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“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. (Actually, they formed a Constitutional Republic, rule by law, not a Democracy, rule by the majority, aka, Mob Rule.) 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. (OK, that is basically true.) The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. (I have a few things to say about this, but it can wait just a minute.)
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. (Again, this is basically true, but there were those present who we vehemently against Slavery, but they knew that they couldn't win that fight at that particular time.) 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. (Well, that's not exactly true. These men, our Founding Fathers, knew that the Union would not be "Perfected over time," they knew that it could never be made to be absolutely perfect, because man is not perfect. What Obama said here is a nod to the Communist doctrine that eventually, given enough Government control and influence, culture will become perfect, but it is, of course, nonsense.)
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. (Partly what he is referring to here is that persons of color were defined in the Constitution as 3/5ths of a person, but this was actually a victory for the anti-slavery group, because counting those of color as a full person would not have given them any standing or rights under the law, all it would have done was to increase the slave-holders representation in Congress, which would have made fighting against slavery all that much more difficult.) 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. (Again, this is primarily true.)
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. (This part, however, is absolute nonsense. The nation is, at this time, equal, free, and very caring as a culture, sure there are a lot of people who don't care, but you can't force them to.)
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; (And there it is, hope, of course, we still don't know what we are supposed to be hoping for, but we hope none the less.) 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 (Oh no we don't, he wants to move us toward pure communism, and I want us to move back to the Constitutional Republic, with huge emphasis on personal liberty, like our nation was intended to be.)– towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren. (Funny, but I don't see being enslaved to Communism as being a better future!) This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. (That remains to be seen.)
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 don't know what this has to do with Wrights comments, but I digress... or he digresses, or something...) 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 (How about some proof on this? How many people do we hear saying that they are descended from slaves but are not. I'm not saying it's not true, just that it needs to be qualified... besides, it's not relevant to the current topic.)– 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. (Maybe he should remind Wright of that.) 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. (I'm sorry, is he saying that he is genetically superior? That because of his biracialness that he is better qualified to be President? Funny, I thought that had to do with things like character and ability.)
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. (Actually, we saw how ignorant and gullible a lot of Americans are.) Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, (Actually, he may have had this issue, but I haven't, I don't like him because he wants to destroy our country, having nothing to do with race whatsoever, nor have I ever been tempted to view him in a racial context.) 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. (Who cares? This is supposed to be about Wrights comments, not about how a bunch of ignorant dupes bought into a bunch of meaningless drivel.) 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.” (Yeah, and mostly they were black, and or liberal, both of which he is, so what exactly is his point?) We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. (And of course his campaign was totally innocent in this...)
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 when he gets 90% of the black vote, you have to ask yourself, how much "scouring" does it really take?) 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. (Right, sure, because people who disagree with Obama haven't been being called racists from the start or anything... wait, yes we have!)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. (The only thing cheap there is cheap shot he just took at Ferraro, a liberal icon, and decidedly NOT a racist! Not to mention that he is about as liberal as they come.)
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. (Ok, so that is true.) I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. (But there he goes, that's not true at all. If you listen to all of this "condemnation" it all comes in the form of, "I disagree with some of what he said" without ever telling us what things he disagrees with. Hardly Unequivocal.) For some, nagging questions remain. (No, not nagging questions, glaring questions that must be answered.) Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? (Fierce critic?!?! Is he kidding? Calling for God to curse America is being critical? Making wild claims that whites started AIDS to kill blacks is being critical? Saying that we deserved 9/11 is being critical?) Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. (And yet, just the other day, he claimed that he had not heard these things. He stated in strong, UNEQUIVOCAL terms that he had never heard Wright, in public or in private, make any such statements, because, if he had, he would have confronted him about them. So here, he was caught in a great big lie, but is anyone talking about that? Not that I've heard.)
Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely (I don't think he did, or does, I think he just doesn't want this to sink his campaign, so he has to say now that he disagrees, but he, 20 years in that Church tell us a different story.)– just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed. (No, not anywhere near on this level, and if I did, I would not stay in such a church myself, nor, more critically, would I allow my children to be exposed to that.)
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 shocked as I am to have to say this, this last part was absolute, pure, unvarnished truth... but don't get to excited, he didn't stop there.)
As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; (See, it isn't so much that they were wrong, he only cares because they were divisive, and we can't have that, we must have unity at all costs... or some such nonsense.) 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; (quite the laundry list of liberal propaganda) 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. (Maybe because they are weak and so clearly politically motivated!) Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? (Yeah, a very valid question.) 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, (Frankly, that's all you really need to know about this guy. It makes no difference what else he may have done, how nice or wonderful he is personally, or whatever, it is obvious that this racism and hatred of America is the driving force in his life.) or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, (or, you know, until recently self proclaimed on the church's own web site.) there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way (Obviously not! There are many places you can go to hear someone preach the gospel, you would only choose this kind of environment because it's views match your own.) But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. (And again I say, I don't care.)
The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, (And yet a man totally devoid of any notion of what being a Christian actually means.) a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; (Another subject that he obviously knows nothing about, as Christian love is totally incompatible with hate of anyone. Yes, we can hate actions, sins, evil, but not people, as hard as it can be sometimes, if you hate people, you have, at the very least, really lost your way.) 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 spewing racist hatred and anti-American vitriol, while associating with well known racists and terrorists? Sorry, but this is not Gods work.)– 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. (OK, so that is all good stuff, and I'm glad that they do it, but it doesn't excuse the other stuff.)
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. (Note that he only imagined black people relating to those stories...)
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. (Honestly, how much more blatantly racist can you get?) Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; (What does that even mean? Does it mean anything?) 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.” (rebuild what? He's talking like this was all happening in the immediate aftermath of segregation or slavery, but it wasn't, this was in the 1990 time frame... if they were only just starting to "rebuild" then they squandered a lot of time.) That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety (So much for Preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.) – 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. (Yeah, because that belongs in church.) They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. (Translation: Sorry, Whitey, you can't understand what goes on there.)
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. (Talk about racially divisive speech... why isn't anyone calling him out on this?) And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. (And therein lies the problem. You don't get to choose your family, be he did choose to have a close relationship with this man.) 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, (Wait a minute, he said earlier that he had heard these things... I wonder which it is?) or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. (And why should we believe that, coming right on the heels of a lie.) He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years. (Which should be the full body of believers in Christ, but of course, he didn't mean that, he meant blacks. To clarify, there is no white Christianity, and no black Christianity, there is only Christianity, and everything else.)
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. (What if John McCain started talking about what he owed to the white community, what do you think would happen then?) 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. (A woman who, despite all she has done for him in his life, just got thrown under to bus by her grandson for the purpose of making a black racist seem not so bad. The truth is that even though he is trying to make some sort of equivilance here, these things are not related at all. His grandmother was the victim of ignorance, which is something that odler whites had a lot of trouble with, and some, sadly, still do, Wright only other hand goes to a much higher level in his racism, hating whites and even going so far as to call white people the enemy.)
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. (Yes they are, but that is exactly what this amounts to.) I can assure you it is not. (Yes it is.) I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. (No, that would work, because if it would he would have done it, but he knows this won't go away, nor should it.) 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. (Actually, that is what Obama did to Ferraro, so, what is he getting at, that we should be better than him and let his racist pastor off the hook in the same way he wouldn't let Ferraro off the hook for speaking the truth?)
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. (Wrong. The problem is that liberals and media types won't let it go. We can't afford not to ignore it. Race isn't an issue at all with a vast majority of Americans. White racism is effectively impotent as a force in America today, it is totally not tollerated, nor should it be. Can some individuals engage in racist behavior to the detriment of others? Sure, but again, when discovered, it is not tollerated. So why should we accept racism from Wright... in short, we shouldn't.) We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America (No, we would be letting go of something that is nothing more than a liberal propganda issue, that needs to be removed from the American mind, so that we can finally have the color blind society that many of us have wanted for a long, long time.)– 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 (because the media and the race baiters won't let go of them. As my grandfather used to say, the best way to keep a cow flop stinking is to stir it.)– a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. (Again, it will never be 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. (And there we have all the liberal propoganda once more. Nobody is talking about retreating to our corners, like this is some kind of fight, we need people to stop telling us we are all racist, and that we can't get along because of things that happened far in the past, and just let us get on with our lives.) Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. (Distorted view of History anyone?)
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, (Do any of you know of any currently segregated schools?) 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. (Of course school vouchers and school choice would solve this, but Obama can't have that, it would mean students leaving Government indoctronations centers... errr... schools, and actually getting real educations that would help to prepare them for real life, but of course, that's not actually what' she after.) Legalized discrimination (Instituted and perpetuated by the left.) - 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. (I thought he wasn't going to dwell on that stuff...) 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. (And does anyone think that slave owners or segregationist bigots are going to come back from the dead and make everything right? I certainly don't, nor can the Government make everything right, the Government takes things that are already right and makes them wrong, so I don't think we want to turn to them for help. As Ronald Reagan once said, "The nine most frightening words in the English Language are; 'I'm from the Government and I'm here to help.'")
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. (Policies put in place by, and perpetuated by, liberal Democrats just like Barack Obama.) 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. (And will continue to until these communities take actions to make things better, because nobody is going to do it for them, not even Obama.)
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. (True as that may be, life, and espcially the Christian life, are all about growing, and being able to move past what was wrong with the past, certainly not about being bitter and spewing hate.) 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. (And there is some sad truth to this, no doubt that racism is an ugly stain on the history of the USA, but it's not an excuse.)
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. (And that's where you have to question his validity as a spiritual advisor.) That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. (I don't know, the pulpit is pretty public.) But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. (Is he saying that blacks are fake in front white people, pretending to get along with them because they have to, but at home they really hate us just as much as Wright does? What a Crock, and how cynical can you get, really?)
At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, (Like Obama.) 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. (Nonsense. Any true Christian, black or white, or any other race, can never be more unified than when they are truly worshiping God.) That anger is not always productive; (Try never, buddy.) 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 it is deliberately perpetuated by the media and the politcal left.) 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. (Bull! We don't need to understand the roots of racism in order to condenm it. Racism is wrong, it is ignorant, it is stupid, it has no place in our culture, and need to be done away with in the hearts and minds of all who harbor it!)
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. (Of course not, because we haven't.) Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. (Oh, wait, so only the immigrants have done anything worth while, the rest of us have had everything handed to us. What a BIGOT!!!, and people are still listening to this!) 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. (Though cloudly, there is a little truth in that.) 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. (Not exactly, liberal agenda's that hurt any working class person, of any race, cause a lot of anger, it's not specific to whites.)
Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. (Though there is still some truth there, what he is not saying is that liberals are far more guilty of this stuff than Conservatives. And that anger over welfare, which damages just as many whites as blacks, and affirmative action, which takes race into account rather than who actually needs the help, are justified.)
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. (OK, he just totally lost me. He really needs to qualify some of this stuff instead of just tossing it out there.)
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. (I couldn't see interupting the liberal diatribe there.)
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, (If it's run by the Government, it will be far worse!) 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. (Right there alongside all the hate... how could you miss it?) 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. (Actually, that was a problem, but pay attention to this next part.) 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. (Regardless of being laced with his own campaign inanities, that last part was pretty good.)
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. (In other words, keep stirring the cow flop, keep racial tensions high, so that liberal social programs can be instituted to deal with what needs to be a non issue.) Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; (That means taking our money away from us, so that they ever wise government can spend it where it sees fit... for our benefit of course.) 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. (The classic liberal possition, but of course, he didn't bother to say that.) 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. (Boy, he's shoveling crap at a phenomenal rate!)
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. (Which he obviously does or else he wouldn't have listened to them for the past 20 years.) We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, (Or just accuse them of it because it benefits the Obama Campaign.) 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. (Of course, better that nothing changes than that Obama gets the kind of change that he wants.) 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. (Why didn't he just say, "All children" Oh yeah, he has to keep the race thing going...)
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. (Boy, he sure does have a list of problems here, and even though he thought we should all be aware of why we should excuse racism from someone like Wright, he didn't seem to care that we should know that most of the issues listed are direct results of liberal policies that have been shoved down the throats of the American people over the years...)
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. (HUH?)
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So, did anyone else notice how he danced all around what Wright actually said, devoting only one line in the entire 37 minute speech to the Anti-American comments? I guess that wasn't as important as spewing all the liberal lies about race relations. Must be those aren't the comments that he so strongly disagrees with. How can he say he loves this country, and then not defend it?
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