Barack Obama has made his first presidential podcast appearance on an episode of Marc Maron‘s WTF, and has caused a stir with some pointed comments on race in America.
Speaking about a recent shooting in a South Carolina church, which saw the deaths of nine people, Obama said that America is “not cured” of racism by any means, “and it’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say n***er in public.”
“That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not,” he continued. “It’s not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don’t, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior.”
The president also spoke about gun control, citing Australia’s laws as an example for America to follow, and singling out the Howard government’s response to the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.
“When Australia had a mass killing, I think it was in Tasmania about 25 years ago, it was just so shocking to the system, the entire country said, ‘we’re going to completely change our gun laws’. They did and it hasn’t happened since.”
He lamented the fact that, in America, gun manufacturers make out “like bandits” thanks to a spike in firearm sales after each mass shooting, and called for stronger gun control laws that still respect America’s “tradition” of gun ownership.
“The question is just – is there a way of accommodating that legitimate set of traditions with some common sense stuff that prevents a 21-year-old who is angry about something or confused about something, or is racist, or is deranged, from going into a gun store and suddenly is packing and can do enormous harm?”
You can listen to Maron’s full interview with Obama here on the WTF podcast page.
via News Limited
Image via WTF
