Former President Barack Obama recently shared in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper that “certain right-wing media venues” are monetizing fear and resentment among White Americans and that most of the country has not “fully reconciled with our history,” adding that it can be a hard thing to hear for White Americans. Cooper had asked Obama if he thought he was telling the “story of race in America” as the nation’s first Black president.
Obama said they were witnessing a changing America, in which the media venues were doing “everything they can” to give people a sense that their way of life is threatened and that people are trying to take advantage of them. While right-wing media venues talk about reopening the country and getting kids back to school, the radical left wants everything divisive and distanced. Who’s really monetizing off the fear and resentment here?
“You can be proud of this country and its traditions and its history and our forefathers … and it’s also true that this terrible stuff happened and the vestiges of that linger and continue. And the truth is that when I try to tell the story, oftentimes my political opponents would deliberately not only block that story but try to exploit it for their own political gain,” Obama said, sharing his comments
Obama mentioned Jeremiah Wright, a reverend at Trinity United Church of Christ where he went to church. The reverend had been captured on a video giving a sermon to Black people about the country’s historic mistreatment, even saying “God damn America” as part of a sermon. While he acknowledged that the comment was inappropriate, Obama refused to condemn Wright or distance himself from those kinds of comments. So much for the radical left’s ‘cancel culture.’ They only cancel the things they don’t like to hear.
The former president also mentioned the incident regarding Henry Louis Gates Jr, a Black Harvard professor who was arrested in his home for disorderly conduct by a white policeman. Obama immediately jumped on the police for their actions and said that the police acted “stupidly” in the case. He later invited Gates and the officer to the White House for a meeting. Fox News Glenn Beck, at the time, said Obama had exposed himself as a person with a “deep-seated hatred for White people or the White culture.”
Obama, however, said it should’ve been a “minor, trivial incident” more than anything else during his presidency.
Obama also talked about all of the public policy debates taking place right now and said that the Republican Party should be engaged in debates around the economy and climate change instead of things like Critical Race Theory, which he said was “not a threat” to our republic.
But Republicans disagree and have proposed bills across the country to limit how teachers discuss race in the classrooms. CRT leaves no room for meaningful discourse and presents a singular lens through which race is a “social construct” enforced by those in power. It does not seek equality or justice but instead categorizes people as the oppressed or an oppressor.
Arguably, Democrats haven’t outlined any specific policies or debates on how they would like to change America. They continue to create divisions and a crisis among the people. It’s obvious how they want America to be. President Joe Biden’s plan to “Build Back Better” first requires them to destroy what they can.
