In the second episode of his newly released Renegades: Born in the USA podcast with Bruce Springsteen, Barack Obama is opening up about his experiences with racism during his childhood. The former president recalled when he got into a fight with a former friend who called him a racial slur.
“Listen, when I was in school, I had a friend. We played basketball together,” he began. “And one time we got into a fight, and he called me a c**n. Now, first of all, ain’t no c**ns in Hawaii, right? It’s one of those things where he might not even have known what a c**n was. What he knew was, ‘I can hurt you by saying this.’”
Apparently, our former president was not one for the games; he said, “I remember I popped him in the face and broke his nose, and we were in the locker room.” He told Springsteen, “I explained to him — I said, ‘Don’t you ever call me something like that. I may be poor. I may be ignorant. I may be mean. I may be ugly. I may not like myself. I may be unhappy, but you know what I’m not? I’m not you.’”
Obama was not one to shy away from discussing race. He wrote an essay on Medium in June last year about how to enact change amid protests over George Floyd’s death.
“I recognize that these past few months have been hard and dispiriting — that the fear, sorrow, uncertainty, and hardship of a pandemic have been compounded by tragic reminders that prejudice and inequality still shape so much of American life,” Obama wrote. “But watching the heightened activism of young people in recent weeks, of every race and every station, makes me hopeful. If, going forward, we can channel our justifiable anger into peaceful, sustained, and effective action, then this moment can be a real turning point in our nation’s long journey to live up to our highest ideals.”
He noted that “‘change will be “up to a new generation” he added that history could provide “basic lessons” that are worth remembering.'”
