Obama lays into young people for being 'woke' and 'cancel culture'

Former President Barack Obama addressed "call-out culture" during a speech at the Obama Foundation summit on Tuesday, saying that young people wouldn't achieve real change by being "as judgmental as possible." 

"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," Obama told the Chicago crowd according to Business Insider.

He went on to add: "I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media, that the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people and that's enough."

"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, did you see how woke I was? I called you out.'" 

"The world is messy," Obama continued. "There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids and, you know, share certain things with you." 

He concluded: "That is not activism. That is not bringing about change. If all you're doing is casting stones, you are probably not going to get that far." 

You can watch the full speech in the tweet below. 

Unsurprisingly, the speech led to plenty of mixed reactions on social media. One user wrote: "Common Sense should be considered a Super Power because it is that Rare in today's age." 

Another added: "Cancel culture is out of control. And these “woke” warriors are just rude af. Insults are easy. The hard work is respecting people you disagree with and seeing common humanity in people who are different from you. Respect and empathy, we really need more of that."

Some users seemed to disagree, with one writing: "Is he scared about the possibility that somebody could call out what he did wrong during his presidency."