William as you correctly note, having a black president was a shock to the system and certainly caused a backlash.

Still let me offer a counter narrative from the white guy supporter in the bleacher seats: To us Obama was mostly not a black president. I mean sure he was black and that was cool. But it almost always seemed that he was an American president first, not a black American president first.

I think he got a lot of our votes because it seemed that he was above race, and was going to focus on issues broadly, not on black issues specifically.

Those who were not happy with a black president certainly never saw it that way, but i think for the majority white population who did vote him in, that is exactly how we saw it.

(And I think he mostly lived up to that promise in his presidency. I think it is why today he is the undisputed statesman of the Democratic party.)