*Don’t expect an apology from President Barack Obama regarding him using the N-word during a recent podcast.
In fact, the commander-in-chief is glad he said it. And the reaction has been widespread, according to Politico.com, which noted that an even bigger discussion on racism has started because of Obama’s choice of words.
“Aides said that walking into Marc Maron’s garage to tape a podcast on Friday, Obama knew he’d probably get asked about race, and he knew roughly what he wanted to say. When the taping ended, he could guess that most people would focus on the president of the United States, the nation’s first black president, using the most racially charged word in the English language,” Politico reports while noting how Obama’s use of the N-word dominated news coverage on Monday.
“The reaction, in Obama’s mind, is a good thing. Like a national experiment in abstract expressionism, the response it’s generated has shown him he was right in the point he was making about what’s wrong with how the country talks about race.”
At the center of the renewed N-word discussion is the following comment Obama made regarding race in America:
“Racism: We’re not cured of it,” Obama told Maron. “It’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say nigger in public, 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 erase everything that happened two to 300 years earlier.”
In the aftermath of the podcast, aides tell Politico that Obama is glad the language he used “got a whole lot more people talking about what he had to say on race than they would have been otherwise — even if some of that reaction looks to the White House to be dumb and petty and shortsighted.”
“Is the reaction all good? No, but that’s never the goal,” Valerie Jarrett, an Obama senior adviser and friend who was in the room for the interview, told Politico. “It was a really important point for people to hear. I think he’s glad that he said it. And he is encouraged that people were able to hear his broader message.”
For the Rev. Al Sharpton, the main problem lies with those who act like Obama saying the N-word was the real issue instead of taking in the bigger picture, which he feels involves racism going underground in the sense that its more subtle in people’s attitudes and ideas.
“Some of the reaction is racist. Because they’re discussing this like it’s something that shouldn’t be discussed, which in itself is biased,” Sharpton said.
After 6 ½ years of drama over everything from his birth certificate to his pastor Jeremiah Wright to nooses tweeted at him when he opened his @POTUS Twitter account, the reaction to his use of the N-word doesn’t surprise Obama, observed Politico.
“This is what happens when the country’s first black president makes some of his most extensive, unguarded comments about race: The focus is on a single word of a two-minute answer,” the site stated.
Politico’s commentary goes on to highlight the focus of the press on the N-word at White House’s daily news briefing on Monday instead of what Obama was actually talking about during the podcast.
“The fact that people are outraged that he used the word is also significant because it demonstrates in many instances exactly what the president was saying,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus shared with the site. “There are a lot of other words that people use that sound perfectly acceptable that send dangerous racist signals.”
For more of Politico’s insight into the uproar over Obama’s use of the N-word, click here.
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