Obama: Black Lives Matter And Other Activists Need To Learn To Compromise

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At a youth town hall in London Saturday, President Obama said that activists, specifically Black Lives Matter activists, need to be willing to compromise and that sometimes, the tone of the activism can turn people off to their message.

While answering questions from students and young people, Obama praised the Black Lives Matter movement for bringing to light the issues of police brutality and racial discrimination, but he says, their tone can mean that sometimes the message gets lost.

“You can’t just keep on yelling at them and you can’t refuse to meet because that might compromise the purity of your position,” Obama said. “The value of social movements and activism is to get you at the table, get you in the room and then start trying to figure out how is this problem going to be solved. You then have a responsibility to prepare an agenda that is achievable —that can institutionalize the changes you seek and to engage the other side.”

Obama brought up compromise often in his speech, imploring youth activists and political hopefuls to learn how to compromise and to not see opponents or those on the other side of the aisle as enemies.

“If you spend time with people who just agree with you on any particular issue, you become even more extreme in your convictions because you’re never contradicted and everyone just mutually reinforces their perspective,” he said. “That’s why I think it is so important for all the young people here to seek out people who don’t agree with you.

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  1. LBJ asked Martin Luther King to tone it down also. MLK told him no.

  2. Avatar for bkmn bkmn says:

    That’s a lesson the GOP never leaned.

  3. Certainly a shot across the bow of the SS Bernie boat. Those folks don’t even understand what political compromise IS.

  4. True, but MLK was by all accounts, always willing to meet, to debate even those who were against him (not that many of his opponents were willing to return the courtesy.) He didn’t compromise his principles, but he also didn’t shy away from engaging in productive dialogue. Sadly, too many activists - and not just BLM, but a whole slew of causes, it seems - have refused such engagement, in the name of purity and fealty to the revolution.

    Sadly, it seems to be mirroring the same irrational, rage-dominated thought we see so often on the right. Ideologues, no matter how righteous they perceive their cause to be, never seem to realize that the opposition hold to their beliefs with equal fervor, and the day after the march, or the rally, or the election, those other people will still be there. They aren’t going to evaporate into thin air, or fold in the face of your superior position. Compromise is absolutely critical to the functioning of any liberal democratic society. The alternative ultimately leads to some very dark places… because when you realize you will never convince your opponents, and you haven’t done the hard work to convince the public at large that you are reasonable and willing to talk, what is left?

  5. The Repug lying fools have smeared the POTUS as a radical and a socialist, but he is actually one of the most pragmatic, temperate leaders the country has ever had.

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