Majority of Americans Believe Obama Mixed-Race, Not Black

According to a new Pew Research Center study called “The Next America,” the majority of Americans do not identify Barack Obama as black, but rather see his identity as mixed race. 52% of Americans believe Obama is of mixed-race descent. A more detailed breakdown reveals 53% of whites in America believe Obama is of mixed-raced descent and 61% of Hispanics agree. That figure drops to 34% among blacks, with 55% of blacks seeing Obama as black.

The perspective that Obama is of mixed race descent, as his father was black and his mother white, may be more prevalent now than it used to be simply because the makeup of the country is changing, and mixed-race marriages are more common now than they were in the past. According to a Pew Research Center study in 2012, the percentage of mixed race marriages was at an all-time high: 4.8 million, or 1 in 12 marriages.

The perspective that once was prevalent, that a person with one drop of blood in their ancestry would be considered black, seems to have become obsolete as mixed-race marriages have proliferated.