Barack Obama's
use of the N-word during an interview about race was done for shock value by a president with a "ghetto mentality," says Michael Meyers, president of the New York Civil Rights Coalition.
"He has a ghetto mentality. He wants headlines, he wants to shock people," Meyers said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
"And at some point, he'll be urging us to ban the word because he already used it, so everybody else can't use it because, 'whoa, only I can use it, I'm Barack Obama.'"
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Meyers, who is also a New York Daily News columnist, is not impressed by how Obama has handled the murders of nine African Americans by a white racist in a South Carolina church last week.
"He demeans the office, he demeans the presidency. It's a disgraceful, disgraceful performance on his part," Meyers said.
"He lives in the past, before he was born. America is not what Dylann Roof represents, that is, racial hatred. That's not America.
"The president should be bigger than this, broader than this, but he's not. He is full of racial rhetoric, racial division, he doesn't unite, he's a polarizing figure, and thank goodness, in less than two years this nightmare of a presidency will be done with."
In an interview with comedian Marc Maron, the commander-in-chief used the N-word as he said he believes the United States has not overcome its history of racism.
"Racism, we are not cured of it. And it's not just a matter of it not being polite to say [the N-word] in public. That's not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don't, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior," Obama said.
Meyers told Steve Malzberg he objects to Obama's use of the word.
"The man is ignorant. The man is a nightmare of a president. He demeans the presidency.... I don't understand how any president of the United States could … start talking about [the N-word] this and [the N-word] that," he said.
"In my own community, they have an expression, and I'll be nice on your air. Negro, please," he said.
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