Obama: But as a practical matter, it is hard to think of any society in human history in which a majority population has said that as a consequence of historic wrongs, we are now going to take a big chunk of the nation’s resources over a long period of time to make that right. You can look at examples like postwar Germany, where reparations were paid to Holocaust victims and families, but—
Coates: They lost the war.
(Helping to defeat his own arguments)
Obama: They lost the war. Small population, finite amount of money that it was going to cost. Not multiple generations but people, in some cases, who are still alive, who can point to, “That was my house. Those were my paintings. Those were my mother’s family jewels.”
Obama: ...And what makes America complicated as well is the degree to which this is not just a black/white society, and it is becoming less so every year. So how do Latinos feel if there’s a big investment just in the African American community, and they’re looking around and saying, “We’re poor as well. What kind of help are we getting?” Or Asian Americans who say, “Look, I’m a first-generation immigrant, and clearly I didn’t have anything to do with what was taking place.” And now you start getting into trying to calibrate—
He offered some meek pushback here
Coates: Isn’t there just—not to cut you off—isn’t there, and this is out of the role of U.S. president, I’m almost speaking to you as a law professor now, an intellectual, in fact—
(p*ssyfooting around like a ho)
Obama: Well, that’s how I was answering the question, because if you want me to talk about politics, I’ll be much more blunt about it.
Coates: I figured that. I thought that was what I was getting.
Obama: I was giving the benefit of playing out, theoretically, how you could think about that.
Coates: And I appreciate that. And the question I would ask is in that situation, to the immigrant who comes here, first generation, and says, “I didn’t do any of this,” but the country is largely here because of that. In other words, many of the benefits that you will actually enjoy are, in fact, in part—I won’t say largely—in part here because of the past. So when you want the benefits, when you invoke the past, that thus you inherit the debt, too—
(Downplaying the significance of slavery regarding the building of America. Again, defeating his own arguments and supporting Obama’s weak ones, and later let Obama skate by giving him an out about optimism)
goofy ass nikkas