Former President Barack Obama warned of the risks of “cancel culture” in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday night. Many people were surprised by this, given that cancel culture has been a significant tool for the left to quiet any form of opposition in recent years.
Here’s the statement of Obama according to The Hill’s reports:
“A lot of the dangers of cancel culture and ‘we’re just going to be condemning people all the time,’ at least among my daughters, they’ll acknowledge that among their peer group or in college campuses, you’ll see people going overboard.”
Obama also added that his two daughters Malia and Sasha have a “pretty good sense of: look we don’t expect everybody to be perfect we don’t expect everybody to politically correct all the time.”
“But we are gonna call out institutions or individuals if they are being cruel, if they are, ya know, discriminating against people,” he continued “We do want to raise awareness.”
Former President Barack Obama says cancel culture goes “overboard,” but highlights calling out “institutions or individuals if they are being cruel.” pic.twitter.com/2Se5EECmGn
— The Recount (@therecount) June 8, 2021
Obama previously spoke out in 2019 against the so-called “woke” culture, which refuses to forgive people for mistakes made in public.
“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke and all “The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws.” He addressed at a Summit for his foundation in Chicago that year.
After that, Obama stated that criticizing people on social media for their mistakes is “not activism.”
“Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself because ‘man, you see how woke I was, I called you out,’ ” he added.
Obama discussed his legacy and the present state of American politics in separate interviews with CNN this week, including former President Trump’s claim that he won the 2020 presidential election and the Republican response to it.
Obama told Cooper, “We have to worry,” “when one of our major political parties is willing to embrace a way of thinking about our democracy that would be unrecognizable and unacceptable even five years ago or a decade ago.”
Sources: waynedupree.com, thehill.com, lifezette.com, edition.cnn.com