Barack Obama, the first African American President, begins his second term fifty years after Martin Luther King delivered his 'I Have a Dream Speech.'
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Essence Magazine President Barack Obama First Lady Michelle Obama First Daughters: Sasha & Malia |
When Martin Luther King spoke at the Lincoln Memorial during the Poor People's March on Washington, no one imagined that fifty years would come so soon and the projections of his speech would come true.
In 1968, Robert Kennedy predicted that a black man would become president in 40 years. That is precisely what happened forty years later. In 2008, Barack Obama was elected president. Without the courage of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy and so many others who died defending racial equality in the tumultuous 1960s, there may not have been a Barack Obama presidency.
Subsequently, Barack Obama had to make a speech on race relations in America exploring the historical impact of Jim Crow laws on race and attempts to illustrate ways to bring the nation together to solve its racial, gender and human relations problems, and to move toward a post-racial America, a more perfect union about which the Founding Fathers wrote.
Martin Luther King's projections of 'I Have A Dream' during the March on Washington came true.
Martin Luther King's was not the only prediction made in the 1960s about a black man becoming president.
In 1968, Robert Kennedy predicted that a black man would become president in 40 years. That is precisely what happened forty years later. In 2008, Barack Obama was elected president. Without the courage of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy and so many others who died defending racial equality in the tumultuous 1960s, there may not have been a Barack Obama presidency.
Subsequently, Barack Obama had to make a speech on race relations in America exploring the historical impact of Jim Crow laws on race and attempts to illustrate ways to bring the nation together to solve its racial, gender and human relations problems, and to move toward a post-racial America, a more perfect union about which the Founding Fathers wrote.
Race relations in America is an issue that the first African American President of the United States must tread carefully, as not to be aligned too closely with one ethnic group over others and, thereby, be accused of favoritism for some and not others. This may seem an unfair burden for a black president, considering that some presidents in the past have favored one race over others. Fair or unfair?
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| I Have a Dream |
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Where ever you stand on the issue of race, Barack Obama, still a U.S. Senator campaigning for the U.S. Presidency, made a speech on March, 18, 2008, before he took the oath for the highest office in our land, that visited the issue of race and racism in America and American history.
Then Senator Obama put his bi-racial genealogy, his wife, Michelle Obama, immediate family history, professional record and political views out for the American people to see, once and for all, to show who he is morally and to show that he, himself--a man of strong character and conviction--could not and would not exhibit racist tendencies in his presidency. The majority of the American people showed their belief in Barack Obama by electing him President of the United States.
You will be given the chance, later in this post, to read and closely examine President Obama's words in print and also view the president's speech on video to make your own assessments of his intentions and to see why he should not have to re-visit this topic again. But, as my mother used to tell me when I was a little girl, "Unfortunately, as long as your skin is black, you will have to keep proving yourself over and over again, which may not be such a bad thing, in some cases," she said. "Because practice can sometimes get you closer to perfection than pretense."
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| Brown v the Board of Education Ended Jim Crow Laws Affecting Education, Employment, Housing & other Aspects of American Life |
As a parent, Mr. Obama makes reference in this speech to his own children, first daughters Sasha and Malia, which causes the rest of us to ask ourselves: What kind of nation do we want for our children? What lessons do we want to teach our children about race? Do we want our children to think about race or not? What does thinking about race really mean?
We must try to control in a positive way how our children respond to these questions. However, it is evident that the lessons nor the responses to conversations about race are as positive as we may think. We also must remember that parents control much of how children respond to these questions. And we must be careful not to pass along to our children lazy old habits in racial thought. Habits--good and bad--can last a lifetime.
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| Bigmama Didn't Shop At Woolworth's by Sunny Nash |
My book, Bigmama Didn't Shop at Woolworth's, was selected by the Association of American University Presses for its value to the understanding of U.S. race relations. I use the topics in the book as a basis for my race-relations blog. Before this blog, I wrote a syndicated column on race for Hearst newspapers and the Knight-Ridder syndicate. Today, my Internet articles, web content and blogs on race relations in America cover topics relating to my life--from music, film, early radio and television, entertainment, social media, Internet technology, publishing, journalism, sports, education, employment, real estate, the military, fashion, performing arts, literature, women's issues, men's issues, adolescence and childhood, equal rights, social and political movements--past and present—to post-racism America.
"Why are black ladies always maids in the movies?" I asked my mother when I was five years old.
"Because that's what most of them are in real life," she said.
That explanation was only enough to satisfy me for a couple of years as I watched Jim Crow television shows and movies with black women portrayed as servants, a theme in modern times that demonstrates a more complete story.
Then, the questions began and they have never stopped. Jim Crow laws are dead and gone and no one will ever make me enter through a back door or sit in a filthy balcony again, but race in America is an issue that can not be ignored, especially as the United States attempts to rise above its painful past. However, there seems to be a deliberate maneuvering by some to pretend our nation has no race problems or that we make too much of those issues, while others may seem oversensitive to any reference that could be interpreted as racial. The truth probably lies somewhere in between.
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| Library of Congress Photo Segregated Movie Theater "Man Climbing Stairs to Colored Seating in Balcony" |
I was four or five when my mother first took me to a movie matinee at the Palace Theater.
After walking downtown under dancing clouds, we stood out in the rain that afternoon to buy our movie tickets and walked to a back entrance of the theater to sit in a balcony that was not very clean and smelled funny. In my book, I wrote about this and other experiences with my family and friends from my childhood.
After the movie that Saturday afternoon, my mother took my hand; we walked down Main Street looking in store windows at clothes we would not be allowed to try on if we went inside and, finally, stopped in to order hamburgers at a greasy cafe that refused to seat black customers. We were then told to wait for our food outside at the back door, where we also had to eat after receiving it.
"Why are black ladies always maids in the movies?" I asked my mother when I was five years old.
"Because that's what most of them are in real life," she said.
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Then, the questions began and they have never stopped. Jim Crow laws are dead and gone and no one will ever make me enter through a back door or sit in a filthy balcony again, but race in America is an issue that can not be ignored, especially as the United States attempts to rise above its painful past. However, there seems to be a deliberate maneuvering by some to pretend our nation has no race problems or that we make too much of those issues, while others may seem oversensitive to any reference that could be interpreted as racial. The truth probably lies somewhere in between.
I HAD CONVERSATIONS about education and race with my family the entire time I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s.
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| Sunny Nash's Mother "Littie" |
When I was a little girl, my mother used everyday ordinary examples that could apply to anyone of any color to teach me human relations, although, at the time, I was not that interested. I just wanted to play outdoors in a spring shower, follow my father to the ranch begging to ride a horse, pick tomatoes from the garden with my grandmother or go squirrel hunting with my grandfather.
"Try to understand what other people are going through in their lives and what they are thinking," my mother told me.
"Why do I care what other people are going through and thinking?" I asked her.”What’s that got to do with me?”
"Why do I care what other people are going through and thinking?" I asked her.”What’s that got to do with me?”
"For one thing, self preservation," she said.
"Self preservation?" I asked, suspicious of her answer. Was that one of her trick questions? My mother was famous for trick questions and I usually got the answers wrong, which gave her a chance to teach me something I really wasn’t interested in learning.
"If you understand what others are going through and what they may be thinking," she said. "You may be able to guess their next move.”
“Is that like Chess?” She was trying to teach me to play and I was not getting it.
“Sort of,” she said.
“Sort of,” she said.
“I don’t like Chess.
“If you can guess their next move,” she said. “Then maybe you'll have time to get out of the way if they are planning to harm you!"
“Oh,” was all I could come with at the moment. Then my mother came up with the rest for me.
“By putting yourself in another person’s position,” she said. “Maybe you can help them out one day. And maybe they will return the favor.”
“That’s not like Chess,” I said.
“No,” she said. “It’s like life.”
My mother and I read and talked about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dr. Martin Luther King and all the events that led up to the Civil Rights Movement and the eventual destruction of Jim Crow laws in education, employment, real estate, public services and all aspect of American life that mandated the separation of people based on their color. And we are still in need of these types of conversations and not on just one side of the color line.
Historically, black people have known white people better for much longer because survival on the plantation and later in the black community demanded knowledge of the then enemy. Lessons were passed down at dinner tables all over America on how to behave and what to expect when one comes into contact a white person. Whereas, white families reinforced their views on race in conversations with their children that began and ended with, "Don't bring one home. You're better than that."
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Barack Obama Presidential Inauguration 24KT Gold Coin |
One conversation my mother and I did not have when I was a child was about America having a black president. We simply didn't think we'd live to see that day, but in our hearts we knew it was coming. We just didn't know how soon. My mother would have loved Barack Obama like a son. He is her kind of man.
Read more about my childhood memories and conversations with those who helped to shape me in my book, Bigmama Didn't Shop at Woolworth's.
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"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."
Barack Obama's March 18, 2008 Speech
Race Relations in America
Television Broadcast during Presidential Campaign
"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."
Barack Obama's March 18, 2008 Speech
Race Relations in America
Television Broadcast during Presidential Campaign
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| President Barack Obama: The Man & His Journey (Collector's Edition) [D (Google Affiliate Ad) |
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
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I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible. It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.
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| Michelle Obama: A Life (Kindle)  |
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
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Barack Obama’s March 18, 2008 Speech
Race Relations in America
Television Broadcast during Presidential Campaign
Barack Obama’s March 18, 2008 Speech
Race Relations in America
Television Broadcast during Presidential Campaign
AND YET, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
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| Barack Obama's Speech Race Relations in America Philadelphia, March 8, 2008 © William Thomas Cain Getty Images |
On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
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As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.
But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black The Barack Obama Phenomenoncommunity. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
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A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother (Kindle)  A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother (Hardcover)  |
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families--a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
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| The Obamas (Hardcover) |
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option.
Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time."
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
"Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley.
"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two hundred and twenty-one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option.
Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time."
This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
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| Barack Obama |
I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
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| Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil Rights Activist Jailed in Alabama |
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
"Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley.
"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two hundred and twenty-one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."
Barack Obama’s March 18, 2008 Speech
Race Relations in America
Television Broadcast during Presidential Campaign
Barack Obama’s March 18, 2008 Speech
Race Relations in America
Television Broadcast during Presidential Campaign
Barack Obama
Race Relations in America Television Broadcast
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Sunny Nash is an author, producer, photographer and leading writer on U.S. race relations.
Sunny Nash writes books, blogs, articles and reviews, and produces media and images on U.S. history and contemporary American topics, ranging from Jim Crow laws to social media networking. Sunny Nash is the author of Bigmama Didn't Shop At Woolworth's (Texas A&M University Press), about life with her part-Comanche grandmother during the Civil Rights Movement.
Sunny Nash’s book is recognized by the Association of American University Presses as essential for understanding U.S. race relations. Nash's book is also listed in the Bibliographic Guide for black studies at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York; and recommended for Native American collections by the Miami-Dade Public Library System in Florida. Nash uses her book to write articles and blogs on race relations in America through topics relating to her life--from music, film, early radio and television, entertainment, social media, Internet technology, publishing, journalism, sports, education, employment, the military, fashion, performing arts, literature, women's issues, adolescence and childhood, equal rights, social and political movements--past and present—to today's post-racism.
© 2015 Sunny Nash. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
www.sunnynash.blogspot.com
~Thank You~
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