Barack Obama Talks About Taking the Higher Ground on "All the Smoke" Podcast

It's been wonderful to be able to watch the intelligent and articulate Barack and Michelle Obama as they inaugurate his presidential library while we approach the USA's 250th birthday, instead of just the Madness of King Gorge and his fetid reflecting pool of corruption and crime.

 

 I caught a video clip of Barack inaugurating the library's basketball court with some NBAers and spotted "All the Smoke" co-hosts Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. Obama sat down for an interview for the podcast, which doesn't shy away from talking about smoking, but covers so much more about basketball and life. 

Of course I wondered if they would ask Obama, who admitted to smoking pot as a teenager growing up in Hawaii, and said, "Of course I inhaled. That was the point." Instead, our former president brought the topic up himself. 

During a discussion of Barack coming to terms with his biracial heritage, he said, "Part of the thing that I figured out around 19, 20 was ...there's no one way to be Black. I remember in college, because I was trying to be--I won't say a roughneck, but...look, in my high school years I was getting high a lot, and partying a lot" before going into how he evolved from the Fresh Prince to more like Carlton during that time. 

He then talked about taking the Higher Ground. Here's Stevie Wonder with John Legend, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder (of Guitars Over Guns), Christina Aguilera and Jennifer Hudson singing "Higher Ground" at the Inauguration party, with a rap from Common and the Obamas singing (and Kamala dancing) along. 

Barack has said if he couldn't shoot some hoops he would never have qualified to date Michelle in her eyes or her brother's. He talked on the podcast as playing "on fire" the night of the 2016 election, and it kinda made me wish he'd been playing in a different arena that night (hint: a political one).  I often think if people spent 1/100th of the time they spend watching sports paying attention to politics instead, we might make more progress. (My rule for boyfriends: you can watch any sports you play. Or at least, played.)