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Brand of the Day Barack Obama

Brand of the Day: Barack Obama

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By Tony Connelly, Sports Marketing Reporter

June 23, 2015 | 3 min read

Welcome to Brand of the Day, where we pick the brand making headlines and explain what you need to know about why it's in the news.

US president Barack Obama’s use of the N-word in a podcast appearance on Monday stimulated a barrage of media attention and touched a raw nerve in a country which is currently steeped in racial controversy.

Obama gave an hour long interview on the WTF Podcast hosted by comedian Marc Maron and discussed how the US was “not cured” of racism.

The use of the word arose when Obama was making the point that racism is deeply embedded in the US and is “part of our DNA”. He then went on to argue that “it’s not just a matter of not being polite to say n***er in public. That’s not a measure of whether racism exists or not”.

Public debate on whether the president should have uttered the word quickly gathered pace with strong opinions on either side emerging. The use of the word was not lost on Obama who was “not surprised” by the reaction it provoked.

Racial debate has gathered pace in the final half of Obama’s time in office and he has been increasingly open and frank and about it. This is in part a result of incidents which have forced Americans to confront the issue.

Here’s more on the Obama brand.

Barack Obama’s net worth is estimated at around $7m meaning it has risen 438 per cent since he first ran for office.

Obama taught as a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School while he was in the statehouse and received a salary of $32,144

Obama discussed race and his upbringing in his memoir “Dreams From My Father” as he was preparing for his first campaign for the Illinois State Senate in 1995. The N-word appears 19 times in the book, often as a way to explain the kind of language that he heard as he grew up.

When Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 he donated all of the $1.4m prize money to 10 different charities including an array of college scholarship programmes and a military veterans charity.

He won the Grammy award for best Spoken Word Album in 2006 for his book ‘Dreams From My Father’ and again in 2008 for his second book ‘The Audacity of Hope’.

Brand of the Day Barack Obama

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