UPDATE: NPR says this speech has supplanted the usual drunken cats and Star Wars fanvids as Youtube’s most viewed video today.
As a Canadian, I really don’t have a vested interest in how the U.S. election turns out — at least, not any more than the other six billion or so people whose lives are inevitably shaped, to one degree or another, by the policies of the most powerful country in the world.
But yesterday, would-be U.S. president Barack Obama delivered one of the most intelligent, impassioned speeches I’ve ever heard from anyone, ever. His topic: race, the elephant in the room that we deftly dodge, duck and roll away from if it ever comes up in conversation. But the way he addressed a subject that makes so many of us wince, — treating his electorate like adults, rather than demographics to be sliced up and pandered to — is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen from a politician. And he didn’t just point out the elephant in the room, he blew it to smithereens.
The full text of his speech is posted on The New Republic’s website. On his relationship with a controversial African-American reverend, Obama says:
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
[…] 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.
WOW. Did he really just allude to racism in church, and say there are good people who harbour prejudices?
“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 are concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they have built it from scratch.
“They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pensions dumped after a lifetime of labour. 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 an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot at a good college because of an injustice they have never committed; when they are told that their fears about crime in urban neighbourhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.”
“Like the anger in the black community,” he added, “these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company.”
Double WOW.
“Just as black anger has also 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 favour the few over the many.
“And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns, this too widens the racial divide and blocks the path to understanding.”
HOLY CRAP.
The speech is honest, frank, and most important, treats the listener like an adult, with a non-sugarcoated look at race in America. And you’d think it would tick off a lot of people. But reading it over, it’s got something for everyone. He’s saying that he understands people’s fears and frustrations — a much better approach than railing about bigots, or attacking people for their views. He tells us what we already knew about race politics in America but were reluctant to talk about, as he puts it, “in polite company,” and throws it all right out into the open. It’s an adult speech about an adult problem, delivered to an adult audience.
Strange how that seems like such a crazy idea.
The audio is available here, and love it or hate it, this is one hell of a speech.
Thanks for the link, Theo!
1 response so far ↓
1 B // Mar 20, 2008 at 1:41 am
He’s my man!
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