Barack Obama has revealed that he once broke somebody's nose after being racially abused by them.
The former President of the United States revealed that he threw a punch at another boy in his high school basketball team in a recent episode of his six-part Spotify-exclusive podcast Renegades: Born in the USA - alongside his co-host, rock icon Bruce Springsteen.
In a frank and open discussion about race in modern America, 59-year-old Obama reflected on his own experience of racially-aggravated abuse in the school locker room in the seventh grade.
Per People, Obama stated:
"When I was in school I had a friend, we played basketball together, and one time we got into a fight and he called me a c**n.
"Now, first of all, ain't no c**ns in Hawaii, right? It's one of those things where he might not even know what a c***n was.
"What he knew was: 'I can hurt you by saying this.'"
The former POTUS continued: "I remember I popped him in the face and broke his nose... It was just reactive. I said: 'What?!' and I popped him.
"He was like: 'Why'd you do that?' and I explained to him. I said: 'Don't you ever call me something like that.'"
Obama went on to describe to 71-year-old Springsteen his view on the psychology and mindset behind the use of racial slurs, stating that a racist-minded person would think: "'I may be poor. I may be ignorant. I may be mean. I may be ugly. I may not like myself. I may be unhappy. But you know what I’m not? I’m not you.'"
Obama added: "That basic psychology that then gets institutionalized is used to justify dehumanizing somebody, taking advantage of them, cheating them, stealing from them, killing them, raping them.
"Whatever it is, at the end of the day it really comes down to that. And, in some cases, it’s as simple as, you know: 'I’m scared, I’m insignificant and not important. And this thing is the thing that’s going to give me some importance.'"
According to The New York Post, Obama previously spoke about the incident in a passage in his 1995 memoir Dreams of My Father, but this is reportedly the first-ever time the ex-Democrat leader has spoken about the incident publicly.
