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  • The President: It's good to see you.

  • (inaudible dialogue)

  • Female Speaker: And so, we've heard a lot in the

  • past speaker's series that we've had with all the

  • amazing stuff about your relentless optimism.

  • The President: I am a relentless optimist.

  • Female Speaker: I was wondering if you could talk

  • a little bit more about that.

  • How you remain optimistic or maybe you're not but people

  • still think that you are.

  • The President: Ah.

  • (laughter)

  • Some of this is temperamental.

  • I -- people just have different temperaments and I

  • tend to be a pretty happy guy.

  • (laughter)

  • I'm pretty sure this is cause I was born in Hawaii.

  • (laughter)

  • And so I spent most of my early years in really

  • pleasant weather all the time.

  • Splashing in waves and things.

  • So that helped.

  • As I get older.

  • And certainly in this job, what helps me a lot is

  • taking the long view on things.

  • I think so much pessimism and so much stress arises

  • out of looking at things in this very narrow here and now.

  • But the day to day sort of ups and downs and swings,

  • it's like the weather.

  • Mean, you're okay you get an umbrella sometime.

  • Sometimes you take off your jacket.

  • But if you can keep your eye on the long Buick, not only

  • does that relieve stress, but it also allows you to

  • make better decisions.

  • The things that last, the things that are important

  • usually have to do with how do you behave.

  • How did you treat other people.

  • Did you work as hard as you could have.

  • Did you do your best.

  • The things that you have control over.

  • When I'm on my deathbed, the things I will remember will

  • be walking a four-year-old Malia to the park.

  • I'm not going to remember some headline, I think

  • that's helpful.

  • But that's just me.

  • It's mostly the Hawaii thing.

  • (laughter)

  • Female Speaker: What kind of legacy would to leave in the

  • African American community?

  • The President: It's hard for me to say what I've meant to

  • the African American community -- I can say what

  • Michelle's meant to the African American community.

  • (laughter)

  • Michelle's the bomb.

  • (laughter)

  • What concretely I can say is that the work this

  • administration has done has made a difference in the

  • lives of people who are struggling and those folks

  • are disproportionately people of color.

  • So whether it's the affordable care act and

  • making sure people have health care or its expanding

  • Pell grants or it's programs to deal with low-income

  • communities to help them rebuild and provide better

  • job training.

  • In each of those areas, there are a lot of people

  • who are better off than their lives would have been

  • because of the concrete actions that we took.

  • There's a second category of issues that have to do with

  • government action and are specifically related to

  • civil rights, voting rights.

  • We now have an outstanding civil rights division in the

  • Justice Department that is actively filing suits and

  • winning lawsuits to make sure people have the right

  • to vote.

  • To make sure that discriminatory practices are

  • rooted out.

  • That's another category.

  • I've put in that same category the work we have

  • been doing around criminal justice reform.

  • And reshaping how we do commutations and how we are

  • working with law enforcement around best practices

  • for policing.

  • All right so that's a whole category of issues.

  • And then there's just the cultural and physiological

  • issues and it's interesting and I think the impact may

  • be not just with black kids taken for granted that

  • somebody who looks like them can be president.

  • But their white peers take it for granted that somebody

  • that doesn't look like them can be president.

  • All of you are young enough that in some ways, it's

  • plausible to you maybe that race relations have

  • gotten worse.

  • But actually it's a testimony to how much better

  • they've gotten.

  • That this shocks you.

  • Evidence that there may be racial bias in our criminal

  • justice system.

  • You're hurt.

  • Whereas, 25, 30 years ago, that was a given.

  • So sometimes progress involves improvement but

  • then raising expectations.

  • Things are a lot better but now our expectations are a

  • lot higher.

  • You know, we got a long way to go when it comes to

  • racial issues.

  • You know, history can go backwards as well

  • as forwards.

  • But the overall trajectory I think is positive and the

  • caution I have for this cohort -- because there

  • probably is some self-selection going on.

  • You if you guys are interning here with Obama,

  • then you're probably -- you got certain, you are more

  • likely to have certain political views.

  • (laughter)

  • So I just want to caution all of you to make sure that

  • in wanting to improve race relations, you don't become

  • so rigid and sensitive in terms of your own views that

  • instead of opening up dialogue, you harden lines

  • and divisions.

  • All right, guys turn.

  • Yes sir, over here.

  • Male Speaker: How do you deal with knowing when to

  • compromise and how have you learned how to compromise

  • and kind a more 'stick to your guns'?

  • The President: Maybe my rule of thumb is if the issue

  • we're working on -- I've got a particular objective and

  • the compromise fords that objective then that's

  • a bad compromise.

  • If the compromise makes things better, but just not

  • as good as I think they need to be, then my instinct is

  • that's a good compromise.

  • And probably the best example of this is the

  • debate we had around healthcare.

  • Once we get the structure in place, it's like a starter

  • home and it would be nice if we had granite countertops

  • in the kitchen but we can't afford those yet.

  • There's no porch.

  • But it beats sleeping outside.

  • But I think I've been proven right on this.

  • Because I've got 20 million people with health insurance

  • that haven't had it before.

  • Now it's far from our ideal, but every single step in

  • social progress in this country has started with a

  • starter home.

  • The political process is in this country incremental.

  • Democracy of our sort require reform as a general

  • proposition and not revolution.

  • And that's okay.

  • There's nothing wrong with better.

  • Because you hold out for the best and that means that

  • whoever was going to help my better doesn't have health

  • care that year.

  • Or, isn't getting as much help on going to college as

  • they otherwise would have.

  • All right, well you guys have been great.

  • I always say this to all of you, even though it's

  • boilerplate I'm going to repeat it.

  • Don't get bored, don't get cynical.

  • You guys are the most privileged people at the

  • most prosperous, secure period in human history.

  • And so, no griping and no moping.

  • The possibilities of what you can do are enormous.

  • And that doesn't mean -- becoming president involves

  • a lot of luck.

  • Becoming Steve Jobs or Quentin Tarantino -- that

  • requires -- there are certain amount of breaks

  • that you get.

  • It's not because you are so much better than anybody else.

  • And being (inaudible) because you are better than

  • everybody else.

  • But a lot of times it's just happen stance or things

  • worked out.

  • But being useful and having a satisfying life and making

  • a contribution?