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.”
Detroit has come full circle; the “brown” population has declined because there are too few whites to pay their bills, and make no mistake about it: This helped Trump win Michigan.
I seriously doubt that it would work out that way. Unless you have an example of a Country, State, County, City where that has happened.
Notice he’s not moving back to da hood.
Yep, Hussein dropped another 0bama.
Unless the cop was black. He pretty much left them twisting in the wind.
and the idiot liberal main stream media hail him as the ‘great uniter’ - what a load of crap- feckless msm
Crackhead.
Honkiphobe.
If we don’t do better at educating our kids in the American system and our original ideals and principles, we’ll go down even if we’re all lily-white. Ignorance is one of the main reasons Obama has gotten away with what he has.
yeah,, his white half is feeling very guilty . .
And? I have no problem with this. As long as immigration is done LEGALLY, and we aren’t wholesale importing jihadists, and anyone else for that matter into our country. Do it right! Immigrants need to make it here, on their own, and do it the right way, on their own. And become proud Americans!
I never cared or noticed much a person’s race or color before, but after Obama’s almost constant alluding to it, I do now, a lot more.
In every instance he could, he brought up race relating to all sorts of issues. He was an absolute kook in that regard. He brought up race when it nothing to do with an issue.
He was like an Al Sharpton when it came to it. Every issue that came up in the news, he brought up race right away, before he found out what was going on.
When you do that, you induce in people an artificial sensitivity to race that I’ll bet a lot of people started feeling. That’s wrong!
I think we're OK for now...the next 4 years maybe... But looking at the young folk the government is raising in the schools today.....the future of the America appears to be truly in doubt....
Sooner or later the Liberal fools are going to put a complete idiot in charge of the nation... We were almost there with the obummer... The next one is going to be even worse....
MHO... :(
Reminds me of Ray Nagin calling NOLA a chocolate city. Wonder what Ray is up to these days.....
But even then the “victim” was black . . and like all the rest, had a lengthy rap sheet
I see that as a different issue. Who you let into the country, and the rules used to guide that process should not be racial in nature, but should be predicated on whether the person can contribute to society with a set of skills.
He has never stopped talking about race. In his mind, the conversation can only end when all Whites just off themselves and turn over all their property to the Browner superiors.
Is it ok to say we need to make Mexico a whiter country? How about Zimbabwe? They need to be a whiter country.
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