Obama – A more perfect Union

Any other politician would have taken the easy way out. Denounce all ties, slam the media, find some other way to put the opponent down. Maybe redefine the meaning of the word is.

That was what I thought Obama would do when a series of video snippets surfaced on Youtube of his pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright. In them, Wright slams the US, making racist, even unpatriotic remarks – “The US of KKK A” and “God damn America … for killing innocent people” among them, as well as claiming that 9/11 was retribution for America’s arrogance.

But what Obama did instead was to go home, put his children to sleep, and start writing a speech. TIME called it “the speech he’d been turning over in his mind for much of his adult life”. In it, he would finally touch on race, a topic he’d been conscious not to make the center of his campaign.

Transcript

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/18/america/18obamaspeech.php

Audio

[Obama's speech - mp3, 96kbps, 37min, 25mb] (Ripped by yours truly!)

Video

He avoids dramatic gestures; never raises his voice. It’s all about what he has to say. He condemns his pastor’s rhetoric, but refuses to condemn him, instead challenging us to look beyond the words and realize that they stem from “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”.

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.

I really really encourage you to read/listen/watch his speech for yourself and hear what he has to say. Most of you won’t be American but his words still ring true. With Bush, you know he’s either just too plain dumb to grasp the intricacies of leadership (did you read about how he described the Afghan conflict as romantic?). With Clinton, you know she’s pandering to the crowd to get elected. But with Barack Obama, you have the rare politician who is completely believable, who genuinely wants change and rebuild the bridges Bush burnt.

Maybe the tsunami from Malaysia will carry over to the US :P. There is hope for this world yet!

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Tags: obama, US Elections