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A More Perfect Union by Senator Barack
Obama
"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.
Remarks as
prepared for delivery March 18, 2008 Constitution
Center, Philadelphia, Pa.
Sen.
Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for
President of the United States of America in 2008.
Posted March 19,
2008
URL:
www.thecitizenfsr.org
SM 2000-2011
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