Obama: I Reject The Belief That “The Only True Narrative Of America Is This One Of Oppression and Exclusion”
Former President Barack Obama talks about patriotism in MS NOW’s Michele Norris’ exclusive interview in conjunction with the opening of his presidential library. The full interview will air as part of a two-hour special on Friday, June 19 at 9pm ET on MS NOW.
FORMER PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I do think it’s important to ground. What happened during my presidency in this broader sweep of American history, and as I said before, you know, this idea that, you know, on the right and you see this in the Trump administration, this idea that any suggestion or criticism that America was anything other than perfect is unpatriotic, is a suggestion that you hate your country, is a suggestion that you hate your country. Now, the flip side is among progressives, sometimes there is this sense of, well, the only true narrative of America is this one of oppression and exclusion. And I reject both those views. I think it’s complicated. As I said, I think it’s possible to celebrate the founders and appreciate what they did, as well as look objectively and critically at how their values strayed very far from what they professed. I think it’s impossible to say that there were populists in rural America and the South and white America that really did believe in equality and justice for white folks and helped to make progress in giving more people opportunity and not ignore the fact that that was to the exclusion of others. And that’s the kind of complexity that I hope people get a little bit of a sense of. You want people to actually marinate in that when they visit your center. And the reason is this, because I think when you understand the complexities of America and the contradictions of America, I don’t think it makes you love it less. I think it makes you love it more. And I think it also makes you more resilient because then during periods like we’re in right now, where for a lot of folks, it’s crazy and you feel despair and anger. That perspective allows you to then say, OK, we’ve gone through crazy periods like this before. We’ve gone through mean periods before. It fortifies you to say that, yes, this has been part of the journey that we’ve been here before. And there’s no reason to suggest that we can’t get through this one either.
