Barack Obama is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009–2017. He was the first Black person elected to the office. While his campaign messaging of hope and resilience won over many voters who were frightened and demoralized by a terrible financial crisis, his election resulted in many members of the United States’ dominant caste trying to undermine Obama’s presidency with racist smear campaigns. At the same time, many people declared that his very ascendance to the presidency marked the beginning of a “post-racial” society where neither race nor caste defined what a person could achieve in life. Yet Wilkerson believes that such claims ignored the dominant caste’s anger that a Black man was president.