A More Perfect Union, a Order Ambien Online Cod speech delivered by Senator Barack Obama at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday March 18, 2008. The video is Order Ambien Online Cod
here, and the transcript below.
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”
Two hundred and Order Ambien Online Cod twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the Order Ambien Online Cod street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and Order Ambien Online Cod scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to Order Ambien Online Cod escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Order Ambien Online Cod Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this Order Ambien Online Cod nation’s original sin of slavery, a Order Ambien Online Cod question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a Order Ambien Online Cod stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to Order Ambien Online Cod continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to Order Ambien Online Cod future generations.
Of course, the Order Ambien Online Cod answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Order Ambien Online Cod Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the Order Ambien Online Cod law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and Order Ambien Online Cod a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a Order Ambien Online Cod parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or Order Ambien Online Cod provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and Order Ambien Online Cod obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be Order Ambien Online Cod needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to Order Ambien Online Cod do their part – through protests and Order Ambien Online Cod struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a Order Ambien Online Cod civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk – to Order Ambien Online Cod narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and Order Ambien Online Cod the reality of their time.
This was one of the Order Ambien Online Cod tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to Order Ambien Online Cod continue the long march of those who came before us, a Order Ambien Online Cod march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and Order Ambien Online Cod more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this Order Ambien Online Cod moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the Order Ambien Online Cod challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that Order Ambien Online Cod we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that Order Ambien Online Cod we may not look the same and we may not have Order Ambien Online Cod come from the same place, but we all want to Order Ambien Online Cod move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from Order Ambien Online Cod my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it Order Ambien Online Cod also comes from my own American story.
I am Order Ambien Online Cod the son of a black man from Kenya and a Order Ambien Online Cod white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a Order Ambien Online Cod white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and Order Ambien Online Cod a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to Order Ambien Online Cod some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the Order Ambien Online Cod world’s poorest nations. I am Order Ambien Online Cod married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and Order Ambien Online Cod slaveowners – an Order Ambien Online Cod inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have Order Ambien Online Cod brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and Order Ambien Online Cod every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that Order Ambien Online Cod in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It’s a story that hasn’t made me the Order Ambien Online Cod most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the Order Ambien Online Cod idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the Order Ambien Online Cod first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the Order Ambien Online Cod contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for Order Ambien Online Cod this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a Order Ambien Online Cod purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the Order Ambien Online Cod whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Order Ambien Online Cod Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and Order Ambien Online Cod white Americans.
This is Order Ambien Online Cod not to say that race has not been an issue in the Order Ambien Online Cod campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have Order Ambien Online Cod deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to Order Ambien Online Cod the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has Order Ambien Online Cod scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and Order Ambien Online Cod black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it Order Ambien Online Cod has only been in the last couple of weeks that the Order Ambien Online Cod discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the Order Ambien Online Cod implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that Order Ambien Online Cod it’s based solely on the Order Ambien Online Cod desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the Order Ambien Online Cod other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to Order Ambien Online Cod express views that have the potential not only to widen the Order Ambien Online Cod racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the Order Ambien Online Cod goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have Order Ambien Online Cod already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that Order Ambien Online Cod have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to Order Ambien Online Cod be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this Order Ambien Online Cod country – a Order Ambien Online Cod view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what Order Ambien Online Cod is wrong with America above all that we know is Order Ambien Online Cod right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Order Ambien Online Cod Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from Order Ambien Online Cod the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a Order Ambien Online Cod time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when Order Ambien Online Cod we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a Order Ambien Online Cod terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and Order Ambien Online Cod potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Order Ambien Online Cod Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and Order Ambien Online Cod my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be Order Ambien Online Cod those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the Order Ambien Online Cod first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that Order Ambien Online Cod if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that Order Ambien Online Cod have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or Order Ambien Online Cod if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is Order Ambien Online Cod no doubt that I would react in much the same way
But the truth is, that isn’t all that Order Ambien Online Cod I know of the man. The man I met more than Order Ambien Online Cod twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to Order Ambien Online Cod my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to Order Ambien Online Cod love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the Order Ambien Online Cod poor. He is a man who served his country as a Order Ambien Online Cod U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the Order Ambien Online Cod finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a Order Ambien Online Cod church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the Order Ambien Online Cod homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and Order Ambien Online Cod prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the Order Ambien Online Cod experience of my first service at Trinity:
“People began to Order Ambien Online Cod shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a Order Ambien Online Cod forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the Order Ambien Online Cod foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the Order Ambien Online Cod city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the Order Ambien Online Cod stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the Order Ambien Online Cod lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the Order Ambien Online Cod blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this Order Ambien Online Cod black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the Order Ambien Online Cod story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and Order Ambien Online Cod triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than Order Ambien Online Cod black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the Order Ambien Online Cod country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the Order Ambien Online Cod doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are Order Ambien Online Cod full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and Order Ambien Online Cod shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the Order Ambien Online Cod kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the Order Ambien Online Cod struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that Order Ambien Online Cod make up the black experience in America.
And this Order Ambien Online Cod helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has Order Ambien Online Cod been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and Order Ambien Online Cod baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have Order Ambien Online Cod I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or Order Ambien Online Cod treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can Order Ambien Online Cod no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a Order Ambien Online Cod woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and Order Ambien Online Cod again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this Order Ambien Online Cod world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who Order Ambien Online Cod passed by her on the street, and who on more than Order Ambien Online Cod one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are Order Ambien Online Cod a part of me. And they are a part of America, this Order Ambien Online Cod country that I love.
Some will see this Order Ambien Online Cod as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can Order Ambien Online Cod assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be Order Ambien Online Cod to move on from this episode and just hope that it Order Ambien Online Cod fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a Order Ambien Online Cod crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the Order Ambien Online Cod aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is Order Ambien Online Cod an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to Order Ambien Online Cod ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Order Ambien Online Cod Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to Order Ambien Online Cod simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that Order Ambien Online Cod it distorts reality.
The fact is Order Ambien Online Cod that the comments that have been made and the issues that Order Ambien Online Cod have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this Order Ambien Online Cod country that we’ve never really worked through – a Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or Order Ambien Online Cod education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to Order Ambien Online Cod remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the Order Ambien Online Cod African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from Order Ambien Online Cod an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Order Ambien Online Cod Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and Order Ambien Online Cod the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the Order Ambien Online Cod pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.
Legalized discrimination – where Order Ambien Online Cod blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to Order Ambien Online Cod African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or Order Ambien Online Cod blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that Order Ambien Online Cod black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to Order Ambien Online Cod future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod the shame and frustration that came from not being able to Order Ambien Online Cod provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a Order Ambien Online Cod problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the Order Ambien Online Cod lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for Order Ambien Online Cod kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and Order Ambien Online Cod building code enforcement – all helped create a Order Ambien Online Cod cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is Order Ambien Online Cod the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the Order Ambien Online Cod late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the Order Ambien Online Cod law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is Order Ambien Online Cod not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and Order Ambien Online Cod women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a Order Ambien Online Cod way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for Order Ambien Online Cod all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a Order Ambien Online Cod piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who Order Ambien Online Cod were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to Order Ambien Online Cod future generations – those young men and Order Ambien Online Cod increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or Order Ambien Online Cod languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for Order Ambien Online Cod those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to Order Ambien Online Cod define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the Order Ambien Online Cod memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has Order Ambien Online Cod the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or Order Ambien Online Cod white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or Order Ambien Online Cod around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to Order Ambien Online Cod gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for Order Ambien Online Cod a politician’s own failings.
And occasionally it Order Ambien Online Cod finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and Order Ambien Online Cod in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to Order Ambien Online Cod hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the Order Ambien Online Cod old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is Order Ambien Online Cod not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from Order Ambien Online Cod solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and Order Ambien Online Cod prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to Order Ambien Online Cod bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is Order Ambien Online Cod powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to Order Ambien Online Cod widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a Order Ambien Online Cod similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and Order Ambien Online Cod middle-class white Americans don’t feel that Order Ambien Online Cod they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a Order Ambien Online Cod lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and Order Ambien Online Cod feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and Order Ambien Online Cod global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your Order Ambien Online Cod dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to Order Ambien Online Cod bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that Order Ambien Online Cod an African American is getting an advantage in landing a Order Ambien Online Cod good job or a spot in a good college because of an Order Ambien Online Cod injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and Order Ambien Online Cod affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have Order Ambien Online Cod these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the Order Ambien Online Cod middle class squeeze – a Order Ambien Online Cod corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Order Ambien Online Cod Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the Order Ambien Online Cod few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to Order Ambien Online Cod label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and Order Ambien Online Cod white, I have never been so naïve as to Order Ambien Online Cod believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a Order Ambien Online Cod single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction – a Order Ambien Online Cod conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the Order Ambien Online Cod American people – that Order Ambien Online Cod working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and Order Ambien Online Cod that in fact we have no choice is we are Order Ambien Online Cod to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the Order Ambien Online Cod African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to Order Ambien Online Cod insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it Order Ambien Online Cod also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs – to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the Order Ambien Online Cod white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been Order Ambien Online Cod laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it Order Ambien Online Cod means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from Order Ambien Online Cod our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and Order Ambien Online Cod reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and Order Ambien Online Cod discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to Order Ambien Online Cod despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod my former pastor too often failed to understand is that Order Ambien Online Cod embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that Order Ambien Online Cod society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that Order Ambien Online Cod he spoke as if our society was static; as if no Order Ambien Online Cod progress has been made; as if this country – a Order Ambien Online Cod country that has made it possible for one of his own members to Order Ambien Online Cod run for the highest office in the land and build a Order Ambien Online Cod coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and Order Ambien Online Cod old — is Order Ambien Online Cod still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen – is Order Ambien Online Cod that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have Order Ambien Online Cod already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the Order Ambien Online Cod white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that Order Ambien Online Cod what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the Order Ambien Online Cod minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and Order Ambien Online Cod current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the Order Ambien Online Cod past – are Order Ambien Online Cod real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and Order Ambien Online Cod our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this Order Ambien Online Cod generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to Order Ambien Online Cod realize that your dreams do not have to come at the Order Ambien Online Cod expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and Order Ambien Online Cod education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the Order Ambien Online Cod end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than Order Ambien Online Cod what all the world’s great religions demand – that Order Ambien Online Cod we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be Order Ambien Online Cod our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that Order Ambien Online Cod common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that Order Ambien Online Cod spirit as well.
For we have Order Ambien Online Cod a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that Order Ambien Online Cod breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod talk about them from now until the election, and make the Order Ambien Online Cod only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that Order Ambien Online Cod I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can Order Ambien Online Cod pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that Order Ambien Online Cod she’s playing the Order Ambien Online Cod race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then Order Ambien Online Cod another one. And nothing will change.
That is Order Ambien Online Cod one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can Order Ambien Online Cod come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to Order Ambien Online Cod talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and Order Ambien Online Cod white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a Order Ambien Online Cod 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to Order Ambien Online Cod talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and Order Ambien Online Cod blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have Order Ambien Online Cod the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who Order Ambien Online Cod can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to Order Ambien Online Cod talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for Order Ambien Online Cod men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that Order Ambien Online Cod once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to Order Ambien Online Cod talk about the fact that the real problem is not that Order Ambien Online Cod someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that Order Ambien Online Cod the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for Order Ambien Online Cod nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to Order Ambien Online Cod talk about the men and women of every color and Order Ambien Online Cod creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the Order Ambien Online Cod same proud flag. We want to talk about how to Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have Order Ambien Online Cod earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that Order Ambien Online Cod this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this Order Ambien Online Cod country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has Order Ambien Online Cod shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or Order Ambien Online Cod cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is Order Ambien Online Cod the next generation – the Order Ambien Online Cod young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who Order Ambien Online Cod organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had Order Ambien Online Cod been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the Order Ambien Online Cod beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a Order Ambien Online Cod roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and Order Ambien Online Cod why they were there.
And Ashley said that Order Ambien Online Cod when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had Order Ambien Online Cod to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had Order Ambien Online Cod to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that Order Ambien Online Cod food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that Order Ambien Online Cod what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than Order Ambien Online Cod anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the Order Ambien Online Cod cheapest way to eat.
She did this Order Ambien Online Cod for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the Order Ambien Online Cod roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that Order Ambien Online Cod she could help the millions of other children in the Order Ambien Online Cod country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have Order Ambien Online Cod made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that Order Ambien Online Cod the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who Order Ambien Online Cod were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who Order Ambien Online Cod 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 Order Ambien Online Cod then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the Order Ambien Online Cod campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a Order Ambien Online Cod specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been Order Ambien Online Cod sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a Order Ambien Online Cod specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or Order Ambien Online Cod the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to Order Ambien Online Cod everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”
“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that Order Ambien Online Cod single moment of recognition between that young white girl and Order Ambien Online Cod that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to Order Ambien Online Cod give health care to the sick, or jobs to the Order Ambien Online Cod jobless, or education to our children.
But it Order Ambien Online Cod is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have Order Ambien Online Cod come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and Order Ambien Online Cod twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that Order Ambien Online Cod document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
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