Race, Racial Cultural Memory and Multicultural Curriculum in an Obama "post-Racial" U.s

Since the 2008 election of President Obama, the first U.S. African American president, social critics suggest the country has entered a "post racial" era. This perspective assumes that race no longer plays a role in societal relations in the U.S. This conceptual paper starts from this claim and explores how race operates in U.S. social practice and discourse and in official K-12 school curriculum/knowledge. I argue that universities and colleges-particularly those working in the area of teacher education-face the challenge of providing students with more targeted critical sociocultural knowledge, or what I call racial cultural memory, about race.