Barack Obama sat down with LeBron James and his business partner-friend Maverick Carter. The 44th president of the United States talks the importance of voting and how he wants the Black community to be able to express their anger amid ongoing Black struggle: “I want us to feel angry. I want a righteous anger.”
Oh, far gone are the days of the Obama administration, and today, there’s a new dawn in his former Vice President Joe Biden who is currently running against Donald Trump for the upcoming presidential election. Despite Obama no longer sitting in the Oval Office, the Obamas have yet to leave the fight toward fixing this country and all of its issues.
During a special episode of “The Shop: Uninterrupted,” Obama first opened up about how the youth is making a major impact in terms of speaking up against police brutality and racism in the States. “I think we all drew inspirations from the protests and activism that sprung up as a consequence of George Floyd’s murder. The awakening that I think we started to see,” said Obama. “And the young people who were out there including my daughters saying to the American people and saying to their government, ‘We expect better and the values that you taught us maybe you didn’t believe them but we do them. And we expect you to live up to them.’”
Obama says right now, one of the most important issues, is taking care of COVID-19. The number one priority has to be to get this disease under control. And we have had a government that has not had it under control and we can do a lot better than we’ve been doing.”
Black people have been oppressed, marginalized, murdered, beaten and taken advantage of for over 400 years. It’s a type of conditional pain that is passed onto the next generation of Black people that easily turns into a rage after a certain point and after so many Black deaths at the hands of the very country live you in and financially support. Obama says he wants Black people to express their feelings, even if it’s anger.
“I want us to feel angry. I want a righteous anger. The key is to be able to channel that anger in a way that’s effective. Whenever I’m talking young guys or young women in any setting. What I say to them is: “Don’t let the frustration turn into cynicism where then you think nothing can change. Because the truth is things have changed. It’s just that it’s an ongoing battle. It is not a one-shot deal where you just kinda climb the mountain and you just stay there,” said Obama. In that sense, it’s a little like an NBA championship. You get the win, you get the victory. And then you gotta start all over again. And the roots of racism in this country are deep. The psychology of it has lessened but it never fully went away.
He continued: “We could expect that each time we took two steps forward there was going to be some push-back. Because there are forces in our society that don’t want to give up status and privilege. They don’t want a level playing field. And by the way: that’s not just true for African Americans. There are a lot of folks who don’t want women to have opportunity because suddenly women are competing on a level playing field. It may turn out that, as Michelle likes to remind me, that women are at least as smart if not smarter than men. And can do the same job. So, we always knew there was going to be some push back. The key is to be able to sustain our spirits, our hope and our focus. And we vote, we get a win like the Voting Rights Act or the Civil Rights Act, we consolidate that power and then we go at it all over again to go after the next injustice.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvy9OWNGPgk
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