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Racism In Obama !, By David Sedaris

1134 Words5 Pages

This essay named Obama!!! Written by the American author and comedian David Sedaris, casts light on the blurred line between racism and being race conscious, stereotypes and prejudges, and his experience with it on his book tour around Europe at the time of president Obama’s election. Sedaris also tries to prove how despite the general opinion, Europe might actually be more racist than the United States of America.
Repeatedly throughout the essay, Sedaris talks about the Europeans thinly veiled prejudice against him, as a white American male. Though, it is considered rude for him to ask them about their political views, they don not hesitate to ask him about his thoughts on Obama, and the possibility that he could be the very first black president. Sedaris realizes that his opinion will speak for the rest of America in their eyes, thus when he tries to fight the stereotype and admits he is in fact rooting for Obama, they tell him that the rest of America are too racist to ever elect a black man. (Everyone was an expert and what they all knew was this: Americans are racist. P. 8 out of 10 and “Americans are afraid of anything different” P. 9 out of 10) though, the former is written with heavy sarcasm, the point with that sentence remains the same as the latter. On the other hand, it is not outrageously absurd to have such thoughts on Americans, since the racial segregation ended approximately 60 years ago and lingers subtly in some aspects of their society.
He mentions his

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