The Politics of Obama's Skin Color

A new study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences found that voters were more likely to perceive a biracial candidate as having lighter skin when they agreed with him and darker skin when they didn't support him.

Study participants were shown both lightened and darkened photographs of President Barack Obama from the 2008 election. While liberals chose artificially lightened images of Obama as more representative, conservatives chose the exaggerated, darkened ones. Just under 10% of the participants of the study were African-American.

Hillary Clinton's campaign was accused of altering Obama's image for a video ads to make him blacker during the 2008 election. Images of OJ Simpson were also darkened during his trial.