Barack Obama Quotes About Identity
-
The memoir was a very personal book. I wrote it as a personal journey and search about who my father was and how my family had come together and come apart - sorting all that out, you know, issues of personal identity.
→ -
My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn't, couldn't end there. At least that's what I would choose to believe.
→ -
When you see a Donald Trump and a Bernie Sanders, very unconventional candidates, have considerable success, then obviously there's something there that's being tapped into; a suspicion on globalization, a desire to reign in it's excesses, a suspicion of elites and governing institutions that people feel may not be responsive to their immediate needs. And that sometimes gets wrapped up in issues of ethnic identify or religious identity or cultural identity, and that can be a volatile mix.
→ -
Later, I would realize that the position of most black students in predominantly white colleges was already too tenuous, our identities too scrambled, to admit to ourselves that our black pride remained incomplete. And to admit our doubt and confusion to whites, to open up our psyches to general examination by those who had caused so much of the damage in the first place, seemed ludicrous, itself an expression of self-hatred - for there seemed no reason to expect that whites would look at our private struggles as a mirror into their own souls, rather than yet more evidence of black pathology.
→ -
I do believe, separate and apart from any particular election or movement, that we are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude sort of nationalism or ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an us and a them.
→ -
People are less certain of their national identities or their place in the world. It starts looking different and disorienting. And there is no doubt that that has produced populist movements both from the left and from the right in many countries in Europe.
→ -
Part of America's genius has always been its ability to absorb newcomers, to forge a national identity out of the disparate lot that arrived on our shores.
→ -
Because of the internet and communications, the clash of cultures is much more direct. People feel, I think, less certain about their identity, less certain about economic security.
→ -
We know hackers steal people's identities and infiltrate private e-mails. We know foreign countries and companies swipe our corporate secrets.
→ -
Here in Europe some of the challenges have to do with structures that are so complicated. You've got Brussels, and you've got parliament, you've got councils and then you've got national governments. So people sometimes don't feel as if they know who's making decisions, and the more that we can bring people in and engage them, the better. Some of it is also cultural and social, people's sense of identity.
→
Related Authors
-
Maya Soetoro-Ng Teacher -
Vladimir Putin President of Russia -
Narendra Modi Prime Minister of India -
Hillary Clinton Former United States Secretary of State -
Donald Trump 45th President of the United States -
John F. Kerry United States Secretary of State -
Joe Biden Vice President of the United States -
Bernie Sanders United States Senator -
John F. Kennedy 35th U.S. President -
John Boehner Speaker of the United States House of Representatives -
David Cameron Prime Minister of the United Kingdom -
John McCain United States Senator -
Ronald Reagan 40th U.S. President -
Mitt Romney Former Governor of Massachusetts -
George W. Bush 43rd U.S. President -
Marco Rubio United States Senator -
Michelle Obama Former First Lady of the United States -
William J. Clinton 42nd U.S. President -
Ann Dunham Anthropologist