Obama: Bad Economy Gives Rise to 'Tribal Attitudes'
Politico reports:
President Barack Obama thinks that the recession has caused a temporary increase in racial tension by stoking “tribal attitude” among people in economic distress.
During an hour-long town hall with young people simulcast on MTV, BET and CMT Thursday afternoon, Kishor Nagula, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, asked Obama about race relations, saying he was disappointed the president hadn’t ushered in a post-racial era, as some of his supporters had once suggested he would.
“Oftentimes misunderstandings and antagonisms surface most strongly when economic times are tough and that’s not surprising,” said Obama, citing some “slippage” in racial understanding.
“When you’re out of work and you can’t buy a home or you lost your home and you can’t pay your bills… sometimes that organizes [people] around kind of a tribal attitude and issues of race become more prominent.”
But Obama pushed back against the idea that race relations have gotten worse over the long-term, adding that the “trend lines” were moving in the right direction, anointing young people as “the messengers” to their less enlightened elders.
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