In interview, Obama says U.S. not cured of racism

WASHINGTON — President Obama says the history of slavery and segregation is “still part of our DNA” in the United States, even if racial epithets no longer show up in polite conversation.

In an interview, Obama talked about the debates over race and guns that have erupted after the arrest of a white man in the racially motivated shooting deaths of nine black church members in Charleston, S.C.

In the interview, Obama said while attitudes about race have improved significantly since he was born to a white mother and black father, the “legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives, that casts a long shadow and that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on.”

Obama also expressed frustration that “the grip of the NRA on Congress is extremely strong” and prevented gun control from advancing in Congress after 20 children and six educators were massacred in a Connecticut elementary school in 2012.

“The question is just is there a way of accommodating that legitimate set of traditions with some common-sense stuff that prevents a 21-year-old who is angry about something or confused about something, or is racist, or is deranged from going into a gun store and suddenly is packing, and can do enormous harm,” Obama said in a reference to Charleston suspect Dylann Storm Roof.