'We've been able to look away in the past, and we can no longer look away,' says Gay.
She agreed that the country isn't more racially divided and that Americans are being forced to confront a difficult reality. Morning Edition asked Roxane Gay, an author who focuses on race, gender and identity, what she thought of the president's comments. But I - I assure you, from the perspective of African-Americans or Latinos in poor communities who have been dealing with this all their lives, they wouldn't suggest somehow that it's worse now than it was 10, 15 or 20 years ago.' 'It's understandable the polls might say, you know, that race relations have gotten worse - because when it's in the news and you see something like Ferguson or the Garner case in New York, then it attracts attention. In an interview this week with NPR, President Obama asserted that the country is less racially divided than when he took office:
