Obama Delivers Stinging Rebuke To Identity Politics, Defends White Males

2018 has been a doozy. Politics seems to be seeping into every area of life. People can’t get along. Neighbors fuss and fight. We seem to hate each other.

Recently, former President Barack Obama took to a stage to denounce the poison that is identity politics. He said that Democracy demands getting inside “the reality of people who are different than us, so we can understand their point of view. Maybe we can change their minds, but maybe they’ll change ours.”

I love this beginning. But I also love where he went from here.

He continued, “You can’t do this if out of hand dismiss what your opponents have to say from the start. You can’t do this if you insist that those who aren’t like you because they’re white, or because they’re male, that there’s no way that they can understand what I’m feeling… that somehow they lack standing to speak on certain matters.”

I found it very interesting that the first black President chose those two characteristics to defend — whiteness and maleness. Identity politics has been going off the rails lately — and this was a stunning rebuke from liberalism’s pater familias.

Watch his speech below:

Pres. Obama: Democracy demands getting inside “the reality of people who are different than us.”

“You can’t do it if you insist that those who aren’t like you because they’re white, or because they’re male…that somehow they lack standing to speak on certain matters.” pic.twitter.com/NHPR9cQmpQ

— ABC News (@ABC) July 17, 2018