Obama admits facing racism during his two terms as US President

By
OTHERS
|
Obama admits facing racism during his two terms as US President

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has said that despite being the President, even he faced racism during his two terms in the White House, US media reported.

Speaking to CNN, Mr Obama asked: “Are there folks whose primary concern about me has been that I seem foreign - the other? Are those who champion the birther movement feeding off of bias? Absolutely.”

Obama did not name the President-elect, but earlier in his election campaign Donald Trump reignited the birther movement and suggested the president’s Hawaii birth certificate was fraudulent.

US President said that he did not see racism in the way he was treated in the mainstream, he was aware of it in the fringes.

“I think there’s a reason attitudes about my presidency among whites in northern states are very different from whites in southern states,” he added.

During the 2012 presidential election, Obama performed much better among whites in the North than in the South.

While his national average among white voters was 39 per cent, he got just 15 percent of the white vote in Alabama, and just 10 percent in Mississippi, versus 48 percent in Wisconsin and 51 percent in Iowa.

Former senior advisor of Obama David Axelrod said that It’s indisputable that there was a ferocity to the opposition and a lack of respect for Obama that was a function of race.

He claimed that at least one powerful Republican was personally disrespectful to Obama.

“He said to him, we don’t really think you should be here but the American people thought otherwise. So we’re going to have to work with you,” said Axelrod.