{"id":41523,"date":"2015-06-22T20:40:57","date_gmt":"2015-06-22T20:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=41523"},"modified":"2015-06-22T21:30:34","modified_gmt":"2015-06-22T21:30:34","slug":"u-s-not-cured-of-racism-obama-says-citing-slaverys-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=41523","title":{"rendered":"U.S. \u2018Not Cured\u2019 of Racism, Obama Says, Citing Slavery\u2019s Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. \u2018Not Cured\u2019 of Racism, Obama Says, Citing Slavery\u2019s Legacy<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2015-06-22<\/p>\n

Michael D. Shear<\/strong><\/a>, White House Correspondent<\/p>\n

Christine Hauser<\/a><\/strong>, Reporter<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Just days after nine black parishioners were killed in a South Carolina church<\/a>, President Obama<\/a> said the legacy of slavery still \u201ccasts a long shadow\u201d on American life, and he said that choosing not to say the word \u201cnigger\u201d in public does not eliminate racism from society.<\/p>\n

In a wide-ranging conversation about race, including his own upbringing as a man born to a black father and a white woman, Mr. Obama insisted that there was no question that race relations have improved in his lifetime. But he also said that racism was still deeply embedded in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe legacy of slavery, Jim Crow<\/a>, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives, you know, that casts a long shadow, and that\u2019s still part of our DNA that\u2019s passed on,\u201d the president said during an interview for Marc Maron\u2019s \u201cWTF\u201d podcast<\/a> that was released on Monday. \u201cWe\u2019re not cured of it. And it\u2019s not just a matter of it not being polite to say nigger in public. That\u2019s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cSocieties don\u2019t overnight completely erase everything that happened two to 300 years prior.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Obama has been more open about the issue of race during his second term, in part because of racially charged episodes in the last several years. The killing of Trayvon Martin<\/a>, a black teenager in Florida, and the protests that followed several police shootings have prompted the president to be more reflective about his own racial identity<\/a> and the nation\u2019s.<\/p>\n

In the hourlong interview, Mr. Obama talked about being a rebel during his youth and \u201ctrying on\u201d different kinds of personas as he struggled to understand what kind of African-American man he wanted to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying on a whole bunch of outfits,\u201d Mr. Obama said. \u201cHere\u2019s how I should act. Here\u2019s what it means to be cool. Here\u2019s what it means to be a man.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that a lot of his issues when he was young \u201crevolved around race\u201d but that his attitude changed around the time he turned 20. That is when he began to understand how to honor both sides of his racial identity, the president said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have to be one way to be both an African-American and also someone who affirms the white side of my family,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t have to push back from the love and values that my mom instilled in me.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. \u2018Not Cured\u2019 of Racism, Obama Says, Citing Slavery\u2019s Legacy The New York Times 2015-06-22 Michael D. Shear, White House Correspondent Christine Hauser, Reporter WASHINGTON \u2014 Just days after nine black parishioners were killed in a South Carolina church, President Obama said the legacy of slavery still \u201ccasts a long shadow\u201d on American life, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,459,8,26,6940,20],"tags":[20302,20300,15046,18646,2640,2327,20301],"class_list":["post-41523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-history","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-slavery","category-usa","tag-christine-hauser","tag-marc-maron","tag-michael-d-shear","tag-michael-shear","tag-new-york-times","tag-the-new-york-times","tag-wtf-with-marc-maron"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}