Why Did Obama Drop the N-Word During SoCal Podcast?

A podcaster said today he’s “a little sad” that the media focused on President Barack Obama’s use of the “n” word during an interview done in the comedian’s Highland Park garage-cum-recording studio.

During Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast -- released today but recorded Friday when the president was in town for a series of fundraisers -- Obama said the legacy of slavery “casts a long shadow, and that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on.”

“We’re not cured of it,” Obama continued. “And it’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say ‘nigger’ in public. That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not.”

The president’s comments came in the aftermath of the apparent racially motivated shooting deaths of nine black people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Maron told ABC7 that he’s “a little sad that the media has just isolated the use of the n-word as the lead story and taken it out of context, which was really a powerful statement about the state of racism in our country. But that’s what you guys do, right?”

Maron told Vanity Fair that he got the interview, which lasted about an hour and was in the planning stages for months, because a member of Obama’s staff is a WTF fan.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK IN THE COMMENTS? Do you think the president’s use of the N-Word is inflammatory? Do you think it’s obtuse to focus on the word rather than the message?

City News Service

Photo: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza