Quotes by category:White

I look forward to hosting an Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan here at the White House later this week, and wish you a blessed month.

blessed white house

It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks' greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere...That's the world! On which hope sits!

white running years

The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white person.

grandmother racism white

You know, when I made a series of overtures to the Republicans, going over to meet with both Republican caucuses, you know, putting three Republicans in my cabinet -- something that is unprecedented -- making sure that they were invited here to the White House to talk about the economic recovery plan, all those were not designed simply to get some short-term votes. They were designed to try to build up some trust over time. And I think that, as I continue to make these overtures, over time, hopefully that will be reciprocated.

recovery white thinking

Senator Joe Biden is pretty clean and articulate for a white guy. by Barack Obama

Senator Joe Biden is pretty clean and articulate for a white guy.

biden guy white

No black or white America-just United States of America. by Barack Obama

No black or white America-just United States of America.

black white america

That's just how white folks will do you. It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserved of their scorn.

laughter white mean

I can no more disown (Jeremiah Wright) than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

grandmother white men

[My grandmother] is a typical white person. by Barack Obama

[My grandmother] is a typical white person.

typical grandmother white

Let's say hypothetically, knowing what we know now about public policy, that we could close the education gap so that it was only a couple percentage points, and we could make sure that hiring barriers and educational barriers had been leveled down, and unemployment among African Americans right now instead of being double was only 10 percent higher than white unemployment - if we got to that point , America as a whole would be a lot richer.

educational couple white

I actually believe that some residue of discrimination would lessen, because it's my view that there is a certain percentage of the white population that stereotypes and makes assumptions about African Americans because they don't inject the history of slavery and Jim Crow into current incarceration rates, or crime rates, or poverty rates, or what have you.

views white believe

When we were working on immigration reform and there was a young Latino man, young immigration activist here who, in the Roosevelt Room, refused to shake my hand.He made a point of saying, "I can't shake your hand; you're deporting too many people." And I just said to him, "Young man, I'm glad that you feel so passionately about this issue, but you're with the president right now in the White House. You've got to think about what's going to be most effective in getting what you need, what you're trying to accomplish. Because this may not be your best strategy."

white men thinking

One of the things that you come pretty early on to understand in this job, and you start figuring out even during the course of the campaign, is that there's Barack Obama the person and there's Barack Obama the symbol, or the office holder, or what people are seeing on television, or just a representative of power. And so when people criticize or respond negatively to me, usually they're responding to this character that they're seeing on TV called Barack Obama, or to the office of the presidency and the White House and what that represents.

white jobs character

Our kids grew up here [in the White House]. Some of our best friends have been made here in this place. There have been moments that were highlights for us - that - you know, are going to be hard to duplicate.

white house kids

Black children, white children, Latino children. America is becoming more diverse, it's becoming more tolerant as a consequence there's more interactions between groups. There are going be tensions that arise.

white children america

There's some bittersweet feelings about leaving the people here [in the White House]. 'Cause even though all the team you assemble, you know, you're going to stay in touch with 'em, it's not the same, you know? The band kind of breaks up.

team white people

Now suddenly you got members of your [White House] team who were 23, 24. They've met their wives here, or their husbands here.

team husband white

I would love to see an America where race is understood in the same way that the ethnic diversity of the white population is understood.

race white america

Anybody who gets into bed and turns out the lights the first night in the White House probably feels a little bit of a start, where you say, "Goodness ... "

light white night

The bottom line is that it's hard to find a model in which you can practically administer and sustain political support for those kinds of efforts. And what makes America complicated as well is the degree to which this is not just a black/white society, and it is becoming less so every year.

white america years