Former President Barack Obama launched an eight-episode podcast series called “Renegades: Born in the USA” with 71-year-old rock legend Bruce Springsteen in a partnership with Spotify. During the second episode of the podcast, Obama spoke about race relations and said he believes reparations to black people were warranted, but that he could not do it during his presidency because he would have been met with “white resistance.” The comments were made while they were talking about “unity.” Typical.
Springsteen asked Obama how the same nation that sent the man to the moon also had Jim Crow laws. Obama responded by saying the nation never went through a “true reckoning” and that people just buried a huge part of their experiences and citizenry in their minds. He said a significant amount of power and wealth in this country was “built on the backs of slaves” and that the systematic oppression and discrimination of black Americans still continue under Jim Crow.
The former president appears to have changed his position on reparations over the years. During Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, he argued that the best reparations we can provide are “good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed.” Now, he claims that a reparations proposal didn’t make its way through the lawmaking process during his presidency due to “white resistance and resentment.”
“And what I saw during my presidency was the politics of White resistance and resentment. The talk of ‘welfare queens’ and the talk of the ‘undeserving’ poor. And the backlash against affirmative action. And what I saw during my presidency was the politics of White resistance and resentment. The talk of ‘welfare queens’ and the talk of the ‘undeserving’ poor. And the backlash against affirmative action,” Obama said.
Obama recognized that his comment was pretty racist and starting walking back on it, saying it is perfectly understandable why “working-class white folks” and “middle-class white folks” who are having trouble paying their bills wouldn’t be thrilled about a massive program that is designated to deal with the past. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll last summer, only 1 in 5 respondents agreed that the U.S government should use taxpayer money to pay “damages” to descendants of enslaved people in the United States.
Conservative broadcaster and author Larry Elder called out the former president on “Fox & Friends” for his racist comment and defined reparations as “the extraction of money from people who were never slave owners to be given to people who were never slaves.”
“Four years ago, Obama pretty much said that, he said it would be impractical, divisive and what about the people who felt they never had anything to do with slaves. Fast-forward, now he tells Bruce Springsteen that reparations are justified — and they are justified to the slaves themselves. Slavery ended over a century and a half ago. Good luck finding slaves right now and their legal owners. It is absolutely ridiculous,” Elder said.
Elder also points out how bizarre it is for Obama to be dragging divisive issues that four years ago he found dumb. “This is a biracial man whose dad is from Kenya, mom is from Kansas, her family owned slaves … Does Obama cut a check or does he get a check?” He asked.
Just another attempt by Democrats to play the “white guilt card” and use taxpayers’ money for concepts that are clearly racist and unconstitutional.
