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Obama Urges
Americans To Help Heal Racial Divide
Transcript Of Obama's Speech
click to read entire speech
March 19, 2008 -- Updated
0734 GMT (1534 HKT)
The following is a transcript of Sen. Barack Obama's
speech, as provided by Obama's campaign.
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 20 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 its 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 our 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, Rev.
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 Rev. 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, Rev. 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 Rev. Wright in the first
place, they may ask? Why not join another church?
And I confess that if all that I knew of Rev. Wright
were the snippets of those sermons that have run in
an endless loop on the television and YouTube, 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 20 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 Rev. 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 Rev. 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 Rev. 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 Rev. 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 Rev. 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 Rev. 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 naive 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 if 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 Rev. 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 Rev. 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 the 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 O.J. 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 Rev. 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, 23-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 9 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. |
