Barack Obama 'always' worries about his daughters at protests

9 June 2021

Barack Obama has admitted he "always" worries about his daughters' safety at protests and rallies.

Barack Obama

The former president of the United States - who has Malia, 22, and Sasha, 19, with his wife Michelle - praised his girls for their desire to make things "better" and opened up on their decision to attend Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd last year.

He told CNN: "I always worry about their physical safety; that's just the nature of fatherhood...

"But in terms of them having a good sense of what's right and wrong, and their part and role to play in making the country better, I don't worry about that."

He explained that his daughters' generation is less likely to accept "how things are", as they instead want to bring about real change.

He added: "What you and I might have tolerated as 'That's sort of how things are,' their attitude is 'Why? Let's change it.' That's among not just my daughters, but it's among their white friends.

"There's this sense of, 'Of course, it's not acceptable for a criminal justice system to be tainted by racism. Of course you can't discriminate against somebody because their sexual orientation.' "

Obama also weighed in on "cancel culture" and noted that he isn't calling on people "to be politically correct all the time".

He said: "We don't expect everybody to be perfect, we don't expect everybody to be politically correct all the time.

"But we are going to call out institutions or individuals if they are being cruel, if they are discriminating against people. We do want to raise awareness."

Meanwhile, earlier this year he told Bruce Springsteen about about the time he broke a classmate's nose for calling him a racial slur.

Speaking on their 'Renegades: Born in the USA' podcast, he recalled: "Listen, when I was in school, I had a friend. We played basketball together. And one time we got into a fight, and he called me a c***.

"Now, first of all, ain’t no c***s in Hawaii, right? It’s one of those things where he might not even have known what a c*** was. What he knew was, ‘I can hurt you by saying this'...

"I remember I popped him in the face and broke his nose, and we were in the locker room. I explained to him - I said, ‘Don’t you ever call me something like that.

"'I may be poor. I may be ignorant. I may be mean. I may be ugly. I may not like myself. I may be unhappy, but you know what I’m not? I’m not you.’ ”