President Barack Obama used the n-word to make a point about the
reality of racism in America during an interview released yesterday with
comedian Marc Maron.
Obama weighed in for the podcast "WTF with Marc Maron" on the
national debate on race relations and gun control that has been
reignited after the Charleston shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church.
Obama said that progress on race relations has been made, citing his
own experience as a young man who was born to a white mother and an
African father.
"I always tell young people, in particular, do not say that nothing
has changed when it comes to race in America, unless you've lived
through being a black man in the 1950s or '60s or '70s. It is
incontrovertible that race relations have improved significantly during
my lifetime and yours," Obama said.
But he added that "the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination"
exists in institutions and casts "a long shadow and that's still part of
our DNA that's passed on."
Obama used the N-word and explained that the absence of racist language does not mean that racism doesn't exist.
"Racism, we are not cured of it. And it's not just a matter of it not
being polite to say nigger in public," Obama 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."
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