| “we the people, in order to form
a more perfect union.”
two hundred and twenty one years
ago, in a hall that still stands
across the street, a group of men
gathered and, with these simple
words, launched america’s
improbable experiment in democracy.
farmers and scholars; statesmen and
patriots who had traveled across an
ocean to escape tyranny and
persecution finally made real their
declaration of independence at a
philadelphia convention that lasted
through the spring of 1787.
the document they produced was
eventually signed but ultimately
unfinished. it was stained by this
nation’s original sin of slavery,
a question that divided the
colonies and brought the convention
to a stalemate until the founders
chose to allow the slave trade to
continue for at least twenty more
years, and to leave any final
resolution to future generations.
of course, the answer to the
slavery question was already
embedded within our constitution
– a constitution that had at is
very core the ideal of equal
citizenship under the law; a
constitution that promised its
people liberty, and justice, and a
union that could be and should be
perfected over time.
and yet words on a parchment would
not be enough to deliver slaves
from bondage, or provide men and
women of every color and creed
their full rights and obligations
as citizens of the united states.
what would be needed were americans
in successive generations who were
willing to do their part –
through protests and struggle, on
the streets and in the courts,
through a civil war and civil
disobedience and always at great
risk - to narrow that gap between
the promise of our ideals and the
reality of their time.
this was one of the tasks we set
forth at the beginning of this
campaign – to continue the long
march of those who came before us,
a march for a more just, more
equal, more free, more caring and
more prosperous america. i chose to
run for the presidency at this
moment in history because i believe
deeply that we cannot solve the
challenges of our time unless we
solve them together – unless we
perfect our union by understanding
that we may have different stories,
but we hold common hopes; that we
may not look the same and we may
not have come from the same place,
but we all want to move in the same
direction – towards a better
future for of children and our
grandchildren.
this belief comes from my
unyielding faith in the decency and
generosity of the american people.
but it also comes from my own
american story.
i am the son of a black man from
kenya and a white woman from
kansas. i was raised with the help
of a white grandfather who survived
a depression to serve in patton’s
army during world war ii and a
white grandmother who worked on a
bomber assembly line at fort
leavenworth while he was overseas.
i’ve gone to some of the best
schools in america and lived in one
of the world’s poorest nations. i
am married to a black american who
carries within her the blood of
slaves and slaveowners – an
inheritance we pass on to our two
precious daughters. i have
brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews,
uncles and cousins, of every race
and every hue, scattered across
three continents, and for as long
as i live, i will never forget that
in no other country on earth is my
story even possible.
it’s a story that hasn’t made
me the most conventional candidate.
but it is a story that has seared
into my genetic makeup the idea
that this nation is more than the
sum of its parts – that out of
many, we are truly one.
throughout the first year of this
campaign, against all predictions
to the contrary, we saw how hungry
the american people were for this
message of unity. despite the
temptation to view my candidacy
through a purely racial lens, we
won commanding victories in states
with some of the whitest
populations in the country. in
south carolina, where the
confederate flag still flies, we
built a powerful coalition of
african americans and white
americans.
this is not to say that race has
not been an issue in the campaign.
at various stages in the campaign,
some commentators have deemed me
either “too black” or “not
black enough.” we saw racial
tensions bubble to the surface
during the week before the south
carolina primary. the press has
scoured every exit poll for the
latest evidence of racial
polarization, not just in terms of
white and black, but black and
brown as well.
and yet, it has only been in the
last couple of weeks that the
discussion of race in this campaign
has taken a particularly divisive
turn.
on one end of the spectrum, we’ve
heard the implication that my
candidacy is somehow an exercise in
affirmative action; that it’s
based solely on the desire of
wide-eyed liberals to purchase
racial reconciliation on the cheap.
on the other end, we’ve heard my
former pastor, reverend jeremiah
wright, use incendiary language to
express views that have the
potential not only to widen the
racial divide, but views that
denigrate both the greatness and
the goodness of our nation; that
rightly offend white and black
alike.
i have already condemned, in
unequivocal terms, the statements
of reverend wright that have caused
such controversy. for some, nagging
questions remain. did i know him to
be an occasionally fierce critic of
american domestic and foreign
policy? of course. did i ever hear
him make remarks that could be
considered controversial while i
sat in church? yes. did i strongly
disagree with many of his political
views? absolutely – just as i’m
sure many of you have heard remarks
from your pastors, priests, or
rabbis with which you strongly
disagreed.
but the remarks that have caused
this recent firestorm weren’t
simply controversial. they
weren’t simply a religious
leader’s effort to speak out
against perceived injustice.
instead, they expressed a
profoundly distorted view of this
country – a view that sees white
racism as endemic, and that
elevates what is wrong with america
above all that we know is right
with america; a view that sees the
conflicts in the middle east as
rooted primarily in the actions of
stalwart allies like israel,
instead of emanating from the
perverse and hateful ideologies of
radical islam.
as such, reverend wright’s
comments were not only wrong but
divisive, divisive at a time when
we need unity; racially charged at
a time when we need to come
together to solve a set of
monumental problems – two wars, a
terrorist threat, a falling
economy, a chronic health care
crisis and potentially devastating
climate change; problems that are
neither black or white or latino or
asian, but rather problems that
confront us all.
given my background, my politics,
and my professed values and ideals,
there will no doubt be those for
whom my statements of condemnation
are not enough. why associate
myself with reverend wright in the
first place, they may ask? why not
join another church? and i confess
that if all that i knew of reverend
wright were the snippets of those
sermons that have run in an endless
loop on the television and you
tube, or if trinity united church
of christ conformed to the
caricatures being peddled by some
commentators, there is no doubt
that i would react in much the same
way
but the truth is, that isn’t all
that i know of the man. the man i
met more than twenty years ago is a
man who helped introduce me to my
christian faith, a man who spoke to
me about our obligations to love
one another; to care for the sick
and lift up the poor. he is a man
who served his country as a u.s.
marine; who has studied and
lectured at some of the finest
universities and seminaries in the
country, and who for over thirty
years led a church that serves the
community by doing god’s work
here on earth – by housing the
homeless, ministering to the needy,
providing day care services and
scholarships and prison ministries,
and reaching out to those suffering
from hiv/aids.
in my first book, dreams from my
father, i described the experience
of my first service at trinity:
“people began to shout, to rise
from their seats and clap and cry
out, a forceful wind carrying the
reverend’s voice up into the
rafters….and in that single note
– hope! – i heard something
else; at the foot of that cross,
inside the thousands of churches
across the city, i imagined the
stories of ordinary black people
merging with the stories of david
and goliath, moses and pharaoh, the
christians in the lion’s den,
ezekiel’s field of dry bones.
those stories – of survival, and
freedom, and hope – became our
story, my story; the blood that had
spilled was our blood, the tears
our tears; until this black church,
on this bright day, seemed once
more a vessel carrying the story of
a people into future generations
and into a larger world. our trials
and triumphs became at once unique
and universal, black and more than
black; in chronicling our journey,
the stories and songs gave us a
means to reclaim memories that we
didn’t need to feel shame
about…memories that all people
might study and cherish – and
with which we could start to
rebuild.”
that has been my experience at
trinity. like other predominantly
black churches across the country,
trinity embodies the black
community in its entirety – the
doctor and the welfare mom, the
model student and the former
gang-banger. like other black
churches, trinity’s services are
full of raucous laughter and
sometimes bawdy humor. they are
full of dancing, clapping,
screaming and shouting that may
seem jarring to the untrained ear.
the church contains in full the
kindness and cruelty, the fierce
intelligence and the shocking
ignorance, the struggles and
successes, the love and yes, the
bitterness and bias that make up
the black experience in america.
and this helps explain, perhaps, my
relationship with reverend wright.
as imperfect as he may be, he has
been like family to me. he
strengthened my faith, officiated
my wedding, and baptized my
children. not once in my
conversations with him have i heard
him talk about any ethnic group in
derogatory terms, or treat whites
with whom he interacted with
anything but courtesy and respect.
he contains within him the
contradictions – the good and the
bad – of the community that he
has served diligently for so many
years.
i can no more disown him than i can
disown the black community. i can
no more disown him than i can my
white grandmother – a woman who
helped raise me, a woman who
sacrificed again and again for me,
a woman who loves me as much as she
loves anything in this world, but a
woman who once confessed her fear
of black men who passed by her on
the street, and who on more than
one occasion has uttered racial or
ethnic stereotypes that made me
cringe.
these people are a part of me. and
they are a part of america, this
country that i love.
some will see this as an attempt to
justify or excuse comments that are
simply inexcusable. i can assure
you it is not. i suppose the
politically safe thing would be to
move on from this episode and just
hope that it fades into the
woodwork. we can dismiss reverend
wright as a crank or a demagogue,
just as some have dismissed
geraldine ferraro, in the aftermath
of her recent statements, as
harboring some deep-seated racial
bias.
but race is an issue that i believe
this nation cannot afford to ignore
right now. we would be making the
same mistake that reverend wright
made in his offending sermons about
america – to simplify and
stereotype and amplify the negative
to the point that it distorts
reality.
the fact is that the comments that
have been made and the issues that
have surfaced over the last few
weeks reflect the complexities of
race in this country that we’ve
never really worked through – a
part of our union that we have yet
to perfect. and if we walk away
now, if we simply retreat into our
respective corners, we will never
be able to come together and solve
challenges like health care, or
education, or the need to find good
jobs for every american.
understanding this reality requires
a reminder of how we arrived at
this point. as william faulkner
once wrote, “the past isn’t
dead and buried. in fact, it
isn’t even past.” we do not
need to recite here the history of
racial injustice in this country.
but we do need to remind ourselves
that so many of the disparities
that exist in the african-american
community today can be directly
traced to inequalities passed on
from an earlier generation that
suffered under the brutal legacy of
slavery and jim crow.
segregated schools were, and are,
inferior schools; we still
haven’t fixed them, fifty years
after brown v. board of education,
and the inferior education they
provided, then and now, helps
explain the pervasive achievement
gap between today’s black and
white students.
legalized discrimination - where
blacks were prevented, often
through violence, from owning
property, or loans were not granted
to african-american business
owners, or black homeowners could
not access fha mortgages, or blacks
were excluded from unions, or the
police force, or fire departments
– meant that black families could
not amass any meaningful wealth to
bequeath to future generations.
that history helps explain the
wealth and income gap between black
and white, and the concentrated
pockets of poverty that persists in
so many of today’s urban and
rural communities.
a lack of economic opportunity
among black men, and the shame and
frustration that came from not
being able to provide for one’s
family, contributed to the erosion
of black families – a problem
that welfare policies for many
years may have worsened. and the
lack of basic services in so many
urban black neighborhoods – parks
for kids to play in, police walking
the beat, regular garbage pick-up
and building code enforcement –
all helped create a cycle of
violence, blight and neglect that
continue to haunt us.
this is the reality in which
reverend wright and other
african-americans of his generation
grew up. they came of age in the
late fifties and early sixties, a
time when segregation was still the
law of the land and opportunity was
systematically constricted.
what’s remarkable is not how many
failed in the face of
discrimination, but rather how many
men and women overcame the odds;
how many were able to make a way
out of no way for those like me who
would come after them.
but for all those who scratched and
clawed their way to get a piece of
the american dream, there were many
who didn’t make it – those who
were ultimately defeated, in one
way or another, by discrimination.
that legacy of defeat was passed on
to future generations – those
young men and increasingly young
women who we see standing on street
corners or languishing in our
prisons, without hope or prospects
for the future. even for those
blacks who did make it, questions
of race, and racism, continue to
define their worldview in
fundamental ways. for the men and
women of reverend wright’s
generation, the memories of
humiliation and doubt and fear have
not gone away; nor has the anger
and the bitterness of those years.
that anger may not get expressed in
public, in front of white
co-workers or white friends. but it
does find voice in the barbershop
or around the kitchen table. at
times, that anger is exploited by
politicians, to gin up votes along
racial lines, or to make up for a
politician’s own failings.
and occasionally it finds voice in
the church on sunday morning, in
the pulpit and in the pews. the
fact that so many people are
surprised to hear that anger in
some of reverend wright’s sermons
simply reminds us of the old truism
that the most segregated hour in
american life occurs on sunday
morning. that anger is not always
productive; indeed, all too often
it distracts attention from solving
real problems; it keeps us from
squarely facing our own complicity
in our condition, and prevents the
african-american community from
forging the alliances it needs to
bring about real change. but the
anger is real; it is powerful; and
to simply wish it away, to condemn
it without understanding its roots,
only serves to widen the chasm of
misunderstanding that exists
between the races.
in fact, a similar anger exists
within segments of the white
community. most working- and
middle-class white americans
don’t feel that they have been
particularly privileged by their
race. their experience is the
immigrant experience – as far as
they’re concerned, no one’s
handed them anything, they’ve
built it from scratch. they’ve
worked hard all their lives, many
times only to see their jobs
shipped overseas or their pension
dumped after a lifetime of labor.
they are anxious about their
futures, and feel their dreams
slipping away; in an era of
stagnant wages and global
competition, opportunity comes to
be seen as a zero sum game, in
which your dreams come at my
expense. so when they are told to
bus their children to a school
across town; when they hear that an
african american is getting an
advantage in landing a good job or
a spot in a good college because of
an injustice that they themselves
never committed; when they’re
told that their fears about crime
in urban neighborhoods are somehow
prejudiced, resentment builds over
time.
like the anger within the black
community, these resentments
aren’t always expressed in polite
company. but they have helped shape
the political landscape for at
least a generation. anger over
welfare and affirmative action
helped forge the reagan coalition.
politicians routinely exploited
fears of crime for their own
electoral ends. talk show hosts and
conservative commentators built
entire careers unmasking bogus
claims of racism while dismissing
legitimate discussions of racial
injustice and inequality as mere
political correctness or reverse
racism.
just as black anger often proved
counterproductive, so have these
white resentments distracted
attention from the real culprits of
the middle class squeeze – a
corporate culture rife with inside
dealing, questionable accounting
practices, and short-term greed; a
washington dominated by lobbyists
and special interests; economic
policies that favor the few over
the many. and yet, to wish away the
resentments of white americans, to
label them as misguided or even
racist, without recognizing they
are grounded in legitimate concerns
– this too widens the racial
divide, and blocks the path to
understanding.
this is where we are right now.
it’s a racial stalemate we’ve
been stuck in for years. contrary
to the claims of some of my
critics, black and white, i have
never been so naïve as to believe
that we can get beyond our racial
divisions in a single election
cycle, or with a single candidacy
– particularly a candidacy as
imperfect as my own.
but i have asserted a firm
conviction – a conviction rooted
in my faith in god and my faith in
the american people – that
working together we can move beyond
some of our old racial wounds, and
that in fact we have no choice is
we are to continue on the path of a
more perfect union.
for the african-american community,
that path means embracing the
burdens of our past without
becoming victims of our past. it
means continuing to insist on a
full measure of justice in every
aspect of american life. but it
also means binding our particular
grievances – for better health
care, and better schools, and
better jobs - to the larger
aspirations of all americans -- the
white woman struggling to break the
glass ceiling, the white man whose
been laid off, the immigrant trying
to feed his family. and it means
taking full responsibility for own
lives – by demanding more from
our fathers, and spending more time
with our children, and reading to
them, and teaching them that while
they may face challenges and
discrimination in their own lives,
they must never succumb to despair
or cynicism; they must always
believe that they can write their
own destiny.
ironically, this quintessentially
american – and yes, conservative
– notion of self-help found
frequent expression in reverend
wright’s sermons. but what my
former pastor too often failed to
understand is that embarking on a
program of self-help also requires
a belief that society can change.
the profound mistake of reverend
wright’s sermons is not that he
spoke about racism in our society.
it’s that he spoke as if our
society was static; as if no
progress has been made; as if this
country – a country that has made
it possible for one of his own
members to run for the highest
office in the land and build a
coalition of white and black;
latino and asian, rich and poor,
young and old -- is still
irrevocably bound to a tragic past.
but what we know -- what we have
seen – is that america can
change. that is true genius of this
nation. what we have already
achieved gives us hope – the
audacity to hope – for what we
can and must achieve tomorrow.
in the white community, the path to
a more perfect union means
acknowledging that what ails the
african-american community does not
just exist in the minds of black
people; that the legacy of
discrimination - and current
incidents of discrimination, while
less overt than in the past - are
real and must be addressed. not
just with words, but with deeds –
by investing in our schools and our
communities; by enforcing our civil
rights laws and ensuring fairness
in our criminal justice system; by
providing this generation with
ladders of opportunity that were
unavailable for previous
generations. it requires all
americans to realize that your
dreams do not have to come at the
expense of my dreams; that
investing in the health, welfare,
and education of black and brown
and white children will ultimately
help all of america prosper.
in the end, then, what is called
for is nothing more, and nothing
less, than what all the world’s
great religions demand – that we
do unto others as we would have
them do unto us. let us be our
brother’s keeper, scripture tells
us. let us be our sister’s
keeper. let us find that common
stake we all have in one another,
and let our politics reflect that
spirit as well.
for we have a choice in this
country. we can accept a politics
that breeds division, and conflict,
and cynicism. we can tackle race
only as spectacle – as we did in
the oj trial – or in the wake of
tragedy, as we did in the aftermath
of katrina - or as fodder for the
nightly news. we can play reverend
wright’s sermons on every
channel, every day and talk about
them from now until the election,
and make the only question in this
campaign whether or not the
american people think that i
somehow believe or sympathize with
his most offensive words. we can
pounce on some gaffe by a hillary
supporter as evidence that she’s
playing the race card, or we can
speculate on whether white men will
all flock to john mccain in the
general election regardless of his
policies.
we can do that.
but if we do, i can tell you that
in the next election, we’ll be
talking about some other
distraction. and then another one.
and then another one. and nothing
will change.
that is one option. or, at this
moment, in this election, we can
come together and say, “not this
time.” this time we want to talk
about the crumbling schools that
are stealing the future of black
children and white children and
asian children and hispanic
children and native american
children. this time we want to
reject the cynicism that tells us
that these kids can’t learn; that
those kids who don’t look like us
are somebody else’s problem. the
children of america are not those
kids, they are our kids, and we
will not let them fall behind in a
21st century economy. not this
time.
this time we want to talk about how
the lines in the emergency room are
filled with whites and blacks and
hispanics who do not have health
care; who don’t have the power on
their own to overcome the special
interests in washington, but who
can take them on if we do it
together.
this time we want to talk about the
shuttered mills that once provided
a decent life for men and women of
every race, and the homes for sale
that once belonged to americans
from every religion, every region,
every walk of life. this time we
want to talk about the fact that
the real problem is not that
someone who doesn’t look like you
might take your job; it’s that
the corporation you work for will
ship it overseas for nothing more
than a profit.
this time we want to talk about the
men and women of every color and
creed who serve together, and fight
together, and bleed together under
the same proud flag. we want to
talk about how to bring them home
from a war that never should’ve
been authorized and never
should’ve been waged, and we want
to talk about how we’ll show our
patriotism by caring for them, and
their families, and giving them the
benefits they have earned.
i would not be running for
president if i didn’t believe
with all my heart that this is what
the vast majority of americans want
for this country. this union may
never be perfect, but generation
after generation has shown that it
can always be perfected. and today,
whenever i find myself feeling
doubtful or cynical about this
possibility, what gives me the most
hope is the next generation – the
young people whose attitudes and
beliefs and openness to change have
already made history in this
election.
there is one story in particularly
that i’d like to leave you with
today – a story i told when i had
the great honor of speaking on dr.
king’s birthday at his home
church, ebenezer baptist, in
atlanta.
there is a young, twenty-three year
old white woman named ashley baia
who organized for our campaign in
florence, south carolina. she had
been working to organize a mostly
african-american community since
the beginning of this campaign, and
one day she was at a roundtable
discussion where everyone went
around telling their story and why
they were there.
and ashley said that when she was
nine years old, her mother got
cancer. and because she had to miss
days of work, she was let go and
lost her health care. they had to
file for bankruptcy, and that’s
when ashley decided that she had to
do something to help her mom.
she knew that food was one of their
most expensive costs, and so ashley
convinced her mother that what she
really liked and really wanted to
eat more than anything else was
mustard and relish sandwiches.
because that was the cheapest way
to eat.
she did this for a year until her
mom got better, and she told
everyone at the roundtable that the
reason she joined our campaign was
so that she could help the millions
of other children in the country
who want and need to help their
parents too.
now ashley might have made a
different choice. perhaps somebody
told her along the way that the
source of her mother’s problems
were blacks who were on welfare and
too lazy to work, or hispanics who
were coming into the country
illegally. but she didn’t. she
sought out allies in her fight
against injustice.
anyway, ashley finishes her story
and then goes around the room and
asks everyone else why they’re
supporting the campaign. they all
have different stories and reasons.
many bring up a specific issue. and
finally they come to this elderly
black man who’s been sitting
there quietly the entire time. and
ashley asks him why he’s there.
and he does not bring up a specific
issue. he does not say health care
or the economy. he does not say
education or the war. he does not
say that he was there because of
barack obama. he simply says to
everyone in the room, “i am here
because of ashley.”
“i’m here because of ashley.”
by itself, that single moment of
recognition between that young
white girl and that old black man
is not enough. it is not enough to
give health care to the sick, or
jobs to the jobless, or education
to our children.
but it is where we start. it is
where our union grows stronger. and
as so many generations have come to
realize over the course of the
two-hundred and twenty one years
since a band of patriots signed
that document in philadelphia, that
is where the perfection begins.
http://www.drudgereport.com/flashos
.htm
after read this, how in the world
are people still hating on this
man??? there is really no hope for
us, if we continue to be sheep,
unity should be our mission
LOL To Obama, the issue of race is only a distraction when HE is caught in the issue. When WHITE people touch the issue, he goes on and on about it. |
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