>> We don't hear much from former President Barack Obama.
But when we do hear from him, I wish that he would speak a little more about what's
happening in the country in regard to Donald Trump and his terrible leadership.
But nonetheless, he had some strong statements to make about woke culture, cancel culture,
during his annual summit in Chicago.
This is a summit that he does every year for his foundation.
And so during the Q&A portion, he was asked about woke culture, and here's what he had
to say.
>> This idea of purity, and you're never compromised, and you're always politically bulk, and all
that stuff.
You should get over that quickly.
>> The world is messy.
There are ambiguities.
People who do really good stuff, Have flaws.
Like if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn't do something right or used the word, wrong
verb or then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, cuz man you see how woke
I was.
I called you out.
>> I'm going to get on TV.
>> Watch my show, watch Grown-ish.
>> That's not activism, that's not bringing about
change.
>> So, his statements, I think can spark a really interesting conversation.
Because in my opinion, context matters.
And, the context in which he's thinking about in making those statements, I think matters.
So, who usually cries about purity tests the most, right?
It's usually people who are establishment politicians.
Usually those on the left who are angry at progressives, who want better politicians.
Who want politicians who actually look out for the working class.
There's also woke culture and so called cancel culture when it comes to social issues, when
it comes to racial relations and all of that.
So it really depends on the context.
And I'm just curious what you guys think, I have some thoughts on this.
>> Yeah, I'm really looking forward to what I just said too.
But before we get there, I wanna separate this out into two different issues.
Cuz I really think they are and I have totally different and divergent opinions on the two
different issues.
So one is, calling out people on wrong verb as Obama put it there, right?
And there, I think is a point to make.
So I had flame on Monroe on the show recently so she was part of the Tiffany had a special
day ready that Aida was also in, you should check that out on Netflix.
And so she's transgender and she doesn't give a damn, right?
She's like, look, you can say this, you can say that, I'm from the old school.
I don't care as long as you treat me right.
And so, now that's one camp, I'm closer to that camp, okay?
There's the other camp that says, no, you gotta say everything exactly right.
If you don't, you're a monster, right?
And I understand why some of the people say things and it depends on well, what did you
say, right?
And it depends on the context, etc.
Now the second issue is, about purity tests on a political level.
>> Mm-hm.
>> So there, both the right way in terms of the corporate Republicans but also, as Ana
pointed out, the corporate Democrats say, no, no, no, we had to compromise and give
the rich everything.
And so, I guess if you don't wanna give the rich everything, I guess you wanna purity
test.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
So I don't want you making a deal with Mitch McConnell to massively lower taxes on the
rich as, by the way, Obama and Biden did, okay?
That's not a purity test.
I just want you to do progressive things and not do conservative things.
So a purity test would be, hey, a guy's running in Montana and he's for Medicare for All and
he's for Green New Deal and he's a wonderful progressive but he doesn't have the same views
as I do on gun control.
Okay, that's a purity test.
It depends, are you in Montana or are in the New York City, Chicago?
That depends on your state.
But if you're Nancy Pelosi you say, I'm not gonna do Medicare for All, I'm not gonna do
Green New Deal.
I'm not gonna fight to get money out of politics.
I'm not gonna do anything of the things that progressives want.
And you go, but then I guess you're not a progressive.
She's like, a purity test, I can't believe.
Now you want me to do things that are actually progressive.
Yeah, that's kind of the point.
And Obama, unfortunately, is way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way closer to Pelosi which
is I give you a little bit of change and get off my ass for not trying too hard.
>> So, I think that President Obama does not talk about Donald Trump for a very, I think
it's very strategic and calculated.
>> Donald Trump is always talking about Obama.
Every time he turns around, he's Obama this, Obama that.
I think Obama gets it, that we should have a blackout Donald Trump day where we don't
tweet about him, we don't mention him.
I swear to goodness he will jump off a building to get attention.
>> He might spontaneously combust.
>> Yeah.
>> He thrives on attention.
>> There's something about the fact that Obama never dignifies him with even a word.
And it has to eat him up on the inside cuz he does some weird things to Obama's name.
The other thing I was gonna say, so this is my sweet spot, I believe in nuance, right?
We don't ever live in nuance cuz everything is so extreme.
I understand as a person of color why woke culture can be annoying because a lot of the
people who have taken on woke culture are the people who don't live the experiences
of the marginalized.
And they take on this role of being like the buffer between the victim of the marginalization
and the people who are doing it.
And it can be insulting and sometimes it doesn't come from a genuine place.
Like I told you, they have management companies now that manage talent that have causes because
they say activism has gone mainstream.
And you know what happens when things go mainstream, they start making money for people and they
don't really care about what the real issues are anymore.
So I understand what he's saying that.
That being said, it's not okay.
There's an intention behind certain things.
And malice and ignorance are two different things.
And we like to is it conflict the two, right?
I retweeted somebody who used the t word, right, for transgender people.
I did not know that that was an offensive term because it had not been named one at
the time.
But I was retweeting another comedian.
And I had a lot of transgender people come, and tell me that I was not a part of the movement,
and that was hurtful.
I had no idea that that was a word that I wasn't supposed to use because I've seen so
many transgender people use the word.
So I didn't know, right?
But if I would have been an emotional person who was disingenuous, they would have lost
a person who actually really gives cares about their group.
That was actually willing to go fight the fight for the betterment of their lives, and
that is where you lose me.
>> Yeah.
>> You lose me in that place where it's condescending, right?
>> Yeah, I totally agree with you.
I think that what gets left out of those conversations is intent, right?
So, did this person have ill-intent in the statement they might have tweeted or in something
that they might have said.
There's a lot of ignorance out there, right, and I'm not saying that to insult, I'm saying
that because ignorance is not.
It doesn't mean they're stupid, it means you don't know better, right?
And look, let's keep it real, our language and standards for language are, it's constantly
changing, constantly evolving.
And what is deemed acceptable and unacceptable does change, right?
>> Yeah.
>> And so, when people go back and make comments about let's say which words comedians used
like a decade ago in their stand up and they criticize that comedian because they use offensive
words, well yeah, ten years ago those words, whether you like to believe it or not, were
acceptable, right?
And our culture has changed.
So, all of these little nuances don't get discussed.
And I just think that when you automatically jump to the conclusion of, this is a bad person,
I'm canceling them.
I don't even wanna have a conversation.
Well, you miss out on an opportunity to actually like have a conversation and help educate
people on what the reality is.
>> Like what Bernie said the other day when he was asked by that black young man what
about the police.
And even though the way he answered it felt kind of it was off-putting, right?
He's a white man and tell me what's the right answer to that question.
There's no way he's gonna answer that question and somebody's not gonna walk away pissed
off.
There's no way he could answer that question that way, right?
Because the truth is, he doesn't know what it's like to be a black man getting pulled
over by the police, but what he does know is that there's an issue with law enforcement.
Because if he says, don't get shot in the head, that makes a big statement about what
he feels about law enforcement at this very moment, right?
Not many people would be brave to even say that.
Because they'd be like I wanted to piss the police off, the union or whatever.
>> Yeah.
>> I'm not endorsing Bernie so don't come for me with that foolishness because you know
how I get down.
But the other thing is that I want to say is, if we operated from the belief that America
is inherently racist, right, because it is embedded in the fiber and the culture.
It's inherently sexist.
Then we can operate from a real place where we can tackle these issues and not walk around
canceling people because they do stuff that's racist and sexist when it's part of the culture
of America.
It's a worldwide thing, right?
But we wanna pretend that those things don't happen along with many other things.
And then people say something, they're like, I'm done with this person.
The reality of it is is that they teach white people to be racist and they teach people
of color to hate themselves.
That's very profitable and it's been going on forever.
It is downright as American as American Pie.
So when we sit here and we start cancelling people, we're gonna run out of people.
Because you can't cancel everybody, right?
>> That is part of divide and conquer, it really is.
>> It is and the other thing is real activism is not on Twitter and it's not on Facebook.
That's just one little sliver of it.
Real activism is going to talk to those people who don't think like you and say, hey man,
let's have a conversation because obviously, you can't just cancel everybody.
I've had conversations with KKK people and been able to have a real conversation with
someone.
It's easy for me to call what the homies and say racism is bad.
And they're like, yeah, racism.
We should start a hashtag.
We're gonna be hot on Twitter.
>> We're gonna be hot on Twitter.
Come on, let's do something for real in real life.
>> Yeah, as usual, I love what Aida said, we're gonna run out of people.
We cancel everybody.
Okay but look, last thing and I'm back to politics.
I do have a less charitable of Obama than what you said, Aida.
Part of the reason he doesn't get involved with Trump, although I agree with you like
I don't follow Trump on Twitter, out of principle, cuz he's so proud of his Twitter followers.
>> Yeah.
>> I gotta look him up everyone's talking cuz he's the president and he says crazy stuff,
right, but I won't follow.
But Obama's different, Obama cares so much about etiquette and his legacy.
So he's like, former presidents are supposed to talk about current president.
Yeah, under normal situations.
But when the country's on the edge of fascism, it might help for a really popular ex-president
to speak up every once in a while.
And the other the reason he doesn't speak up is because Trump drags everyone down in
the mud with him.
So I get it.
If I was Obama, I wouldn't wanna do it either because he's right now, Obama is, especially
compared to Trump, is pretty beloved.
And he's got great poll numbers, he's got a solid legacy, etc.
He don't wanna roll in the mud with Donald Trump.
But that's where the rest of us are.
So, if you don't come down here, you're not gonna be able to give us a hand up so we can
get up out of this mess.
>> No, I think he should speak, but I think that it has a lot to do with when they go
low, we go high like that, that's lost.
All is lost.
They've gone low through the ground, the tunnels, they flipped around in the dirt.
They're eating the dirt.
>> It's Lord of the Flies out here, baby, we're not there no more.
>> Yeah, so he's aloof, but in a way that I don't think is helpful.
And then when he comes and kind of subtext is yelling at the progressives, hey settle
down, you don't want too much change.
Your placards said the words change on them, so I'll take that under advisement