Former President Barack Obama says “compromise” shouldn’t be frowned upon and described Twitter outrage as “not activism.”
Speaking at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago on Tuesday, the former president called on Americans to abandon ideological purity tests in politics.
“This idea of purity, and you’re never compromised, and you’re always politically woke and all that stuff. You should get over that quickly,” he said. “The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws.”
Obama also called out what he perceived as a “danger” among younger people.
“There is this sense sometimes of ‘the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people, and that’s enough,’” he said, then offered an example:
Like if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb. Then, I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself because, ‘Man, you see how woke I was? I called you out.’ I’m gonna get on TV. Watch my show. Watch ‘Grown-ish.’ You know, that’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.