How The Obamas Talk About Race

best friends, one black, one white. I'm a historian and I'm a journalist. And this is some of my best friends are in this show. We wrestle with the challenge and the absurdities of a deeply divided and unequal country. And today's show, we're going to talk about two really incredible people that we have already been talking about for

a long time. That's right, Barack and Michelle Obama. You know, they were actually here in Chicago just the other day, down the block from where I'm sitting right now, breaking ground on the Obama Presidential Library and we have been eager to dig into their biographies memoirs. There are autobiographies. Yeah, we're gonna talk about Michelle and Barack Obama's books. Yeah, I mean like and the titles like Becoming, Becoming what

that's fascinating and then promised Brama's Land. Yes, so we're gonna look at these books to look at how they talk about race and racism because we've been trying to figure them out for quite a while. Let's do this book club chapter one, chapter one, yeah, something. All right. So look, before we really get into this episode, I have to make it crystal clear. Look, Barack Obama is

adored and loved by many. I love him in so many ways, but he's a complicated figure, and so I just, you know, needed to be clear that people like my wife Stephanie, are like, look, this is my first black president, period. End of story. These are Obama's fireworks, whether they are or not, there are for us. That was actually from when we were on Martha's vineyard this summer and we got out of our car because there were fireworks over the water and I had to press record on my phone.

It's right. People thought that the fireworks might be for Barack Obama's birthday. This is a whole This is way too many fireworks. I'm just saying, this is Obama fireworks and I don't care. Is too conservative not this is a black You just celebrate yourself some Obama. That's right. Maybe I love my wife. She doesn't mince her words. But anyways, during all the release and news coverage about a Promised Land coming out Obama's new memoir, I was so excited to hear Obama talk about um, the book

in general, right. Um. He was giving interviews, and I happened to be in the shower, and it was it was late afternoon, you know, after workout or something, and it's all things considered, I'm super excited, and I'm like, oh my god, I gotta call Ben because I got I gotta let him know that Obama's on talking about his book. And for me in particular, what I was fascinated at least anticipated, was he hadn't talked almost at all in the wake of the four years of Trump.

Very little he had to say. I mean, he was writing a seven hundred page book. Well that's true. But I'm not the only one who felt like that. You know that we could have used more from him too, Definitely talk about what the hell was going on in the country. Okay, So that was one reason that I was fascinating to hear this interview. And then the second reason is because it was although it was November, he hadn't said very much about the madness of the George

Floyd summer in the protest and all of that. Yeah, we are, I mean, just thinking about that crazy moment. It's after the election. Biden has one, Trump hasn't conceded. We're in the middle of the pandemic. We're coming after the summer of George Floyd. It's fucking madness. Yeah, it's crazy. And then we get smooth, smooth jazz Barry. Right, So he's giving an interview to Michelle Martin and they immediately get to the race issue well, as I write, particularly

when you start looking at police issues. And that's why I think what happened this summer with George Floyd was so important, where you saw at least some shift in the general population in recognizing that there's real racial bias in how our criminal laws are applied and how policing operates in this country. What I realized was that nothing touches a nerve more in terms of the relationship between the races in this country than the issue of policing.

We all know that Obama's brilliant and very thoughtful in his speech, and we're thinking a lot of complicated ideas and that he's not the fastest talker, right, but oh my god, man, I mean, do you remember how frustrated I was. I was like, yeah, yeah, every word that came out of his mouth about how he was understanding what was happening around races in the country was like

dripping one syllable at a time. Well, the dripping metaphor is good because you're in the shower, but you you had developed a theory after this that he speaks more slowly when he's talking about race, yeah, than about other issues. Yeah yeah, and it probably could be empirically proven. I haven't done it yet, even though I'm the one who's the solow called why do you think that is? So you came up with this theory at that moment, we call it this shower theory. Yeah, I'm just listening to

an interview. But now that I've read the book, I mean, the theory is now for real. Like he doesn't want to own notice I'm modeling Obama, you are speaking slow as he doesn't. He doesn't want to own the burden of making white people feel like they're all racists. He actually has a thing about black people who think white people are in general racist, and he rejects this view over and over again in the book. I resisted the

notion held by some of the black folks. I knew that white people were irredeemably racist, the conviction that racism wasn't inevitable. They also explained my willingness to defend the American idea, what the country was and what it could become. He calls it out. But do you think so that means he's he's weighing his words even more carefully. Ye. Yes, I think he is weighing his words because he doesn't want to give the impression that he's one of those

kind of black people. Maybe he's speaking really slowly, just hoping that people won't won't listen. Well, I think what he's doing, Like, here's my takeaway on this point. I think he's just trying not to give that impression to white people. He wants white people to like him, or at least to listen to him in such a way that they won't confuse him with those crazy, radical, racist

black people. Yeah. So, so we didn't do an empirical study of how he speaks and his pace, but we did go back and read these two books, and we read them really carefully. We're going to talk about them

in depth. Yep, let's do it. I mean, listen, Um, there's so much in this book to talk about, and one of the things that I think is really important to start with is his conception of the American story, the nation itself, like how he understands the promise of the nation, hence the title of the book, and he gets added right away. I mean, the preface, in many ways, maybe the most revealing of how Obama talks about race

and democracy. I mean, oh, this is this is like one of those book reports where it sounds like you only read the preface. I know, I know, I know, the most important part is in the first four pages. But I can assure you, Barack, if you're listening, I read the entire book. Okay, Now that being said, you know this notion. We talk a lot, you and me about American exceptionalism. Yeah, and usually for me it's like

the myth of American exceptionalism. Yeah, so American exceptionalism the idea that this country is really the greatest country in the world, that we are the most perfect nation, and we're striving towards a perfect nation, but we're already like leaps and bounds ahead of others from our founding and a sense of equality and democracy to now that we

are the leading democracy in the world. Right that there's that there's something about this notion of the American dream about everyone can have their cake and eat it too if they just work hard enough. Usually for us falls short of reality, and we spend a lot of time trying to square that myth with reality. So Obama gets right at it. I mean, in the preface, he basically says, you know, I recognize that there are those who believe

that it is time to discard the myth. And then he even says that the critiques of him as someone who is committed to American exceptionalism means that he has been quote unquote understood to be too tempered in speaking the truth, too cautious in either word or deed. I mean, this guy understands himself where he fits in the world, and the ideas that are at stake with the choices that he has made and the choices he's likely to

make in his post presidency. And so at the end of the day, he says, like for him, he's not ready to give up. He cites Lincoln. He says, like Lincoln called out the better angels of our nation. He says, I think we stand a better chance believing in the promise of America. And he says, of course the jury is still out, but I think this book is for

young people. This is an invitation for them to remake the world, to work hard, to be determined, and to make America finally achieve what it's always believed is possible. So I'm really interested in that idea that you take from the premise that we have this the myth and reality. But he's still incredibly hopeful and is going to strive

towards good. Yeah, And then how he applies that to some of these specific moments and talks about them, some of these kind of racial trigger moments in his presidency. So he basically talks about two Americas. There is essentially the America of the Confederacy, the America of slave owners of people committed to segregation in Jim Crow, in America where there are real racist bigots and people who don't

believe in democracy. And then there's this other America, the America that he believes in, the America that elected him twice, the America that is the one that made promises that will be the beacon of light to guide us to the future. Because one the things that becomes clear very quickly is that what Obama calls race, or what he describes as our racial past and what we might call as racism, is for him a thing of the past.

He has a clear eyed understanding of the realness of racism that is situated in our past, but he does not call it the same thing in our present. Here's one thing I never believed, right, was the fever of racism being broken by my election. But I never subscribed

to the we'd live in a post racial era. But I think that what did happen during my presidency was, yes, a backlash among some people who felt that somehow I symbolized the possibility that they or their group were losing status just by virtue of the fact that I didn't look like all the other presidents previously. It is almost as if in the present what we might recognize as racism are grievances, resentments, lights, and things that are in people's head. So Khalil I spoke to one of the

smartest people I know about books, Jennifer Sally. She's brilliant. She has reviewed pretty much every single political memoir over the last four years. I think public figures in general, when they read a memoir, it is often about, you know, either trying to explain themselves, trying to excuse themselves, and trying to shape the contours of how they're remembered. She actually reviewed both of these books, Becoming and a Promised Land in the Times. So I asked her basically, like,

how do these books function? Meaning if we're going to look into these books, you know, how are we supposed to judge them? And this is one of the things that jen told me. I do think that his way of thinking, even if it turns out sometimes to be politically frustrating and it is not necessarily what you want from a politician, especially when the stakes are really high. But I think as a reader, I do appreciate reading along in someone's consciousness who is, you know, very self

aware and also aware of the situation at hand. I think that that can actually have you know, maybe real world hindrances when it comes to dealing with some of

these things. Oh Man, that that that line when she says that he's you know, thoughtful, very self aware and formed, that's it, Like she's guided exactly right, just in terms of my one of my major impressions, aside from watching him very thoughtfully and deliberatively talk about complicating things over the course of his presidency, reading his memoir, I was struck by the fact that all the times that I would have pulled him by his lapel and said, rock,

this is where you need to do and then given him a history lesson or some kind of policy context or something like the New Deal didn't work for black people, the universal programs won't get us there to racial justice. Like any of those moments I felt over the course of his administration, I learned by reading this book that he taken all that into account. Yeah, Like I came away from the book thinking to myself, I could not have passed on any nugget of information or historical context

wisdom that he didn't already know. And in that She's right, he's brilliant. He's incredibly well informed. Let's turn to Michelle Obama's Becoming. Let's do it. Becoming came out at the same time as my book, High Risers, and I would go to the bookstore, you know, fucking excited, like there's my book on the stand, and I would see people come in and buy Becoming. This is on the South side of Chicago, like like they were like they were

shopping for toilet paper during the pandemic. They would like grab six or seven and you know, and just like walk to the register. I was like, oh shit, that's how you sell a lot of books. They were making an investment. Man, those books. They're thinking those books, they're gonna be worth a lot of money on eBay one day it was before Christmas of twenty eighteen, and people were just giving them away. Yeah, you know, that was in everyone stocking or under their manorah or on the quan.

So you had, in many ways, the better of the two tasks, because I read a whole bunch of foreign policy. I mean, I know more about what was going on in the world during Obama years than most people in the world who were living in those places. But I digress. So the first time Michelle Obama is really thrust into the national stage is this moment in two thousand and eight when she's on the campaign trail for her husband.

Let me tell you something, for the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country, and not just because Barack is done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And what she means is that there's even a black candidate for president. But it becomes this sort of highly politicized moment, and to think of her becomes her angry black woman moment. Yeah, yeah, she suddenly gets stamped as an angry black woman. You know.

There there's you know, this idea that she is a radical who, like, the most radical thing she's ever done is decide not to be a lawyer. But it's it's also a radicalism that is interpreted through the right wing media as someone who hates America, because if this is the first time and she's a grown up adult, then what then she must have been hating on the country

all this time. So for us to talk about how she talks about race, this is a good starting point because it is this sort of like, you know, touchstone moment for her yeah, and I can't wait. I know what Obama says about it. He was like, yeah, we shouldn't have even put her up there without practice, which is interesting, But I can't wait to hear what she says about it. I'm gonna actually tell you about how

the book is written to sort of explain. Becoming is written in three parts, okay, and the first part is called Becoming Me, the second part is called Becoming Us, and the third heart is called Becoming More. The book is kind of self empowerment, sort of has this kind of self help, self actualization. She keeps on talking about finding her voice, and she talks a lot about how

women support women. And the part that you just mentioned where she says this in Madison, Wisconsin occurs late in the second part of Becoming Us, which is about her and Barack becoming a couple and then him running for president. The third part is when they're in the White House. But to really answer that question, I have to go back to the first part, which is about her becoming me. You're you're teasing us. You're setting this up, right, I

just got to explain the context. You can't understand it. I'm I'm giving the book it's due because I gotta say, like that first part. I love that first part. The first part of the book is, which is about her and her upbringing, is beautiful. It's beautifully written, it's powerfully written. It's so specific and rich in detail and read something

from it. And Michelle's book is so specifically about being black, working class on the South Side of Chicago and of a certain moment in time which we know, which is after civil Rights. It's so grounded in that moment and in such in such detail. Now I don't live that experience, but for me, part of the pleasure of the book is that it's so familiar in locale. Uh. You know, she is growing up a couple of blocks from me.

She gets on the six Jeffrey bus, which is my bus yep, I know that buzz that's my bus too. She goes to Whitney Young, where my niece goes. You know, her and her friends go to WaterTower to ride up and down the escalator, which is what we did. That's right. Marshall Fields was where I got all my backed clothes, because yes I was. I was black and bougie in a way black and bougie, black and bougie. Yep. You know.

She talks about racial turnover in the neighborhood, which is, you know, it's my experience if suddenly you see all these churches that ten, fifteen, twenty years before, we're synagogues. It's just incredibly But I think the book it would be almost it would even even other people reading would feel this sense of familiarity, because that's just good writing, you see it. And it's also about striving. It's also

about being. You know, the very first line of the book is I spent much of my childhood listening to the sounds of striving. And she's talking specifically about her aunt. They live in a split level home and her aunt is teaching piano below her. But um, you know, it's it's as a metaphor, she extends it of being somebody who wants to achieve, who thinks about this and is kind of on a path, almost thoughtlessly. She talks about herself being a box checker. She's such a rule following.

You know, Michelle gives Obama this grounded experience, you know, a sense of place. So back to the idea of when she says, you know, I'm not this is the first time I've been proud of my country because it's really in the details and in the details of her experience. She doesn't she doesn't have to say it exactly, it's actually been shown. She has this sketch of her grandfather, and I'm going to read your little bit of it. I'm really glad you're going to read a little bit

of it. If this were an American dream story, Dandy, which is what she calls her grandfather, who arrived in Chicago in the early nineteen thirties, would have found a good job and a pathway to college. But the reality was far different. Jobs were hired to come by, limited at least somewhat by the fact that managers at some of the big factories in Chicago regularly hired Europeans over African American workers. Dandy took what work he could find,

setting pins in the bowling alley and freelancing as a handyman. Gradually, he downgraded his hopes, letting go of the idea of college, thinking he'd trained to become an electrician instead. But this too was quickly thwarted, and so then she talks about not experiencing the American dream. She has this really amazing depiction of her father, and you'd asked what are her parents to Her father works in the water department for the city of Chicago, and he also has stunted dreams.

He wanted to be an artist, he was an athlete, but then he gets ms, he gets multiple sclerosis, and he is just somebody who works so hard and works kind of like silently and tirelessly. And she tells this amazing story of his car and how much he loves his car, and his car is sort of like a symbol of success and and you know, rising up but also giving him mobility because of his disease. And he

has this car. It's a bronze colored two door Buick Electra two two five, which he calls Aduce in a Quarter. I was gonna say it, man, I wanted to call it out just before you did. Of course, it's a

deuce in the quarter. Aduce in a quarter. So then she tells this story of you know, someone in the neighborhood, a black family, one of their neighbors moves to the suburbs, and it's like what they moved to the suburbs, And so they live in the in the city on the south side of Chicago and they, yeah, all get in the in the car. One day, Michelle, her brother, Craig, her parents, and they drive out there in the deuce in a quarter to see this family and they're like,

you know, its suburbs are kind of weird. There's all these white people looking at them. Um, they have a house, like, you know, she doesn't think it's that appealing. At the end of the day, they leave to go home and they get to their car and there's a giant scratch in it. Someone has run a rock or something across

across the driver's side. Wow. And and like literally like for a black man, his castle is his car, like in a in a way that like having you know, the American dream embodied in a mortgage in a great home. If you couldn't have that, the next thing you could have is a is an amazing ride like a deuce in a quarter. Now some asshole has scratched it up. Yeah. Yeah, and it's and it's a it's about race. I mean, they're in a white about racism. Let's be clear, that's

about racism. Yeah, And what her father says is, well, I'll be damned, and then they don't talk about it again. Yeah, so that's that's how she talks about that moment. That's

how she explains it. Yeah. So the so when you say the devil's in the details, like the narrative arc of that kind of origin story for Michelle, when she sees a racist act that Obama might call a racial slight because he doesn't really talk about such things in the kind of forceful way, so she bears direct witness, like to the vulnerability and innocence of her own family and yet they could be subject to this degrading assault

on just their basic dignity. Then helps to explain why she is now on this national stage potentially be about to become the first Lady. And it's like, holy smokes, Like I'm seeing a part of America that I'd never really known personally before until now. Yeah. This ties to something that Jen Sali said to me when I interviewed her. I did get a sense of political pessimism in her book.

You know, not quite in his book, but in her book, where you know, the implication is that there's only so much that politics can do to change something as deeply entrenched in American institutions as racism. You know, people love Michelle Obama for her realness. She's relatable in this way that that her husband isn't. Who's you know, is prophetsorial and cerebral and like sometimes you know, aloof cool um.

She's so grounded in place, and I I have to say that reading this book, I loved her even more like I felt that. And even in the ways that she she talked about race and racism, you know, especially in those early parts, you know her her own history.

It's so detailed, her own striving, her feeling of being underestimated, her feeling of being the only black person in her world as she's sort of moving through corporate worlds and Princeton in other places, and then she enters the maelstrom of national politics, and she she talks about being bewildered by it all suddenly for her to be cast as this this black radical and that's just not who she is. But I want to tell you a quick story. The last week of the Obama administration. I think it was

like the last week before the election. I actually went to the White House with my wife. You went to the White House? What to this? You didn't take me to this beat? There's a b et event black entertainment television has a sort of like, you know, celebration of the Obama's this must be a BT event. Hello, everybody, welcome to the White House. I love you back. That's why we're having this concert. And I'm there because my wife has the Hook told me about this. Yeah you

saw everybody, Yeah yeah. Ton Hassei Coachs writes about this, and he is there. Barack Obama gets on the stage with Bell Biv Devaux and dances. Cisco was there? Wasn't Cisco there too? This woman Yolanda Adams, this gospel singer, sings uh the John Legend part of Glory with Common and it is just like her sound. Her voice is just ricocheting off the room. It's like the greatest musical experience I've ever had in my life. You know, it

was like a religious experience. Dave Chappelle actually makes a joke there. He says that all the famous black people and one white person, Bradley Cooper, but not the only one, not the only one, the only one. This motherfucker was there too. But I think I think it's important to note that you weren't there as journalist Ben Austin. You were there as as arm candy to your beautiful black wife.

So it was amazing, it was extraordinary. But the vibe of the night was just this you know, celebration of the last eight years, almost like pinching yourself and saying, there really was like a black first family in the White House. Like the whole evening is just this wild celebration. The election is in days. There wasn't one mention the entire night of the election. Get out the vote Hillary Clinton is the best way to continue this legacy. We

need to support her, support your local elections. Not a word, nothing, zero. And so you know, most people didn't expect that Trump was going to win, but it did happen. And you can't go back and talk about that night and talk about what a great celebration of looking backwards at these last eight years without thinking about what was to come. And so there was that night just this great omission.

And you know that is a way. Also I think about Michelle's book, because you can't reckon with the past without thinking about what's going to come next. And I guess I would say, like that's like for her to do that, it would be a different book. It would be less uplifting and maybe she would also be like a different person, but that's a difficult storytelling you also

have to do. And I just I guess to kind of bring it full circle, I think the frustration overall is understanding for the first time that Obama's gonna stick to his guns, right, And I mean that, like in every way he truly believes in American acceptionalism, his commitment to this notion of a promised land. I don't believe it in the way that he does, and that's okay.

He just he wrote a book that basically said, no matter what's happened in our past, and no matter what happened doing my presidency, and no matter what's happened since, including with the election of Donald Trump, that he's going to double down on it. And I think I think actually both books and when you talked about this belief in the country, both books sort of reference that that King quote that Obama would often cite. You know, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends

towards justice. Justice. Yeah, that it is. It has this very optimistic view of the country and the sense that the work it actually takes to move it towards justice. It's not that it bends on its own. That's exactly that is so well said, because that's my other point, like I wanted to say, because I don't want to just seem like I'm like hating on our country, right, I live here too, my people back generations that I

can't even number. My point is that the only way we ever got to make the country better was by facing the facts in front of us. And the facts of race and racism are the actual stories that Obama tells about American exceptionalism, the story of civil rights leaders, the stories of people who put on their marching shoes. He tells those stories constantly, as if race and racism are only ever a thing of the past. And this

book does exact same thing. It keeps referring to the heroism and the sacrifice of people in the past, but never calls to arms the requirement and necessity of facing those facts before the same thing in Becoming, I mean, so those powerful stories about her father and her grandfather of not having an equal opportunity, that the country does not allow the dream to happen for these black men, that that isn't a thing of the past, that is

something that is something that could could be applied to everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, she doesn't bring it up, you know, that past and sort of apply it to her own experiences in the White House. It feels sort of, you know, a little bit in amber in the background. Yeah, well, I mean this, this raises a whole series of questions that we've tried to explore, just in centering how they talk and write about race and racism. All right, Khalil, this was a

great talk. Yeah man, great chat. Oh man, this has been such an amazing experience. I learned I repent from both my reading and listening to you and this conversation for sure. And of course yeah yeah, yeah, we got to do this again. This was this was fun, This was fun productive, I don't know, all right, love you, Love you too. Some of My Best Friends Are is a production of Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me Lil Jibrad Muhammad and my best friend

Ben Austin. It's produced by Sheer Vincent and edited by Karen Shakerjee. Our engineer is Martin Gonzalez, our associate editor is Keishell Williams, and our showrunner is Sasha Matthias. Our executive producers are Lee Tall, Molad and Mia Lobell at Pushkin thanks to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, John Schnars, and Jacob Weisberg. Our theme song, Little Lily, is by fellow chicagoan Avery R. Young from his amazing album Tubman. You will definitely want to check out more of his music

at his website Avery R. Young dot com. You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at Pushkin pods, and you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the ByHeart Radio app, Apple podcast and wherever you like to listen. If you love this show and others from Pushkin Industries, consider becoming a Pushnick. Pushnick is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and uninterrupted listening for four dollars and ninety nine

cents a month. Look for Pushnick exclusively on Apple podcast subscriptions and most of all, I want to thank you, Khalil, and thank you too. Mom. All right, so Khalil, let's let's just move. We're flowing. We're flowing. So you you you set me up. Yeah, I was like I was out of fifth I was out of fifty cent party last night. He smelled like we uh. I saw a big Daddy Kane at a concert and in Manhattan. It

was amazing. No one's gonna accuse you of being a certain Your your your bona fides are right there.