AFP, Washington :
For a frustrated President Barack Obama, last week’s slaughter of nine black churchgoers proves once again that the United States has yet to exorcise its racist demons.
But, just to underline the point, he showed in remarks released Monday that he is not afraid to use a term that most Americans would blanch at in an effort to convey his frustration.
“It’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say ‘nigger’ in public. That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not,” America’s first black president said.
“It’s not just a matter of overt discrimination,” he said. “Societies don’t overnight completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior.”
Speaking to online radio broadcast “WTF with Marc Maron,” Obama put last week’s murderous rampage in a black church by a suspected young white supremacist in the context of US history.
“It is incontrovertible that race relations have improved significantly during my lifetime and yours, and that opportunities have opened up, and that attitudes have changed,” he said.
