REPARATIONS A ‘NON-STARTER,’ OBAMA SAYS

WASHINGTON Barack Obama, pictured, has backed reparations for slavery, but said he could not get it done because of the “politics of white resistance and resentment.”

The former president said he did not pursue the issue in office because it had been politically a “non-starter.”

“If you ask me theoretically, ‘Are reparations justified?’ the answer is yes. There’s not much question that the wealth of this country, the power of this country was built ... on the backs of slaves,” Obama said on his new podcast with Bruce Springsteen. “What I saw ... was the politics of white resistance and resentment. The talk of ‘welfare queens’ and the ‘undeserving’ poor, and the backlash against affirmative action.”

He added that meant a reparations program “struck me as, politically, not only a non-starter but potentially counterproductive.”