural phenomenon has some universal characteristics, but its uniqueness appears to be more important, which marks the beginning of the stage of a new generation of African American political leaders participating in the U.S. political arena. The election of Barack Obama has a very important significance for the ethnic minorities from the perspective of long-term struggle of them. People especially in America have a great expectation for him, and many experts and scholars both at home and abroad hold the view that his election is a huge breakthrough in dealing with race relations in American society. But we need to conduct a rational analysis, even though institutional racism has been rejected, however, there are still various kinds of hidden racism in real life.Based on the research of the "Obama phenomenon" both at home and abroad and combined with the theory of hidden racism, the author intends to present a rational analysis of the cause and the essence of the "Obama phenomenon".After examining the current situation of the American race relations with details, the author comes to a conclusion that Obama's election is of some significance for improving the situation of race relations, however, the minority groups especially African Americans still can not be treated equally in all respect. The success of Barack Obama and the final victory for the end of racial discrimination does not exist a direct causal connection.The framework of this thesis is as follows:the first chapter is the introduction part; The second chapter introduces the concept of racism and its related theories; The third Chapter presents a concise analysis of the theories of the US race relations and the problems that the American minority ethnic groups faced from historical perspective; Chapter IV appears as a core chapter, focusing on the causes and essence of "Obama phenomenon"; Chapter V analyzes the complexity of race relations in the United States based on the real situation of the African Americans after Obama's election; And the last part comes to the conclusion:All in all, the emergence of the "Obama phenomenon" is the result of many factors put together, which in part improved the situation of race relations in the United States, however, there is no direct causal connection, and the eventual elimination of racial discrimination in the United States will take quite a long time.