Former President, Barack Obama is not to be played with.
During an episode of his new podcast with Bruce Springsteen, ‘Renegades: Born in the USA’, Barack revealed he once broke a fellow classmate’s nose after calling him a racial slur.
While discussing race, he says:
“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—.”
He joked,
“Now first of all, ain’t no c—s in Hawaii, right?”
He added,
“It’s one of those things that — where he might not [have] even known what a c— 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.”
Bruce Springsteen replied:
“Well done.”
Barack Obama continued,
“I explained to him — I said, ‘Don’t you ever call me something like that.’”
“‘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, cheatin’ ’em, stealin’ from ’em, killin’ ’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.’”