President Obama discusses the positives and negatives of being the first black president

Being the first black president has had political advantages as well as disadvantages, President Obama said in an interview with the L.A. Times released Thursday.

"I have no doubt there are people who voted against me because of race…or didn’t approve of my agenda because of race," he remarked. "I also suspect there are a bunch of people who are excited or voted for me because of the notion of the first African American president…Those things cut both ways."

Returning to the issue at another point in the conversation, Obama conceded that "there are pockets of the country where some dog whistles blow and there’s underlying racial fears that may be exploited." But at the same time, he said, "You’ve got a whole generation of kids growing up where the first president they’ve known is an African American. Even if they’re hearing their parents say he’s terrible, it kind of seeps in that it’s not a crazy thing. So that sometime later, if there’s a Hispanic, or a woman or another African American, that won’t seem as exceptional. These things change over time."