A More Perfect Union, a Generic Clonazepam 2mg speech delivered by Senator Barack Obama at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday March 18, 2008. The video is Generic Clonazepam 2mg
here, and the transcript below.
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”
Two hundred and Generic Clonazepam 2mg twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the Generic Clonazepam 2mg street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and Generic Clonazepam 2mg scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to Generic Clonazepam 2mg escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Generic Clonazepam 2mg Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this Generic Clonazepam 2mg nation’s original sin of slavery, a Generic Clonazepam 2mg question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a Generic Clonazepam 2mg stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to Generic Clonazepam 2mg continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to Generic Clonazepam 2mg future generations.
Of course, the Generic Clonazepam 2mg answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Generic Clonazepam 2mg Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the Generic Clonazepam 2mg law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and Generic Clonazepam 2mg a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a Generic Clonazepam 2mg parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or Generic Clonazepam 2mg provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and Generic Clonazepam 2mg obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be Generic Clonazepam 2mg needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to Generic Clonazepam 2mg do their part – through protests and Generic Clonazepam 2mg struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a Generic Clonazepam 2mg civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk – to Generic Clonazepam 2mg narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and Generic Clonazepam 2mg the reality of their time.
This was one of the Generic Clonazepam 2mg tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to Generic Clonazepam 2mg continue the long march of those who came before us, a Generic Clonazepam 2mg march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and Generic Clonazepam 2mg more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this Generic Clonazepam 2mg moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the Generic Clonazepam 2mg challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that Generic Clonazepam 2mg we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that Generic Clonazepam 2mg we may not look the same and we may not have Generic Clonazepam 2mg come from the same place, but we all want to Generic Clonazepam 2mg move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from Generic Clonazepam 2mg my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it Generic Clonazepam 2mg also comes from my own American story.
I am Generic Clonazepam 2mg the son of a black man from Kenya and a Generic Clonazepam 2mg white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a Generic Clonazepam 2mg white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and Generic Clonazepam 2mg a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to Generic Clonazepam 2mg some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the Generic Clonazepam 2mg world’s poorest nations. I am Generic Clonazepam 2mg married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and Generic Clonazepam 2mg slaveowners – an Generic Clonazepam 2mg inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have Generic Clonazepam 2mg brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and Generic Clonazepam 2mg every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that Generic Clonazepam 2mg in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It’s a story that hasn’t made me the Generic Clonazepam 2mg most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the Generic Clonazepam 2mg idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the Generic Clonazepam 2mg first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the Generic Clonazepam 2mg contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for Generic Clonazepam 2mg this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a Generic Clonazepam 2mg purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the Generic Clonazepam 2mg whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Generic Clonazepam 2mg Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and Generic Clonazepam 2mg white Americans.
This is Generic Clonazepam 2mg not to say that race has not been an issue in the Generic Clonazepam 2mg campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have Generic Clonazepam 2mg deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to Generic Clonazepam 2mg the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has Generic Clonazepam 2mg scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and Generic Clonazepam 2mg black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it Generic Clonazepam 2mg has only been in the last couple of weeks that the Generic Clonazepam 2mg discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the Generic Clonazepam 2mg implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that Generic Clonazepam 2mg it’s based solely on the Generic Clonazepam 2mg desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the Generic Clonazepam 2mg other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to Generic Clonazepam 2mg express views that have the potential not only to widen the Generic Clonazepam 2mg racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the Generic Clonazepam 2mg goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have Generic Clonazepam 2mg already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that Generic Clonazepam 2mg have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to Generic Clonazepam 2mg be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this Generic Clonazepam 2mg country – a Generic Clonazepam 2mg view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what Generic Clonazepam 2mg is wrong with America above all that we know is Generic Clonazepam 2mg right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Generic Clonazepam 2mg Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from Generic Clonazepam 2mg the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a Generic Clonazepam 2mg time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when Generic Clonazepam 2mg we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a Generic Clonazepam 2mg terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and Generic Clonazepam 2mg potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Generic Clonazepam 2mg Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and Generic Clonazepam 2mg my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be Generic Clonazepam 2mg those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the Generic Clonazepam 2mg first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that Generic Clonazepam 2mg if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that Generic Clonazepam 2mg have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or Generic Clonazepam 2mg if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is Generic Clonazepam 2mg no doubt that I would react in much the same way
But the truth is, that isn’t all that Generic Clonazepam 2mg I know of the man. The man I met more than Generic Clonazepam 2mg twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to Generic Clonazepam 2mg my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to Generic Clonazepam 2mg love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the Generic Clonazepam 2mg poor. He is a man who served his country as a Generic Clonazepam 2mg U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the Generic Clonazepam 2mg finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a Generic Clonazepam 2mg church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the Generic Clonazepam 2mg homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and Generic Clonazepam 2mg prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the Generic Clonazepam 2mg experience of my first service at Trinity:
“People began to Generic Clonazepam 2mg shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a Generic Clonazepam 2mg forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the Generic Clonazepam 2mg foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the Generic Clonazepam 2mg city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the Generic Clonazepam 2mg stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the Generic Clonazepam 2mg lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the Generic Clonazepam 2mg blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this Generic Clonazepam 2mg black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the Generic Clonazepam 2mg story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and Generic Clonazepam 2mg triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than Generic Clonazepam 2mg black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the Generic Clonazepam 2mg country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the Generic Clonazepam 2mg doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are Generic Clonazepam 2mg full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and Generic Clonazepam 2mg shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the Generic Clonazepam 2mg kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the Generic Clonazepam 2mg struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that Generic Clonazepam 2mg make up the black experience in America.
And this Generic Clonazepam 2mg helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has Generic Clonazepam 2mg been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and Generic Clonazepam 2mg baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have Generic Clonazepam 2mg I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or Generic Clonazepam 2mg treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can Generic Clonazepam 2mg no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a Generic Clonazepam 2mg woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and Generic Clonazepam 2mg again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this Generic Clonazepam 2mg world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who Generic Clonazepam 2mg passed by her on the street, and who on more than Generic Clonazepam 2mg one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are Generic Clonazepam 2mg a part of me. And they are a part of America, this Generic Clonazepam 2mg country that I love.
Some will see this Generic Clonazepam 2mg as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can Generic Clonazepam 2mg assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be Generic Clonazepam 2mg to move on from this episode and just hope that it Generic Clonazepam 2mg fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a Generic Clonazepam 2mg crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the Generic Clonazepam 2mg aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is Generic Clonazepam 2mg an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to Generic Clonazepam 2mg ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Generic Clonazepam 2mg Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to Generic Clonazepam 2mg simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that Generic Clonazepam 2mg it distorts reality.
The fact is Generic Clonazepam 2mg that the comments that have been made and the issues that Generic Clonazepam 2mg have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this Generic Clonazepam 2mg country that we’ve never really worked through – a Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or Generic Clonazepam 2mg education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to Generic Clonazepam 2mg remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the Generic Clonazepam 2mg African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from Generic Clonazepam 2mg an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Generic Clonazepam 2mg Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and Generic Clonazepam 2mg the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the Generic Clonazepam 2mg pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.
Legalized discrimination – where Generic Clonazepam 2mg blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to Generic Clonazepam 2mg African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or Generic Clonazepam 2mg blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that Generic Clonazepam 2mg black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to Generic Clonazepam 2mg future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg the shame and frustration that came from not being able to Generic Clonazepam 2mg provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a Generic Clonazepam 2mg problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the Generic Clonazepam 2mg lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for Generic Clonazepam 2mg kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and Generic Clonazepam 2mg building code enforcement – all helped create a Generic Clonazepam 2mg cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is Generic Clonazepam 2mg the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the Generic Clonazepam 2mg late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the Generic Clonazepam 2mg law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is Generic Clonazepam 2mg not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and Generic Clonazepam 2mg women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a Generic Clonazepam 2mg way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for Generic Clonazepam 2mg all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a Generic Clonazepam 2mg piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who Generic Clonazepam 2mg were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to Generic Clonazepam 2mg future generations – those young men and Generic Clonazepam 2mg increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or Generic Clonazepam 2mg languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for Generic Clonazepam 2mg those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to Generic Clonazepam 2mg define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the Generic Clonazepam 2mg memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has Generic Clonazepam 2mg the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or Generic Clonazepam 2mg white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or Generic Clonazepam 2mg around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to Generic Clonazepam 2mg gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for Generic Clonazepam 2mg a politician’s own failings.
And occasionally it Generic Clonazepam 2mg finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and Generic Clonazepam 2mg in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to Generic Clonazepam 2mg hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the Generic Clonazepam 2mg old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is Generic Clonazepam 2mg not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from Generic Clonazepam 2mg solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and Generic Clonazepam 2mg prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to Generic Clonazepam 2mg bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is Generic Clonazepam 2mg powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to Generic Clonazepam 2mg widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a Generic Clonazepam 2mg similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and Generic Clonazepam 2mg middle-class white Americans don’t feel that Generic Clonazepam 2mg they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a Generic Clonazepam 2mg lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and Generic Clonazepam 2mg feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and Generic Clonazepam 2mg global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your Generic Clonazepam 2mg dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to Generic Clonazepam 2mg bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that Generic Clonazepam 2mg an African American is getting an advantage in landing a Generic Clonazepam 2mg good job or a spot in a good college because of an Generic Clonazepam 2mg injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and Generic Clonazepam 2mg affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have Generic Clonazepam 2mg these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the Generic Clonazepam 2mg middle class squeeze – a Generic Clonazepam 2mg corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Generic Clonazepam 2mg Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the Generic Clonazepam 2mg few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to Generic Clonazepam 2mg label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and Generic Clonazepam 2mg white, I have never been so naïve as to Generic Clonazepam 2mg believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a Generic Clonazepam 2mg single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction – a Generic Clonazepam 2mg conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the Generic Clonazepam 2mg American people – that Generic Clonazepam 2mg working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and Generic Clonazepam 2mg that in fact we have no choice is we are Generic Clonazepam 2mg to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the Generic Clonazepam 2mg African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to Generic Clonazepam 2mg insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it Generic Clonazepam 2mg also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs – to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the Generic Clonazepam 2mg white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been Generic Clonazepam 2mg laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it Generic Clonazepam 2mg means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from Generic Clonazepam 2mg our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and Generic Clonazepam 2mg reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and Generic Clonazepam 2mg discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to Generic Clonazepam 2mg despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg my former pastor too often failed to understand is that Generic Clonazepam 2mg embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that Generic Clonazepam 2mg society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that Generic Clonazepam 2mg he spoke as if our society was static; as if no Generic Clonazepam 2mg progress has been made; as if this country – a Generic Clonazepam 2mg country that has made it possible for one of his own members to Generic Clonazepam 2mg run for the highest office in the land and build a Generic Clonazepam 2mg coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and Generic Clonazepam 2mg old — is Generic Clonazepam 2mg still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know — what we have seen – is Generic Clonazepam 2mg that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have Generic Clonazepam 2mg already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the Generic Clonazepam 2mg white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that Generic Clonazepam 2mg what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the Generic Clonazepam 2mg minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and Generic Clonazepam 2mg current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the Generic Clonazepam 2mg past – are Generic Clonazepam 2mg real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and Generic Clonazepam 2mg our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this Generic Clonazepam 2mg generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to Generic Clonazepam 2mg realize that your dreams do not have to come at the Generic Clonazepam 2mg expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and Generic Clonazepam 2mg education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the Generic Clonazepam 2mg end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than Generic Clonazepam 2mg what all the world’s great religions demand – that Generic Clonazepam 2mg we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be Generic Clonazepam 2mg our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that Generic Clonazepam 2mg common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that Generic Clonazepam 2mg spirit as well.
For we have Generic Clonazepam 2mg a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that Generic Clonazepam 2mg breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg talk about them from now until the election, and make the Generic Clonazepam 2mg only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that Generic Clonazepam 2mg I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can Generic Clonazepam 2mg pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that Generic Clonazepam 2mg she’s playing the Generic Clonazepam 2mg race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then Generic Clonazepam 2mg another one. And nothing will change.
That is Generic Clonazepam 2mg one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can Generic Clonazepam 2mg come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to Generic Clonazepam 2mg talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and Generic Clonazepam 2mg white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a Generic Clonazepam 2mg 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to Generic Clonazepam 2mg talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and Generic Clonazepam 2mg blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have Generic Clonazepam 2mg the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who Generic Clonazepam 2mg can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to Generic Clonazepam 2mg talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for Generic Clonazepam 2mg men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that Generic Clonazepam 2mg once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to Generic Clonazepam 2mg talk about the fact that the real problem is not that Generic Clonazepam 2mg someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that Generic Clonazepam 2mg the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for Generic Clonazepam 2mg nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to Generic Clonazepam 2mg talk about the men and women of every color and Generic Clonazepam 2mg creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the Generic Clonazepam 2mg same proud flag. We want to talk about how to Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have Generic Clonazepam 2mg earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that Generic Clonazepam 2mg this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this Generic Clonazepam 2mg country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has Generic Clonazepam 2mg shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or Generic Clonazepam 2mg cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is Generic Clonazepam 2mg the next generation – the Generic Clonazepam 2mg young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who Generic Clonazepam 2mg organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had Generic Clonazepam 2mg been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the Generic Clonazepam 2mg beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a Generic Clonazepam 2mg roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and Generic Clonazepam 2mg why they were there.
And Ashley said that Generic Clonazepam 2mg when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had Generic Clonazepam 2mg to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had Generic Clonazepam 2mg to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that Generic Clonazepam 2mg food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that Generic Clonazepam 2mg what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than Generic Clonazepam 2mg anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the Generic Clonazepam 2mg cheapest way to eat.
She did this Generic Clonazepam 2mg for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the Generic Clonazepam 2mg roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that Generic Clonazepam 2mg she could help the millions of other children in the Generic Clonazepam 2mg country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have Generic Clonazepam 2mg made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that Generic Clonazepam 2mg the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who Generic Clonazepam 2mg were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who Generic Clonazepam 2mg 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 Generic Clonazepam 2mg then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the Generic Clonazepam 2mg campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a Generic Clonazepam 2mg specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been Generic Clonazepam 2mg sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a Generic Clonazepam 2mg specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or Generic Clonazepam 2mg the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to Generic Clonazepam 2mg everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”
“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that Generic Clonazepam 2mg single moment of recognition between that young white girl and Generic Clonazepam 2mg that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to Generic Clonazepam 2mg give health care to the sick, or jobs to the Generic Clonazepam 2mg jobless, or education to our children.
But it Generic Clonazepam 2mg is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have Generic Clonazepam 2mg come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and Generic Clonazepam 2mg twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that Generic Clonazepam 2mg document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
Recent Comments