> Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:10:28 -0400
> From: Obama For America <me... at barackobama.com>
>
> * *
> EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
> *"A More Perfect Union"
> Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
> Constitution Center
> Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
> Philadelphia, Pennsylvania*
> **
> /As Prepared for Delivery/
> //
> "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.
> ###
> EMBARGOED FOR DELIVERY
> March 18, 2008
> Obama Press Office, 312-819-2423
>
> This message was sent from Obama For America to
> It was sent from: Obama for America, P.O. Box 8102, Chicago, IL 60680.