Barack Obama has said all young boys should have a mixture of male role models and friends, including a gay person so that they don’t grow up ‘ignorant’.
The former president spoke with his wife Michelle Obama on the podcast she hosts with her brother, Craig Robinson, called IMO, which stands for ‘in my opinion’.
Obama, 63, whose own father was absent in Kenya during his upbringing, said that even if boys have a ‘great dad’ they need more than one male role model.
‘One of the most valuable things I learned as a guy was, I had a gay professor in college at a time when openly gay folks still weren’t out,’ the Harvard Law graduate-turned-Democrat politician said.
‘He became one of my favorite professors and was a great guy. He would call me out when I started saying stuff that was ignorant.
‘You need that to show empathy and kindness, and by the way, you need that person in your friend group so that if you then have a boy who is gay or non-binary or what have you, they have somebody that they can go: “okay, I’m not alone in this”.
‘Creating that community, I know it’s corny but, that’s what we need’.
Obama, who has two daughters, was born in Hawaii to an 18-year-old American mother and 27-year-old Kenyan father. They divorced in 1964 when he was three years old.
