Barack Obama has kept a relatively low profile since Combover Caligula became US President and the world coincidentally started going even more downhill on all fronts. Well folks, Obama has had enough and he has some strong words for everyone, particularly about *checks notes* um, ‘woke’ culture.
During a talk at an Obama Foundation event (via BBC), our US President spoke about young people and gave everyone a reality check about the state of the world and its complexities.
“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re politically woke, and all that stuff — you should get over that quickly.”
“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.”
But perhaps the most important part of Obama’s talk was he expressed concern over how young people’s go-to reaction is to call people out on social media under the guise of being “woke” isn’t going to bring about real change.
“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.”
Say what you will about Barack Obama but he hits the nail on the head about the fascination with cancel and woke culture these days.
Nothing in the world is black or white and people’s tendency to immediately “cancel” someone or antagonise people for not being “woke” is doing more harm than good. It’s one thing to call people out when it is warranted, but it’s another to weaponise it into something that satisfies your own agenda.
Not only is invoking outrage not going to be constructive in any sense of the word, it doesn’t allow for any growth and learning from either side. Empathy and education has been lost in a sea of tweets and hashtags.
It’s hard to believe that something as simple as that needed to be said out loud but if there was anyone in the world who you’ll want to listen to, it’s Barack Obama.
Our US President isn’t saying that you have to change your beliefs, but it’ll serve everyone well if people just remembered that we’re all flawed human beings and if listened to each other rather than rage tweet. Perhaps some actual change would come out of it and we won’t disappoint dad Obama like this again.