Obama's Discussion of Racial Policies and Citizens’ Racial Resentment in the Experimental Setting

Did President Barak Obama's discussion of racial policies lead to a public backlash and invoke sentiments of racial resentment? Previous studies of citizens’ racial attitudes suggest that the American public tends to have an unfavorable view of race-specific policies that provide advantages and unique resources to minorities. Moreover, these programs invoke sentiments of racial resentment. However, I argue that when the president leads on racial issues by implementing and discussing race-specific policies, he can guide perceptions on race in the direction of the public policy that was enacted. Through original experiments, I find strong support for this claim. I conclude with a discussion of the implications this work has for rhetorical approaches presidents take to address inequality from the Oval Office.