Former President Obama criticized “woke” culture on Tuesday during a speech at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago.
Obama urged the audience to “get over” the concept that “you’re always politically woke.”
“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 said that calling out people on social media for not being “woke” is “not activism” and “not bringing about change.”
Obama worried about college campus culture:
“One danger I see among young people, particularly on college campuses,” Obama said, “I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people -- and this is accelerated by social media – 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.”
“Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or use the wrong verb,” he said, “then I can feel pretty good about myself, ‘cause man did you see how woke I was? I called you out.'”
“That’s not activism,” he added. “That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.”
Obama draws praise from Fox News:
Fox News talking head Tomi Lahren praised Obama’s comments after years of trashing him.
"What's really nice to hear is Barack Obama standing up for our rights and our values of the First Amendment. Just remember that we used to think Barack Obama was bad," Lahren said on “Fox & Friends.”
“Look at the Democrats we have now," she said. "We just had in the last debate: Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren arguing over the fact that Donald Trump should be kicked off Twitter because his comments are offensive. "So, that's where the Democratic Party is now. I mean, President Barack Obama is looking like the voice of reason. That's when you know the Democratic Party has gotten this bad.”
