OP-ED: Reflecting on A More Perfect Union By David Reiersgord reiersgord
from Chicago-based pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright was released. In this recording, given soon after the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, Wright made statements about the racial history of the US. In one passage, Wright exclaimed:When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed.
Obama began the speech with his own family story, which acts as a challenge to those who view the history of race in the country through a singular lens:I am the son of a black from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas.
He reminded everyone that segregated schools “are inferior schools”, many of which remain so; that legalised discrimination, such as preventing black people, “often through violence”, from home ownership “meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth”; and that a lack of economic opportunity “contributed to the erosion of black families”, which Obama goes so far as to claim is “a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened”.
He goes further than asking the white community to simply pay lip-service, stating that “deeds,” such as “investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable to previous generations” are ways to ultimately move forward.
With all of this in mind, however, Obama equally stressed the myopia of “the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens”. For example, he spoke about how commentators described him as both “too black” or not “black enough”, implying the rigidity with which racial identities are policed didn’t capture the nature of his campaign.
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