Posted on 12/19/2016 9:07:58 AM PST by TigerClaws
NPR’s Steve Inskeep and President Obama (NPR)
Regardless of what President-elect Donald Trump’s plans are for immigration, President Barack Obama says there will be “inevitable” changes to the demographics of the United States.
“If you stopped all immigration today, just by virtue of birth rates, this is going to be a browner country,” Obama told NPR’s Steve Inskeep in an interview that aired Monday. “And if we’re not thinking right now about how we make sure that next generation is getting a good education and are instilled with a common creed and the values that make America so special and are cared for and nurtured and loved the way every American child is treated, then we’re not going to be as successful.”
Obama said it’s natural for the nation to have “some growing pains” because of the substantial changes to the world during his eight years in office:
I started my presidency inheriting a massive crisis of proportions that we haven’t seen since the 1930s. It laid bare some long-term and troubling trends about globalization, and technology, and rising inequality, and the fragility of our financial systems, and the way in which middle-class folks felt they were getting squeezed. And the fact that the ladders of opportunity seem to be farther and fewer between for people who are trying to get out of poverty.
And throughout that process, we also then started seeing — because when the economy’s not doing well some other tensions get laid bare — changing attitudes about sexual orientation, and about race, and about the nature of families. And all of this has been amped up by the revolution in information, throwing through social media and the Internet. And so it’s a big dose. It’s been a lot of stuff that’s been coming at people really quickly, and it’s made folks anxious.
But Obama said the national conversation about race is “long overdue.”
“All these smartphones suddenly taking pictures are not documenting a suddenly worsening relationship between the African-American community and the police,” the president said. “They are recording what has been a long-standing tension and the sense on the part of police that they’re put in a very difficult situation of trying to manage law enforcement in poor communities where guns are easily accessible, the African-American community being rightly convinced that there is a long history of racial bias in our criminal justice system.
“And as painful as it is, that conversation is long overdue,” he continued. “So, my feeling is that if everybody takes a breath, and if we can structure a conversation that is less about how somebody else is trying to take advantage of me, and structure the conversation around how can we work together to solve problems that makes everybody better off, that America can emerge stronger. But that requires leadership. It requires citizenship. It requires all of us doing self-reflection at the same time as we’re fighting on behalf of the things that we care deeply about.”
Obama said he plans to do that self-reflection after he leaves office.
“I can say, and I can demonstrate, I can document that the country is a lot better off now than it was when I took office in almost every dimension,” the president said. “But what I can also say is that we could be doing even better. There are times where I reflect and ask myself, ‘Is there’s something else I could have done, something that I could have said slightly differently that would have led to additional progress and less polarization?’ And I’ll probably, you know, as I reflect on my presidency, once I’m out of just the day-to-day scrum of this thing, I’m sure I’ll come up with a whole bunch of things to add to my list. But I think all of us have to do that.”
If O had his way, it would be browner and more islamic too.
Trump, not so much.
That’ll make everything better.
What a loathsome creature.
But Obama said the national conversation about race is “long overdue.”
—
You’ve been there for 8 years you freakin’ idiot. If you haven’t made your case by now, SHUT THE HELL UP!!!
This guy is in a different dimension for sure.
That is good because there are so few white countries compared to brown countries.
This a-hole is full of more s**t than a Christmas goose.
I vomit out more value that Barack Hussein Maobama.
WTF, he is CONSUMED by color. FUBO
You made your ‘conversation about race” you Fn bigot
Every. Side you took was the black side....didn’t matter the culpability of the black, you took it, then failed to apologize when you were wrong
Which was most of the time
Is Hussein a racist?
The Shining Chocolate City on a Hill. /s
Bammy needs to get in touch with his inner jomama.
0bama is a racist. And so is the wookie.
5.56mm
I don’t know about all of you but I don’t give two figs what a person’s skin color is and I don’t make rational decisions based upon race, as opposed to this clown who can’t seem to get past brushing his teeth in the morning without having some kind of racial epiphany.
If there is any degradation in racial relations over the past eight years it can ENTIRELY be laid at this man’s feet. His hands are covered with the blood of those who (mistakenly) thought that voting for the first black president at about 90% of their racial group would be their salvation.
Just shut up and go away, Barry. Go far, far away and never return.
I don’t care about melanin, just values. If we’re browner and still patriotic Americans, I’m fine with that. If we look up to racists and communists like Obama, that is unacceptable.
Cacatne ursus in sylvius?
Barry the racist did a bang-up job of bringing us all together.
Obama doesn’t care what ‘color’ we are. He wants to change our values and system and thinks that changing us ‘racially’ will do it.
I don’t care what color we wind up being, as long we keep our Constitution, Liberty, and Principles - which all stem from our Judeo-Christian beginnings - as our Founders intended.
When I come across a bear in the wild, I don’t stick around to find out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.