President Barack Obama used the N-word while discussing racism in America on comedian Marc Maron’s "WTF" podcast last week in a move eliciting strong reactions online.
“The legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives, you know, that casts a long shadow, and that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on.
We’re not cured of it,” Obama said, according to Politico. “It’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say ‘n*****’ 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 two, 300 years prior.”
The president’s use of the slur evoked a mixed Twitter reaction. Some Americans felt Obama had reclaimed the word, while others thought he was exercising a double standard, and even more saw nothing unique about the president’s choice of words.
Obama also addressed the Newtown massacre and the more recent Charleston church shooting, saying that “gun sales shot up, and ammunition shot up. And each time that these events occur, ironically, gun manufacturers make out like bandits. Partially because of this fear that the federal government and the black helicopters are all coming to get your guns.”
However, Obama also told Maron that he does not “foresee any legislative action being taken in this Congress” because “the grip of the NRA on Congress is extremely strong.”
“Is there a way of accommodating that legitimate set of traditions with some common-sense stuff that prevents a 21-year-old who is angry about something, or confused about something, or is racist, or is, you know, deranged from going into a gun store and suddenly is packing and can do enormous harm?,” Obama asked.
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