Obama Recalls Breaking A Schoolmate’s Nose For Calling Him A ‘C**n’
On episode two of his ‘Renegades‘ podcast with Bruce Springsteen, former POTUS Barack Obama recalls breaking a schoolmate’s nose for calling him a “c**n.”
Obama explains, “Listen, when I was in school, I had a friend. We played basketball together. And one time we got into a fight and he called me a c**n. Now, first of all, ain’t no c**ns in Hawaii, right? It’s one of those things that where he might not even have known what a c**n was. What he knew was, ‘I can hurt you by saying this.’ I remember I popped him in the face and broke his nose and we were in the locker room.” Springsteen responds, “Well done.”
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Obama continues, “I explained to him—I said, ‘Don’t you ever call me something like that. [Using racial slurs is an] assertion of status over the other person. I may be poor. I may be ignorant. I may be mean. I may be ugly. I may not like myself. I may be unhappy. But you know what I’m not? I’m not you. That basic psychology that then gets institutionalized is used to justify dehumanizing somebody, taking advantage of ‘em, cheating ‘em, stealing from ‘em, killing ‘em, raping ‘em. Whatever it is, at the end of the day it really comes down to that. And in some cases it’s as simple as, you know, ‘I’m scared I’m insignificant and not important. And this thing is the thing that’s going to give me some importance.”
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