Obama on race and the Tea Party

Source: The Gospel Blog

David Remnick’s new book, The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, deals with the question of race relations in America as seen through a biographical account of our current president.

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham offers a quotation from The Bridge, which will be released tomorrow. Here is Obama’s reply when asked about the racial component of opposition to his presidency, including the reaction of the Tea Party supporters:

America evolves, and sometimes those evolutions are painful. People don’t progress in a straight line. Countries don’t progress in a straight line. So there’s enormous excitement and interest around the election of an African-American President. It’s inevitable that there’s going to be some backlash, potentially, to what that means–not in a crudely racist way, necessarily. But it signifies change, in the same way that immigration signifies change, in the same way that a shift from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy signifies change, in the same way that the Internet signifies change and terrorism signifies change. And so I think that nobody should have ever been under the illusion–certainly I wasn’t, and I was very explicit about this when I campaigned–that by virtue of my election, suddenly race problems would be solved or conversely that the American people would want to spend all their time talking about race.

I think it signifies progress, but the progress preceded the election. The progress facilitated the election. The progress has to do with the day-to-day interactions of people who are working together and going to church together and teaching their kids to treat everybody equally and fairly. All those little interactions that are taking place across the country add up to a more just, more tolerant, society. But that’s an ongoing process. It’s one that requires each of us, every day, to try to expand our sense of understanding. And there are going to be folks who don’t want to promote that understanding because they’re afraid of the future. They don’t like that evolution. They think, in some fashion, that it will disadvantage them or, in some sense, diminishes the past. I tend to be fairly forgiving about the anxiety that people feel about change because I think, if you’re human, you recognize that in yourself.

Obama responds to his critics on health care

UPDATE: Here’s a review of The Bridge from The New York Times, and here’s a transcript of Charlie Rose’s interview with the author. A review critical of Obama (a “wasted” first year) by Garry Wills.

Related posts:
Our only language is English
Reaction to health care: A step backwards