Obama breaks record with anti-racist, Mandela tweet
UNLIKE some former US presidents, Barack Obama is showing no signs of abandoning public life.
Since leaving office, Obama has commented on major events or controversies, including the terrorist attack in Manchester and Senator John McCain’s brain cancer diagnosis. He did so again on Saturday, after the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin or his background or his religion… People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love… For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite,” Obama said, quoting Nelson Mandela in tweets.
The first tweet, which shows a picture of Obama smiling at four children, has been retweeted more than one million times and liked 2.6 million times.
According to Favstar, a Twitter-tracking site, it’s one of the most-liked tweets in the history of Twitter. It also ranks No 7 among the most retweeted tweets.
Obama has used Twitter only sporadically since January, tweeting a handful of times every month to weigh in on national conversations. It is unclear if Obama himself or a social media team is handling his Twitter handle.
President Donald Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville has become the subject of widespread criticisms. On Saturday, Trump condemned hatred and bigotry from “many sides”. He did not say which “sides” he was referring to, or whose hatred and bigotry he was condemning.
Many Democrats and Republicans took issue with Trump for not condemning white nationalists or white supremacists, even after a car, allegedly driven by a neo-Nazi sympathiser, ploughed into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring 19 others.
Obama has largely avoided criticising his successor.
In June, however, he weighed in on two of the current administration’s major policy items: climate change and health care. He criticised Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement.