US News

Obama: Some folks don’t like me because I’m black

President Obama thinks some people donā€™t like him becaā›Žuse of his racešŸ¦„.

ā€œThereā€™s no doubt that thereā€™s some folks who just really dislike me because they donā€™t like the ideaź¦ of a black President,ā€ Obama told The New Yorkerā€™s David Remnick in the magazineā€™s .

ā€œNow, the flip side of it is there are są¼ŗome black folks and maybe some white folks who really like me and give me the benefit of the doubt precisely because Iā€™m a black President,ā€ he added.

The article noted that Obama lost white voters in 2012 by historyā€™s largest margin fošŸŒ±r a winning presidential candidate, and that his plunge in the polls last year ā€“ which many pundits declared the worst year of his presidency ā€” was steepest among whites.

Some observers immediately mocked Obama for suggesting that race ā€” and not his policies ā€”ā›„ is the reason for his dismal numbers.

ā€œIā€™m fine with losing my job, losing insurance, being audited. I just canā€™t stand that heā€™s black,ā€ @OrwellForce snarked on Twitter, cramming the weak economy, Obamacare and the IRS’s scrutiny of political nonprofits into one tweet.

Obama conceded that his party has sometimes appeared to shrug off ā€œthe concernā™s of middle- and working-class folks, black or white.ā€

ā€œAnd this was one of the great gifts of Bill Clinton to the Partyā€”to say, you know what, itā€™s entirely legitimate for folks to be concerned about gź¦etting mugged, and you canā€™t just talk about police abuse,ą½§ā€ he told The New Yorker.

“How about folks not feeling safe outside their homes? Itā€™s all fine and good for you to want to do something about poverty, but if the only mechanism you have is raising taxes on folks who are already feeling strapped, then maybe you need to widen your lens a little bit. And I think that the Democratic Party is better for it.ā€