Ativan Online Rx
18 Mar
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”
Two hundred and Ativan Online Rx twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the Ativan Online Rx street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and Ativan Online Rx scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to Ativan Online Rx escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Ativan Online Rx Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this Ativan Online Rx nation’s original sin of slavery, a Ativan Online Rx question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a Ativan Online Rx stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to Ativan Online Rx continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to Ativan Online Rx future generations.
Of course, the Ativan Online Rx answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Ativan Online Rx Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the Ativan Online Rx law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and Ativan Online Rx a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a Ativan Online Rx parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or Ativan Online Rx provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and Ativan Online Rx obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be Ativan Online Rx needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to Ativan Online Rx do their part – through protests and Ativan Online Rx struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a Ativan Online Rx civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk – to Ativan Online Rx narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and Ativan Online Rx the reality of their time.
This was one of the Ativan Online Rx tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to Ativan Online Rx continue the long march of those who came before us, a Ativan Online Rx march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and Ativan Online Rx more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this Ativan Online Rx moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the Ativan Online Rx challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that Ativan Online Rx we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that Ativan Online Rx we may not look the same and we may not have Ativan Online Rx come from the same place, but we all want to Ativan Online Rx move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from Ativan Online Rx my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it Ativan Online Rx also comes from my own American story.
I am Ativan Online Rx the son of a black man from Kenya and a Ativan Online Rx white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a Ativan Online Rx white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and Ativan Online Rx a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to Ativan Online Rx some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the Ativan Online Rx world’s poorest nations. I am Ativan Online Rx married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and Ativan Online Rx slaveowners – an Ativan Online Rx inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have Ativan Online Rx brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and Ativan Online Rx every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that Ativan Online Rx in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It’s a story that hasn’t made me the Ativan Online Rx most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the Ativan Online Rx idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the Ativan Online Rx first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the Ativan Online Rx contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for Ativan Online Rx this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a Ativan Online Rx purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the Ativan Online Rx whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Ativan Online Rx Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and Ativan Online Rx white Americans.
This is Ativan Online Rx not to say that race has not been an issue in the Ativan Online Rx campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have Ativan Online Rx deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to Ativan Online Rx the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has Ativan Online Rx scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and Ativan Online Rx black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it Ativan Online Rx has only been in the last couple of weeks that the Ativan Online Rx discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the Ativan Online Rx implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that Ativan Online Rx it’s based solely on the Ativan Online Rx desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the Ativan Online Rx other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to Ativan Online Rx express views that have the potential not only to widen the Ativan Online Rx racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the Ativan Online Rx goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have Ativan Online Rx already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that Ativan Online Rx have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to Ativan Online Rx be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this Ativan Online Rx country – a Ativan Online Rx view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what Ativan Online Rx is wrong with America above all that we know is Ativan Online Rx right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Ativan Online Rx Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from Ativan Online Rx the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a Ativan Online Rx time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when Ativan Online Rx we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a Ativan Online Rx terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and Ativan Online Rx potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Ativan Online Rx Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and Ativan Online Rx my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be Ativan Online Rx those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the Ativan Online Rx first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that Ativan Online Rx if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that Ativan Online Rx have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or Ativan Online Rx if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is Ativan Online Rx no doubt that I would react in much the same way
But the truth is, that isn’t all that Ativan Online Rx I know of the man. The man I met more than Ativan Online Rx twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to Ativan Online Rx my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to Ativan Online Rx love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the Ativan Online Rx poor. He is a man who served his country as a Ativan Online Rx U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the Ativan Online Rx finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a Ativan Online Rx church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the Ativan Online Rx homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and Ativan Online Rx prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the Ativan Online Rx experience of my first service at Trinity:
“People began to Ativan Online Rx shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a Ativan Online Rx forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the Ativan Online Rx foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the Ativan Online Rx city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the Ativan Online Rx stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the Ativan Online Rx lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the Ativan Online Rx blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this Ativan Online Rx black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the Ativan Online Rx story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and Ativan Online Rx triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than Ativan Online Rx black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the Ativan Online Rx country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the Ativan Online Rx doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are Ativan Online Rx full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and Ativan Online Rx shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the Ativan Online Rx kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the Ativan Online Rx struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that Ativan Online Rx make up the black experience in America.
And this Ativan Online Rx helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has Ativan Online Rx been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and Ativan Online Rx baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have Ativan Online Rx I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or Ativan Online Rx treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can Ativan Online Rx no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a Ativan Online Rx woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and Ativan Online Rx again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this Ativan Online Rx world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who Ativan Online Rx passed by her on the street, and who on more than Ativan Online Rx one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are Ativan Online Rx a part of me. And they are a part of America, this Ativan Online Rx country that I love.
Some will see this Ativan Online Rx as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can Ativan Online Rx assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be Ativan Online Rx to move on from this episode and just hope that it Ativan Online Rx fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a Ativan Online Rx crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the Ativan Online Rx aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is Ativan Online Rx an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to Ativan Online Rx ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Ativan Online Rx Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to Ativan Online Rx simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that Ativan Online Rx it distorts reality.
The fact is Ativan Online Rx that the comments that have been made and the issues that Ativan Online Rx have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this Ativan Online Rx country that we’ve never really worked through – a Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or Ativan Online Rx education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to Ativan Online Rx remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the Ativan Online Rx African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from Ativan Online Rx an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Ativan Online Rx Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and Ativan Online Rx the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the Ativan Online Rx pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.
Legalized discrimination – where Ativan Online Rx blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to Ativan Online Rx African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or Ativan Online Rx blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that Ativan Online Rx black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to Ativan Online Rx future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx the shame and frustration that came from not being able to Ativan Online Rx provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a Ativan Online Rx problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the Ativan Online Rx lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for Ativan Online Rx kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and Ativan Online Rx building code enforcement – all helped create a Ativan Online Rx cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is Ativan Online Rx the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the Ativan Online Rx late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the Ativan Online Rx law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is Ativan Online Rx not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and Ativan Online Rx women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a Ativan Online Rx way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for Ativan Online Rx all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a Ativan Online Rx piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who Ativan Online Rx were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to Ativan Online Rx future generations – those young men and Ativan Online Rx increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or Ativan Online Rx languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for Ativan Online Rx those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to Ativan Online Rx define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the Ativan Online Rx memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has Ativan Online Rx the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or Ativan Online Rx white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or Ativan Online Rx around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to Ativan Online Rx gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for Ativan Online Rx a politician’s own failings.
And occasionally it Ativan Online Rx finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and Ativan Online Rx in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to Ativan Online Rx hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the Ativan Online Rx old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is Ativan Online Rx not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from Ativan Online Rx solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and Ativan Online Rx prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to Ativan Online Rx bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is Ativan Online Rx powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to Ativan Online Rx widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a Ativan Online Rx similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and Ativan Online Rx middle-class white Americans don’t feel that Ativan Online Rx they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a Ativan Online Rx lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and Ativan Online Rx feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and Ativan Online Rx global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your Ativan Online Rx dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to Ativan Online Rx bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that Ativan Online Rx an African American is getting an advantage in landing a Ativan Online Rx good job or a spot in a good college because of an Ativan Online Rx injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and Ativan Online Rx affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have Ativan Online Rx these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the Ativan Online Rx middle class squeeze – a Ativan Online Rx corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Ativan Online Rx Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the Ativan Online Rx few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to Ativan Online Rx label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and Ativan Online Rx white, I have never been so naïve as to Ativan Online Rx believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a Ativan Online Rx single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction – a Ativan Online Rx conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the Ativan Online Rx American people – that Ativan Online Rx working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and Ativan Online Rx that in fact we have no choice is we are Ativan Online Rx to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the Ativan Online Rx African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to Ativan Online Rx insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it Ativan Online Rx also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs – to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the Ativan Online Rx white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been Ativan Online Rx laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it Ativan Online Rx means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from Ativan Online Rx our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and Ativan Online Rx reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and Ativan Online Rx discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to Ativan Online Rx despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx my former pastor too often failed to understand is that Ativan Online Rx embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that Ativan Online Rx society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that Ativan Online Rx he spoke as if our society was static; as if no Ativan Online Rx progress has been made; as if this country – a Ativan Online Rx country that has made it possible for one of his own members to Ativan Online Rx run for the highest office in the land and build a Ativan Online Rx coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and Ativan Online Rx old — is Ativan Online Rx still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen – is Ativan Online Rx that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have Ativan Online Rx already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the Ativan Online Rx white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that Ativan Online Rx what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the Ativan Online Rx minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and Ativan Online Rx current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the Ativan Online Rx past – are Ativan Online Rx real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and Ativan Online Rx our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this Ativan Online Rx generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to Ativan Online Rx realize that your dreams do not have to come at the Ativan Online Rx expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and Ativan Online Rx education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the Ativan Online Rx end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than Ativan Online Rx what all the world’s great religions demand – that Ativan Online Rx we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be Ativan Online Rx our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that Ativan Online Rx common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that Ativan Online Rx spirit as well.
For we have Ativan Online Rx a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that Ativan Online Rx breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx talk about them from now until the election, and make the Ativan Online Rx only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that Ativan Online Rx I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can Ativan Online Rx pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that Ativan Online Rx she’s playing the Ativan Online Rx race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then Ativan Online Rx another one. And nothing will change.
That is Ativan Online Rx one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can Ativan Online Rx come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to Ativan Online Rx talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and Ativan Online Rx white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a Ativan Online Rx 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to Ativan Online Rx talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and Ativan Online Rx blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have Ativan Online Rx the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who Ativan Online Rx can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to Ativan Online Rx talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for Ativan Online Rx men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that Ativan Online Rx once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to Ativan Online Rx talk about the fact that the real problem is not that Ativan Online Rx someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that Ativan Online Rx the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for Ativan Online Rx nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to Ativan Online Rx talk about the men and women of every color and Ativan Online Rx creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the Ativan Online Rx same proud flag. We want to talk about how to Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have Ativan Online Rx earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that Ativan Online Rx this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this Ativan Online Rx country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has Ativan Online Rx shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or Ativan Online Rx cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is Ativan Online Rx the next generation – the Ativan Online Rx young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who Ativan Online Rx organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had Ativan Online Rx been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the Ativan Online Rx beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a Ativan Online Rx roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and Ativan Online Rx why they were there.
And Ashley said that Ativan Online Rx when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had Ativan Online Rx to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had Ativan Online Rx to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that Ativan Online Rx food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that Ativan Online Rx what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than Ativan Online Rx anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the Ativan Online Rx cheapest way to eat.
She did this Ativan Online Rx for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the Ativan Online Rx roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that Ativan Online Rx she could help the millions of other children in the Ativan Online Rx country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have Ativan Online Rx made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that Ativan Online Rx the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who Ativan Online Rx were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who Ativan Online Rx 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 Ativan Online Rx then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the Ativan Online Rx campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a Ativan Online Rx specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been Ativan Online Rx sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a Ativan Online Rx specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or Ativan Online Rx the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to Ativan Online Rx everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”
“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that Ativan Online Rx single moment of recognition between that young white girl and Ativan Online Rx that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to Ativan Online Rx give health care to the sick, or jobs to the Ativan Online Rx jobless, or education to our children.
But it Ativan Online Rx is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have Ativan Online Rx come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and Ativan Online Rx twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that Ativan Online Rx document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
