President Obama on Tuesday called out what he called “woke” culture in a speech at the third annual Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago, saying that even “people who do really good stuff have flaws.”
The former president encouraged the audience to “get over” the concept that “you’re always politically woke.”
{mosads}“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly,” he said. “The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws.”
Obama continued by saying calling out other people on social media for not being “woke” is “not activism” and “not bringing about change.”
“There is this sense sometimes of the way of me making change is for me to be as judgmental about other people, and that’s enough,” he said.
“Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself because ‘man, you see how woke I was I called you out,’” he added.