Excerpts from Obama’s Speech on Race and Politics

“I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles, and cousins, of every race and 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.”

“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. 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.”

“I can no more disown (Wright) 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 the 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 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 realy 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.”

“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 balck 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 gaps between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.”

“For the men and women of the Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has teh anger and the bitterness of those years.”

“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.”

“But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding it’s roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”

“Most working- and middle class white American’s 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.”

“So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when the 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, resent builds over time.”

“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. This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years.”

“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.”