On Tuesday (local time), former US President Barack Obama said he once broke the nose of a schoolmate after a then-friend used a racial slur during a locker room fight. According to The Hill, in an episode of his Spotify podcast with Bruce Springsteen, “Renegades,” released on Monday, the 44th US president shared the experience (local time).
“Listen, when I was in school, I had a friend. We played basketball together,” said Obama during a wide-ranging race conversation with the “Born in the USA” vocalist.
The first black president of the country added with a laugh, “And I remember I popped him in the face and broke his nose. And we were in the locker room.”
Springsteen remarked, “Well done,”
I explained to him, I explained to him, I said, ‘Don’t you ever call me something like that,’ I said, ‘Don’t you ever call me something like that,’ It’s believed to be the first time the former president has talked about the incident publicly, The Hill reported.
He said that hurling racial slurs comes down to “an assertion of status over the other.”
“‘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?'” said Obama to Springsteen. “‘I’m not you.'”
The basic psychology that then becomes institutionalised is used to justify dehumanising someone, using’em, cheatin’ ’em, stealin’ from’em, killin” em, raping
The continuing impacts of racism on American society, both in-office and since leaving it, have been discussed repeatedly by Obama.
In a 2015 interview, he evoked a racial slur to warn that America is not “cured” of racism. Obama said in his remarks after a deadly shooting at a historically black church in South Carolina, “It’s not just a matter of not being polite to say [the N-word] in public, The Hill reported.”
That’s not the measure of whether or not there is still racism. It’s not just an issue of overt discrimination. Societies don’t erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years before, overnight, completely,’ he added.
Renegades: is an eight-episode featuring the dynamic duo, who have been friends for over a decade. The podcast on Spotify is entitled ‘Renegades: Born in the USA.’
