Obama uses 'N-word' while describing race in America
By Susan Crabtree | June 22, 2015 | 11:28 am
President Obama said the United States is still struggling with racism decades after the civil rights movement and underscored the point by using the "N-word." (AP Photo)
President Obama said the United States is still struggling with racism decades after the civil rights movement and underscored the point by using the "N-word."
"Racism – we're not cured of it," the president said in a wide-ranging interview Friday with a popular California-based podcaster that aired Monday morning, according to a report in CBS News.
"And it's not just a matter of it not being polite to say bleep in public," he said. "That's not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don't, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior."
The president delved into the topic of race while discussing the massacre of nine black parishioners in Charleston, S.C., church by Dylann Roof, 21-year-old white man who left a racist manifesto behind.
While he said it is "incontrovertible" and "a fact" that the nation has made great strides in its attitudes about race since he was born to a white mother and a black father, Obama said the country is still grappling with the legacy of slavery, which "casts a long shadow and that's still part of our DNA that's passed on."
He also lamented the fact that during his presidency there have been so many senseless shootings and decried "the grip of the NRA on Congress" that has prevented more gun control measures from passing – even after 20 children and six educators were gunned down in Newtown, Conn., in 2012.
"I will tell you, right after Sandy Hook, Newtown, when 20 6-year-olds are gunned down, and Congress literally does nothing – yes, that's the closest I came to feeling disgusted," he said. "I was pretty disgusted."
Obama said the challenge for America is to find a way to respect gun rights, but prevent people like Roof from getting a gun so easily.
"Part of my argument is that it's important for folks to understand how hunting and sportsmanship around firearms is really important for a lot of people…it's part of how they grew up, the bonding they had with their dad," he said. "It invokes all kinds of memories and traditions and I think you have to be respectful of that."
"The question is: Is there a way of accommodating that legitimate set of traditions with some commonsense stuff that prevents a 21 year old, who is angry about something or confused about something or is racist or deranged from going into a gun store and suddenly is packing and can do enormous harm," he said. "That is something that we've never come to terms with."
He used an episode in Australia's history as an example for America. When there was a mass killing in Tasmania roughly 25 years ago, Obama said it was so "shocking to the system" that the country decided to change its gun laws.
But in the United States, after several recent tragic shootings, guns and ammunition sales have gone up because people are fearful that the government is going to start restricting that they can buy. He described that feeling as a "fear that the federal government and the black helicopters are going to come get your guns."
Unfortunately, he said, he doesn't foresee any real congressional action, until "the American people feels a sufficient sense of urgency and they say to themselves this is something that needs to change, and we're going to change it."
When it comes to gridlock in Washington, he said he feels like some of those who voted for him may be disappointed because you can't shift the needle "50 degrees" but he noted that he has worked to shift it where he can and, just like in ship navigation, sometimes even a "two-degree" change now can result in a completely different place where you end up 10 years down the road.
Obama made the comments in a wide-ranging and unconventional interview with comedian Marc Maron in his garage studio in his Highland Park, Calif., home near Pasadena, just down the street where the president spent two years at Occidental College before transferring to Columbia University in New York City.
Obama sat down with Maron Friday to tape the interview for his popular "WTF" pod-cast, which regular hits No. 1 on iTunes for comedy. It was posted early Monday morning.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/obama-uses-n-word-while-describing-race-in-america/article/2566736
