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After Donald Trump’s win stunned the White House, President Barack Obama was faced with the task of assuring not only his staff, but also his young daughters, that despite defeat, there will be ways to move forward.

In an extensive profile by the New Yorker, which gives an inside look at Obama before and after the election, he briefly talked about what he told his daughters, Malia, 18, and Sasha, 15, about Trump’s victory and the racial incidents that followed.

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“What I say to them is that people are complicated. Societies and cultures are really complicated … This is not mathematics; this is biology and chemistry,” Obama told the New Yorker’s David Remnick. “These are living organisms and it’s messy. And your job as a decent human being is to constantly affirm and lift up and fight for treating people with kindness and respect and understandings.”

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Dozens and dozens of racially charged attacks were reported after Trump’s victory. Many were believed to be directed by Trump’s supporters at immigrants, Muslims, Latinos and African-Americans. Anti-Semitic and pro-Trump vandalisms also have been seen in several cities. Meanwhile, waves of anti-Trump rallies spread across several cities.