It’s N-word and onward for Obama on race

In using the N-word during an interview released Monday and stating what is perhaps blindingly obvious — that racism is still a reality in the U.S. — Barack Obama said nothing that was exactly revolutionary.

But his frank discussion of race relations seemed to signal the U.S. president was finally willing to wade into the tortured debate, after long appearing more of a neutral referee on America’s black-white playing field.

For much of his presidency, Obama has tiptoed around the issue: In one of his statements about the police shooting in Ferguson, Mo., he neglected even to mention the word race.

But as one incident after another involving black men dying at the hands of white police has piled up in recent months, and with little to lose electorally, his tone has changed.

“Here he sits in the last two years of office, freed from the constraints of re-election, understanding that Congress is not going to pass his agenda,” said Robert Chase, an expert on African-American history at New York’s Stony Brook University. “And I think this frees him to say what he thinks.”

Then came last week’s shooting of nine black parishioners at a church in Charleston, S.C., allegedly by a self-described white supremacist.

Underlining the deep historical and cultural context of the massacre, only on Monday did the state’s Republican governor call for the Confederate flag that has long flown near the state legislature — a symbol for many of the South’s slave-keeping past — to be finally moved away.

Obama actually spent relatively little of his wide-ranging interview with comedian Marc Maron talking about race. When he did, he stressed that race relations have significantly improved in his lifetime.

“What is also true is that the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives — that casts a long shadow and that’s still a part of our DNA that’s passed on,” he added pointedly. “We’re not cured of it.”

Obama went on to memorably illustrate his point, suggesting that the language of racial interaction may have changed, but the sentiments behind it are not necessarily so different.

“It’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say ‘nigger’ in public,” he said. “That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It’s not just a matter of overt discrimination.”

He did confront the issue soon after taking office, obliquely questioning the police arrest of a respected black university professor, only to endure a wave of criticism.

“The president learned to chart a middle course, which he has really done ever since, to be very cautious,” said Chase.