The Post-Racial Mystique

Despite claims from

pundits and politicians that we now live in a post-racial America, people seem

to keep finding ways to talk about race—from celebrations of the inauguration

of the first Black president to resurgent debates about police

profiling, race and racism remain salient features of our world. When faced

with fervent anti-immigration sentiments, record incarceration rates of Blacks and

Latinos, and deepening socio-economic disparities, a new question has erupted

in the last decade: What does being post-racial mean?

The Post-Racial Mystique explores

how a variety of media—the news, network television, and online, independent media—debate,

define and deploy the term “post-racial” in their representations of American

politics and society. Using examples from both mainstream and niche media—from prime-time television series to specialty Christian media and audience

interactions on social media—Catherine Squires draws upon a variety of

disciplines including communication studies, sociology, political science, and

cultural studies in order to understand emergent strategies for framing

post-racial America. She reveals the ways in which media texts cast U.S.

history, re-imagine interpersonal relationships, employ statistics, and

inventively redeploy other identity categories in a quest to formulate

different ways of responding to race.