How Barack Obama Feels About His Daughters Going To Protests
By Christine-Marie Liwag Dixon/Nov. 24, 2020 5:09 pm EST
When your dad is Barack Obama, you can't help but be aware of sociopolitical issues. It's not too surprising, then, that Obama's daughters, Sasha and Malia, spent the summer participating in the demonstrations against police brutality that were conducted nationwide after George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were killed by police.
Sasha and Malia were just two more faces in the crowd. They wore face masks and did not draw attention to themselves, although their presence would no doubt have garnered quite a lot of publicity. Obama told People that they took part because of their own convictions, and not because of the encouragement of their parents.
"I didn't have to give them a lot of advice because they had a very clear sense of what was right and what was wrong and [of] their own agency and the power of their voice and the need to participate," he said.
Barack Obama is proud of his daughters
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The former president continued, "Malia and Sasha found their own ways to get involved with the demonstrations and activism that you saw with young people this summer, without any prompting from Michelle and myself, on their own. They were very much in organizer mode."
He added, "I could not have been prouder of them.
Obama opened up about the demonstrations in June, penning an essay at Medium. Obama spoke of the need for reform, writing, "I recognize that these past few months have been hard and dispiriting — that the fear, sorrow, uncertainty, and hardship of a pandemic have been compounded by tragic reminders that prejudice and inequality still shape so much of American life. But watching the heightened activism of young people in recent weeks, of every race and every station, makes me hopeful. If, going forward, we can channel our justifiable anger into peaceful, sustained, and effective action, then this moment can be a real turning point in our nation's long journey to live up to our highest ideals."