President Obama says he supports the protesters at the University of Missouri for speaking out against the racism they say they’ve experienced on their campus.
But he wants to make sure they remain open to engaging in a dialogue — and not simply dismissing those with whom they disagree.
“The civil rights movement happened because there was civil disobedience, because people were willing to go to jail,” Obama told George Stephanopoulos in an interview that aired on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday. “But it was also because the leadership of the movement consistently stayed open to the possibility of reconciliation and sought to understand the views — even views that were appalling to them.”
Obama said he talks about the issue with his two daughters.
“I say to them, ‘Listen, if you hear somebody using a racial epithet, if you hear somebody who’s anti-Semitic, if you see an injustice, I want you to speak out,’” the president said. “And I want you to be firm and clear and I want you to protect people who may not have voices themselves. I want you to be somebody who’s strong and sees themselves as somebody who’s looking out for the vulnerable.’
“But I tell ’em, ‘I want you also to be able to listen,’” Obama continued. “‘I don’t want you to think that a display of your strength is simply shutting other people up. And that part of your ability to bring about change is going to be by engagement and understanding the viewpoints and the arguments of the other side.’”
That doesn’t mean students should accept hate or abandon their civil rights, he said.
“I care about kids not being discriminated against or having swastikas painted on their doors or nooses hung,” Obama said. “I think it’s entirely appropriate for any institution, including universities, to say, ‘Don’t walk around in blackface. It offends people. Don’t wear a headdress and beat your chest if Native American students have said, ‘You know, this hurts us. This bothers us.’ There’s nothing wrong with that.
“But we also have these values of free speech,” he said. “And it’s not free speech in the abstract. The purpose of that kind of free speech is to make sure that we are forced to use argument and reason and words in making our democracy work.”
Obama said he realizes such an approach puts “more of a burden on minority students or gay students or Jewish students or others in a majority that may be blind to history and blind to their hurt.”
“[But] you don’t have to be fearful of somebody spouting bad ideas,” he said. “Just out-argue ’em.”
And according to Obama, out-arguing ’em is something his eldest daughter excels in.
“I trust Malia in an argument,” Obama said. “If a knucklehead on a college campus starts talking about her, I guarantee you she will give as good as she gets.”