Barack Obama criticizes pop culture for promoting the wrong values to young men

THE BIG IDEA: Barack Obama pleaded with a crowd of teenagers on Tuesday night to defy stereotypes about what it means to be a man of color.

“We live in a culture where our worth is measured by how much money we have and how famous we are,” the former president lamented in Oakland, Calif. “I will tell you, at the end of the day, the thing that will give you confidence is not that. I know a lot of rich people that are all messed up!”

Joined onstage by Golden State Warriors basketball star Steph Curry, Obama decried bullying and selfishness while imploring young people who are involved in his My Brother’s Keeper initiative to pursue causes greater than themselves. He explained the concept of self-worth and touted the virtues of being sensitive to other people’s feelings. He criticized materialism and encouraged monogamy.

“If you are really confident about your financial situation, you probably are not going to be wearing an eight-pound chain around your neck because you know, ‘I got bank. I don’t have to show you how much I’ve got because I feel good,’” Obama said. “If you are very confident about your sexuality, you don’t have to have eight women around you twerking … because [you know], ‘I’ve got one woman, who I am very happy with. And she’s a strong woman.’”

Obama blamed pop culture for amplifying toxic messages about modern masculinity. “Let’s face it: A lot of hip-hop and rap music is built around me showing how I got more money than you, I can disrespect you and you can’t do nothing about it, I’m going to talk about you and punk you,’” he said. “Ironically, that actually shows the vulnerability that you feel!

“We tend to rise to the expectations that are set for us,” added Obama. “If a young boy is taught early on, ‘You are going to be kind to people, not bully people,’ that will have an impact. If you say, ‘You treat young women with respect. They are not objects. They are humans with the same aspirations and desires, and they are just as worthy of respect as you are,’ that has an impact. We’ve got to set that tone early in life.”

The town-hall-style Q&A offered a timely reminder of the moral authority that’s traditionally been vested in our presidents, both current and former. Obama repeatedly touted the importance of respecting, and listening to, women and then discussed race in a candid way. “Often times, historically, racism in this society sends a message that you are less than and weak, so we feel like we’ve got to compensate by exaggerating certain stereotypical ways that men are supposed to act,” he said. “That’s a trap that we fall into, that we have to pull out of. If you’re confident about your strength, you don’t need to show me by putting someone else down. Show me how strong you are in that you can lift someone else up and treat someone well and be respectful.”

– The event was held to mark the fifth anniversary of My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative Obama started after the shooting death in 2012 of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old. “Some of you remember, although some of you were so young you may not,” the former president said. “As somebody who is the head of federal law enforcement, I could not comment on the particulars of the case, but what I could say was that Trayvon could have been my son. … It required us as a society to wake up.” (Left unsaid was that President Trump does not feel so reticent about weighing in on active federal law enforcement investigations.)

The singer John Legend, who performed a cover of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” for the crowd, led a panel discussion with the mothers of Martin, Oscar Grant and Jordan Davis. “It’s not about Trayvon anymore; it’s about the young people in here,” said Sybrina Fulton, Martin’s mother. “Although Trayvon is not here for me to watch grow, to watch him excel, I want all those things for you. … I want you to be educated. I want you to be strong. I want you to be leaders, not followers.”

– Obama has grown plainly more comfortable discussing issues related to race since leaving office liberated him. “What we want to do is create a space in which young men of color, and young men generally, do not feel as if, ‘For me to be respected in my community, I’ve got to act a certain way,’” he said. “A lot of the violence and pain that we suffer in our communities arises out of young men who nobody has said to them what it means to be respected. So they are looking around and thinking, ‘Well, I guess being respected means [that] I can make you back down.’ Or, ‘I can disrespect you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ That is a self-defeating model for being a man! So we have to constantly lift up examples of the successful men who don’t take that approach. That’s hard to do in this society.”

– Discussing criminal justice policy, Obama made clear that law enforcement can be a force for good. “In fact, some communities need more police, not fewer police,” he said. The former president said it’s important that cops get training and build relationships on their beats so that they understand just because someone is “wearing a hoodie does not mean they’re a criminal.” “That’s just the style,” Obama said.

Barack Obama hugs Golden State Warriors basketball star Stephen Curry on Tuesday night after speaking at the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance summit in Oakland, Calif. 

– The graying 57-year-old, who for eight years was the most powerful man on the planet, tried earnestly to relate and connect with an audience of black, Latino and Native American teenage males who are fighting to escape cycles of poverty, dependency and violence. The goal of the public-private initiative, which is now part of the Obama Foundation and has spread to nearly 250 cities, is to help minority boys who face a variety of systemic disadvantages. Obama noted that government alone cannot fix problems, and that local governments often play a more important role than the federal government. He said he’s now focused more on the civil society elements of the work because he doesn’t hold elected office. “I’m going to be working on these issues, along with a host of other issues, for the remainder of my life,” Obama said.

A teenager from a Native American school in Albuquerque asked what struggles he went through as a kid. “I didn’t know my father very well. I met him once, and that was it,” Obama said. “I was all kinds of screwed up when I was in high school. I was a good kid in the sense that I think I was always kind to people. I didn’t have a mean spirit. But I did not have a sense of purpose or a clear sense of direction through a big chunk of my high school years. In retrospect, I recognize some of it was I was angry about my father not being there. Some of it was I was growing up in an environment as an African American boy where we didn’t have a large African American community. So there were all sorts of reasons for why I was acting out the way I did. …

“What ended up being the most important thing is when I stopped thinking about myself, and I started thinking about how I could be useful to other people,” he continued. “I didn’t grow up and become the person I am until I was less focused on me and I was more focused on how I could be useful and who I could help. … When you’re helping somebody … and you see the impact, that gives you confidence.”

Obama said a lot of dads want to be around for their families, but they are not because of mass incarceration, discrimination and the lack of job opportunities. “We can all be surrogate fathers,” said the dad to two daughters. “My father might not have been in my house, but there were a whole bunch of men who taught me something and guided me.”

– In honor of Black History Month, Obama shared a nonfiction reading list ahead of the event to help people “better understand our country’s past and our evolving, persistent struggles with race.” The former president’s list has some great titles that complement the syllabus I prepared for Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) last week:

• “The Warmth of Other Suns,” by Isabel Wilkerson
• “Stamped From the Beginning,” by Ibram X. Kendi
• “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption,” by Bryan Stevenson
• “A Stone of Hope: A Memoir,” by Jim St. Germain with Jon Sternfeld
• “The Fire Next Time,” by James Baldwin
• “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” by Martin Luther King Jr.
• “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom,” by David W. Blight

Obama also shared a link to a New York Times story from March 2018 about data showing the “punishing reach of racism for black boys.” 

– The former president mostly steered clear of politics, though he noted at one point that the Trump administration has reversed the guidance his administration issued to local school districts to lower suspension rates among communities of color. The crowd booed. “Nobody hears your boos,” Obama answered. “They’ll hear your vote.”

He said it’s ultimately up to young people to get involved and change the system. “The truth of the matter is that nothing changes if citizens living in communities aren’t paying attention and aren’t educating themselves about how decisions are made about a school board, how decisions are made about police oversight, how decisions are made about drug laws,” said Obama. “You can have a bunch of politicians or celebrities talk all they want, but ultimately what will actually bring about change is when all of you go back to your respective communities and activate and educate yourselves and then insist whoever it is that’s in charge of making those decisions is making them … for the right reasons and in the right way. And if there are people who aren’t doing that, they should be replaced. And if there’s nobody to replace them, then you should step up and prepare yourself to replace them.”