President Barack Obama on Monday night said racism today is “rarely the overt Klansman-style racism and typically has more to do” with discrimination based on race, including unconscious biases.
In an exit interview of sorts with The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah, Obama was asked a personal question about how he has managed to navigate questions about race, both as an individual of a mixed racial background and as the president.
“In and around race, when you are a person who has a platform, when you are in a space where you are engaging with people, it is often difficult to navigate and skirt that line between speaking your mind and sharing your true opinions on race, whilst at the same time not being seen to alienate some of the people you are talking to because if you are a white person who’s speaking about race, then you are just a person who is interested in race. If you are a person of color who’s speaking about it, then it’s like, ‘Oh, the Black thing’s starting again,'” Noah said in the prelude to his question, to which Obama chuckled in agreement. “How did you navigate that through your two terms”
