Former President Barack Obama accused “certain right-wing media venues” of monetizing and stoking fears of white people and suggested it’s “hard” for white people to talk about racism.
During a Monday interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Obama was asked if he “told the story of race in America” enough while he was president for eight years.
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“Yeah, well, look, I tried,” Obama responded. “I think I told a lot of stories. You take a look at the speeches I gave in Selma and the speech I gave during the campaign about Rev. Wright and that episode, and each and every time, I tried to describe why it is that we are still not fully reconciled with our history, but the fact is that it is a hard thing to hear. It’s hard for the majority in this country of white Americans to recognize that, look, you can be proud of this country and its traditions and history and our forefathers, and yet, it’s also true that this terrible stuff happened and that, you know, that lingers and continues.”
Obama then pointed the finger at conservative news outlets and accused them of scaring white people into thinking their way of life will be threatened by demographic changes.
“I also think that there are certain right-wing media venues, for example, that monetize and capitalize on stoking the fear and resentment of a white population that is witnessing a changing America and seeing demographic changes. And do 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,” the former president said.
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Obama also criticized the Republican Party for prioritizing the wrong issues and dismissed the idea that critical race theory was a problem facing the United States.
“We’re seeing it right now … where you would think, with all the public policy debates that are taking place right now, that the Republican Party would be engaged in a significant debate about how are we going to deal with the economy and what are we going to do about climate change and what are we going to do about,” Obama said. “Lo and behold, the single most important issue to them apparently right now is critical race theory. Who knew that that was the threat to our republic?”
