Barack Obama Reveals He Broke A Friend’s Nose In School For Calling Him A Racial Slur
Barack Obama is the master of diplomacy, but in his earlier days, he wasn’t letting slick comments get by him.
During a Monday (February 22) episode of Renegades, his podcast with singer Bruce Springsteen, the 44th President revealed that he once punched a friend of his in the face for calling him a racial slur.
"Listen, when I was in school, I had a friend. We played basketball together," Obama told Springsteen during an open conversation on race.
"And one time we got into a fight and he called me a c***," Obama said about 13 minutes into the episode. "Now first of all, ain’t no c***s in Hawaii, right?"
"It’s one of those things that — where he might not even known what a c*** was — what he knew was, 'I can hurt you by saying this,'" Obama continued, adding with a laugh, "And I remember I popped him in the face and broke his nose. And we were in the locker room."
"Well done," Springsteen replied.
"I explained to him — I said, 'Don’t you ever call me something like that,'" Obama said.
Later, President Obama said that calling someone a racial slur in an attempt at "assertion of status over the other."
"'I may be poor. I may be ignorant. I may be mean. I may be ugly. I may not like myself. I may be unhappy. But you know what I’m not?'" Obama said. "'I’m not you.'"
He added: "That basic psychology that then gets institutionalized is used to justify dehumanizing somebody, taking advantage of 'em, cheatin' 'em, stealin' from 'em, killin' 'em, raping 'em.”
Listen to the full podcast episode below.
