{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/121488"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/121488","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"The post-racial imaginary: Visual logics of race in the Obama and Trump eras","abstract":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2023-12-04 without embargo terms","abstract_html":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2023-12-04 without embargo terms","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["DeVinney, Daniel James"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Communication","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Finnegan, Cara A.","O'Gorman, Ned","Valdivia, Angharad N.","Cisneros, Josue D."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2023,"date_issued":"2023-08","date_published":"2023-08","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:57Z","subjects":["Humanae Project","National Geographic","Rhetoric","Visual Rhetoric","Post-racial","Imaginary","Racial Rhetorical Criticism","Graphic Design","Photography","Corporate Memphis"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["Copyright 2023 Daniel DeVinney"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121488","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Finnegan, Cara A.","O'Gorman, Ned","Valdivia, Angharad N.","Cisneros, Josue D."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["DeVinney, Daniel James"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2023-08","2023-07-11"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Communication"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Humanae Project","National Geographic","Rhetoric","Visual Rhetoric","Post-racial","Imaginary","Racial Rhetorical Criticism","Graphic Design","Photography","Corporate Memphis"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2023 Daniel DeVinney"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121488"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2023-12-04 without embargo terms","The student, Daniel DeVinney, accepted the attached license on 2023-07-10 at 13:15.","The student, Daniel DeVinney, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2023-07-10 at 13:17.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2023-07-11 at 09:22.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #19591 on 2023-12-04 at 17:01:11","This dissertation examines the visual culture of what I term the post-racial imaginary during the Obama and Trump presidencies. This period did not move society beyond race, but instead was a time in which the social knowledge of race was in flux, racial anxieties were high, and power struggles over the meaning of race were constant. My project explores these uncertainties by analyzing images that visualized race in the public sphere from 2008 to 2020. I argue that the post-racial imaginary directs viewers’ eyes in particular ways. These visual logics ask us to look some places and not others, to see some features and ignore others, to recognize some bodies and disregard others. In doing so, the post-racial imaginary laid the rhetorical grounds for new forms of racism, bolstered White supremacy, and disempowered people of color. This project identifies three post-racial visual logics that encouraged viewers to reimagine the idea of race. First, I offer the term colorwashing to describe a practice in graphic design that changes realistic skin colors to non-realistic skin colors such as purple, blue, orange, and green. I analyze the use of this practice in Big Tech aesthetics and demonstrate how these designs communicate commitments to diversity and inclusion without having to show race. Second, I identify a practice I call hyper-categorized color, which argues that because skin tones don’t match the traditional racial color categories of Black, White, Yellow, and Red, society can dispense with racial categories. I examine this project in a photographic project called Humanae which asked people to find their “true colors” in the Pantone Matching System. Third, I track a visual genealogy of what I call futureface images, which appear throughout U.S. visual culture to imagine what future members of the nation will look like. I examine a set of National Geographic photographs of mixed-race individuals who, in circulation online, became symbols of a post-racial future. I argue that each of these post-racial visual logics asks viewers to reimagine race in ways that protects Whiteness and diminishes people of color. Throughout this project I explicate White anxieties over race in the post-racial era, particularly under a Black president. I demonstrate how each of these visual logics makes invisible the privileges and history of Whiteness while erasing, softening, or altering Blackness. This project also explores the violent White anxieties that interpreted a post-racial society as a post-White society. In this way, this dissertation offers insights into the evolution of the post-racial myth, the backlashes against it, and how post-racial ideas fueled the rise of Donald Trump. Overall, this project demonstrates the strange contradictions of post-racialism and how its accompanying visual culture asked people to see race in the Obama and Trump eras."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The post-racial imaginary: Visual logics of race in the Obama and Trump eras"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Finnegan, Cara A.","O'Gorman, Ned","Valdivia, Angharad N.","Cisneros, Josue D."],"dc:creator":["DeVinney, Daniel James"],"dc:date":["2023-08","2023-07-11"],"dc:description":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2023-12-04 without embargo terms","The student, Daniel DeVinney, accepted the attached license on 2023-07-10 at 13:15.","The student, Daniel DeVinney, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2023-07-10 at 13:17.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2023-07-11 at 09:22.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #19591 on 2023-12-04 at 17:01:11","This dissertation examines the visual culture of what I term the post-racial imaginary during the Obama and Trump presidencies. This period did not move society beyond race, but instead was a time in which the social knowledge of race was in flux, racial anxieties were high, and power struggles over the meaning of race were constant. My project explores these uncertainties by analyzing images that visualized race in the public sphere from 2008 to 2020. I argue that the post-racial imaginary directs viewers’ eyes in particular ways. These visual logics ask us to look some places and not others, to see some features and ignore others, to recognize some bodies and disregard others. In doing so, the post-racial imaginary laid the rhetorical grounds for new forms of racism, bolstered White supremacy, and disempowered people of color. This project identifies three post-racial visual logics that encouraged viewers to reimagine the idea of race. First, I offer the term colorwashing to describe a practice in graphic design that changes realistic skin colors to non-realistic skin colors such as purple, blue, orange, and green. I analyze the use of this practice in Big Tech aesthetics and demonstrate how these designs communicate commitments to diversity and inclusion without having to show race. Second, I identify a practice I call hyper-categorized color, which argues that because skin tones don’t match the traditional racial color categories of Black, White, Yellow, and Red, society can dispense with racial categories. I examine this project in a photographic project called Humanae which asked people to find their “true colors” in the Pantone Matching System. Third, I track a visual genealogy of what I call futureface images, which appear throughout U.S. visual culture to imagine what future members of the nation will look like. I examine a set of National Geographic photographs of mixed-race individuals who, in circulation online, became symbols of a post-racial future. I argue that each of these post-racial visual logics asks viewers to reimagine race in ways that protects Whiteness and diminishes people of color. Throughout this project I explicate White anxieties over race in the post-racial era, particularly under a Black president. I demonstrate how each of these visual logics makes invisible the privileges and history of Whiteness while erasing, softening, or altering Blackness. This project also explores the violent White anxieties that interpreted a post-racial society as a post-White society. In this way, this dissertation offers insights into the evolution of the post-racial myth, the backlashes against it, and how post-racial ideas fueled the rise of Donald Trump. Overall, this project demonstrates the strange contradictions of post-racialism and how its accompanying visual culture asked people to see race in the Obama and Trump eras."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121488"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2023 Daniel DeVinney"],"dc:subject":["Humanae Project","National Geographic","Rhetoric","Visual Rhetoric","Post-racial","Imaginary","Racial Rhetorical Criticism","Graphic Design","Photography","Corporate Memphis"],"dc:title":["The post-racial imaginary: Visual logics of race in the Obama and Trump eras"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Communication"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:57Z"}