“That is not activism”: Barack Obama quick to call out keyboard warriors
Barack Obama spoke at the Obama Foundation’s annual summit in Chicago and spoke about the state of politics and activism within the US as well as the ‘woke’ culture that continues to grow in the world of politics.
Being ‘woke’ means being aware or attentive to injustices in society and some people use being ‘woke’ to ‘cancel’ people who do things wrong, whether that be spelling mistakes in tweets or using the wrong word to describe something.
The former US President was quizzed and got passionate about those who are ‘politically woke’.
“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re politically woke, and all that stuff — you should get over that quickly,” he said, according to news.com.au.
“The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting with may love their kids and share certain things with you.”
He was also quick to mention the issue with young people thinking that they can spark change by pointing out spelling mistakes.
“One danger I see among young people particularly on college campuses is that I do get a sense among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media, that the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people and that’s enough,” Mr Obama said.
“Like if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right, or used the wrong verb, then I consider that I can feel pretty good about myself because, ‘man did you see how woke I was, I called you out’,” Mr Obama said, prompting laughter in the crowd.
“That is not activism, that is not bringing about change.
“If all you’re doing is casting stones, you are probably not going to get that far.”
Former first lady Michelle Obama also spoke about the US’s problems with racism.
“Families like ours — upstanding families like ours who were doing everything we were supposed to do and better — as we moved in, white folks moved out because they were afraid of what our families represented,” she said.
“I always stop there when I talk about this out in the world because I want to remind white folks, ya’ll were running from us. This family. This family with all the values you read about, you were running from us.
“And you still running, because we’re no different from the immigrant families that are moving in. the families that are coming from other places to try to do better.”
“I can’t make people not afraid of black people,” she said.
“But maybe if I show up every day as a human, a good human, maybe that work will pick away at the scabs of your discrimination.”