Obama's Energy Plan

Although this link is a couple months old, but covers current questions recently raised about Obama's longstanding work toward American energy independence.  It seems that Obama's Presidency may loosen the vise-grip that the "military/oil/industrial complex" has held on our nation's leadership for generations.  In short, Obama's vision may best improve foreign policy in trade and war, while addressing gas prices, and global warming.  

Obama and Maliki, see "Eye to Eye"

Obama's exemplary leadership shines as he visits Afghanistan and Iraq.   Recent meetings with President Talabani of Afghanistan, and Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq, as well as General Petreaus, demonstrate a preparedness to fulfill his anticipated role as Commander in Chief.  

Obama Watch: Online Resources

The Official Obama08 Website…
http://www.barackobama.com/index.php

Click here to join “the largest grassroots movement in the history of politics, OBAMA ’08.” This is the “Official Obama ‘08” website. You can join for e-mail blasts, and find news, blogs, and issues our Presidential hopeful is facing day to day. Although this site isn’t “cutting edge” it does feature a map to help you connect to local and national grassroots events, giving voters a unique opportunity to get more involved in the political process and help shape the future of political platforms. Our voices must be heard!

Obama Watch: National Security

My Plan for Iraq – by Obama
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opinion/14obama.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
This New York Times article gives Obama’s views and plans for resolving the ongoing War in Iraq. Obama’s approach is uncompromising, humanitarian, compassionate and well thought out. This is leadership, not a front for backroom business deals or coded pseudo-nationalistic rhetoric. We may finally have a leader as President.

Curious about Obama’s plans for National Security?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/16/AR2008071602695.html

Obama addresses National Security…
Senator Obama addressed through ads and campaign announcements outlining some of his vision for addressing issues of National Security. His ideas for Change we can believe in included… “a cybernuclear proliferation with outline of planned policies and approaches to

Obama Watch: Can Obama unify Americans and the World?

Can Obama unify Americans and the World?
http://www.ebonyjet.com/politics/national/index.aspx?id=8617

Senator Obama travels to Europe this month, to garnish and anchor international support for his 2008 Presidential Campaign. It seems that resistance to his inevitable leadership is most consistently based on a racially charged resentment. On the other hand, support for Obama seems both because of and in spite of race. Obama’s support seems consistently led by those who are “thinkers” embracing a global-world-village. It seems that humanity across national and cultural borders, are all poised and ready for the overdue eradication of assumed “white” privilege and superiority. Change is in the air…

Obama Watch: TASTELESS CARICATURE (The New Yorker)…

TASTELESS CARICATURE (The New Yorker)…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080714/pl_politico/11719

How much does RACE factor into the Presidential Election?

Magazine portrayals of Presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama, clearly convey the polarizing and inherent sentiments stirred by American race consciousness.

The Associated Press and Obama’s spokesman slam the New Yorker’s “Tasteless and Offensive” portrayal of Senator Obama in a turban “bumping fist” with his wife donning not only an exaggerated Afro, but fatigues and an M-16 slung across her shoulder. Caricatures have always had their place in political satire, but where is the line drawn? How might race shape the expectations, perceptions, and reactions of all Americans? Only time will tell… but it seems that Obama’s Presidency would shed light on a lot of America’s covert and overtly racist sentiments.

Obama Watch 7-10

United for Change
http://my.barackobama.com/ufcvideo
This short but sensitive video, demonstrates the need for people to come together, black, white, young, and old. In United for Change, people are coming together as neighbors and communities, those who all agree that there is an urgent need for change in our nation. Senator Barak Obama clearly represents change and thus hope for unity. His approach to government and the numerous issues we face, have remained focused on the interests and needs of the people. In this particular video, we get a heartwarming introduction to the spirit of change that people are pursuing in their support of Obama. Although, this video as many others doesn’t offer detailed information on his policies, accomplishments, or goals for the Presidency, it does convey the unity that his Presidency promises for our nation. Unity is the hope that this nation is in urgent need of, and Obama represents that hope for positive change.


Star Jones' Response To Bill O'Reilly's Racist Comment
http://www.blackvoices.com/blogs/2008/02/26/open-letter-star-jones-checks-bill-o-reilly-s-racist-remark/
Star Jones – slams Bill O’Reilly for using the terms “lynching” and “party” in the same sentence, while referring to the “next First-Lady” Michelle Obama. Bill O’Reilly apparently “hung himself” by trying to make an analogy between his use of lynching and Justice Clarence Thomas’ use of the term during his confirmation hearings. Star successfully challenges the inherent assumption of entitlement, lack luster excuse of an apology, and the threatening and apparently threatened posture of some Americans who apparently still believe that the American dream still has no room for real equity for all people…. GO get ‘em Star!

Democratic Party Hosts Platform Meetings….
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/listening/
Democratic Platform Meetings are being held from July 19 to July 27, everyday Americans will be hosting Platform Meetings across the country. This is a long overdue opportunity for everyday people to shape the Democratic Party’s platform by shaping what issues are in the forefront. Formerly, this seemed reserved for major campaign contributors, organizations, and political pioneers. This is already an indicator of positive CHANGE… something Senator Obama’s campaign seems poised to promise and deliver.

Dr. Sidney A. Ribeau Named 16th President of Howard University

Washington, D.C., (May 7, 2008)—Sidney A. Ribeau, Ph.D., has been named President of Howard University, one of 48 private doctoral/research intensive universities in the United States, the University’s Board of Trustees announced today. He was the unanimous choice of the University’s Trustees. Dr. Ribeau becomes the 16th president of the nation’s premier historically black institution of higher learning.

Dr. Ribeau has been President of Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, for 13 years. At the University he initiated a number of successful, innovative, values-based initiatives that provide students with an academic environment that develops culturally literate, technologically sophisticated, productive citizens.

See full release at Howard University site.

2008 Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair Winds Down this Weekend

As we move toward the conclusion of this year's Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair at THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online, ending this coming weekend, we are pleased to announce the addition of new opportunities links and recruiter's messages by additional participants including...

• Citizen Schools National Teaching Fellowships
• Civilian Opportunities with the Department of Navy - Naval Inventory Control Point
• New opportunities added by IBM

Additionally and simultaneously, a number of fresh featured Internships/Fellowships and Entry-Level/New College Hire/Trainee Jobs have been posted the job channels published by our sister-site, IMDiversity.com, which is also a co-sponsor of the Career Fair.

These free seasonal features are intended to connect diverse students and new college graduates to employers who are currently publishing opportunities available to students or to entry-level candidates. Additionally, though, many more employers who may be open to considering entry-level applicants will continue to post open positions at our job banks at http://jobs.black-collegian.com/ and http://jobs.imdiversity.com/. We encourage our repeat student visitors to be sure to update your resume(s) and contact information for the summer before leaving campus.

Deadline Extended for Obama Organizing Fellowship

The deadline has been extended for applying for the Obama Organizing Fellowship, originally announced in our April 21st post. The new deadline is May 15 at midnight.

To read more about the program, see Do You Want to Become Part of a New Generation of Leaders? added to THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online.

To apply, go to http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/fellowsapp?source=imdiversity

Obama Reaches out Beyond Campaign with Organizing Fellowship

This release from the Obama campaign came to our editors and struck as particularly interesting in this primary elections year, as it appears to look beyond just this season, and to position the Obama phenomenon as more than just a race to be a party nominee -- but even the roots of a movement.

According to the release, the grassroots fellowship program "is more than just a strategy to win an election. It's about strengthening our democracy by bringing more people into the political process.Fellows will be trained in the basic principles of community organizing and placed in communities all over the nation for a minimum of six weeks, starting in June."

In highly personalized language, the message announcing the fellowship to supporters recalled Obama's own early days as a community organizer in Chicago:

When I was a young man, I was inspired by the Civil Rights Movement and the
idea of people working at a grassroots level to bring about change. I got my
chance on the South Side of Chicago, as a community organizer, and it was the
transformative experience of my career.

It allowed me to put my values to work and to see that real change comes not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up, when ordinary people come together around a common purpose. The experience changed the course of my life -- and I want to share that kind of opportunity with you.

That's why we're introducing a program that's going to train a new generation of leaders -- not only to help us win this election, but to help strengthen our democracy in communities across the country.

If you apply and are selected, you'll be trained in the basic organizing principles that this campaign and our movement for change are built on. You will be assigned to a community where you'll organize supporters. Assignments will begin in June, and you'll be required to work a minimum of six weeks over the summer.

This program is designed to give you real world organizing experience that will have a concrete impact on this election.

Although the chosen fellows would undoubtedly be deployed strategically to aid the Obama campaign up through the convention, the fellowship -- as opposed to regular volunteer drives -- recognizes that the impact Obama has had in motivating young voters' passions must be matched by training, experience, and long-term vision that could outlast his own candidacy and this election.

His interest in developing training opportunities for young people also pre-dated his candidacy. As the Senator argued in THE BLACK COLLEGIAN's interview with him shortly before he entered the race (see U.S. Senator Barack Obama on Black Student Political Clout):

One of the things I think is important, not just [for] elected officials but
older folks generally, [is giving] young people the opportunity to get involved.
So, for example, I’ve set up a range of internships in my office. I do a
training program for young people who are interested in politics. I think that
in every institution, whether it’s a law firm or church or what have you, making
sure that young people are given entree and opportunity to exert their
leadership – and to do substantive work, not just licking envelopes or fetching
coffee – I think that’s critical. In the African-American community in
particular, I think sometimes we have a tendency for our leadership to be very
protective of their turf and not invite young people in until it’s way too late.
The earlier we’re grooming young people and giving them leadership
opportunities, and pushing them up front, the better.

To learn more about the Obama Organizing Fellowship -- and to apply or refer a friend -- see :
http://my.barackobama.com/fellows

Updates: New Employers to Our Career Fair

We're pleased to announce that a number of new employers have joined our THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Spring 2008 Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair since our last blog post.

Additionally, we wanted to encourage patricipants who apply for jobs through the Fair to remember to stop back and take our Career Fair Survey. It will not only help us to follow up with employers and improve our next Fair, but survey respondents will also be eligible to participate in THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online Collegiate Focus Group for a $50 honorarium.

These new employers have joined others who have us that they are still welcoming entry-level, new grad and student candidates for open jobs or internships this season:

• Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote
• Halliburton
• Hercules Incorporated
• Kaiser Permanente
• National Research Council of the National Academies
• Target
• U.S. Department of State

Nominate Educators Who Helped Journalism Diversity

From our friends at Black College Wire, this release about an initiative by the National Conference of Editorial Writers, of interest to students of journalism:

The National Conference of Editorial Writers annually grants a Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship — actually an award — "in recognition of an educator's outstanding efforts to encourage minority students in the field of journalism." The educator should be at the college level.

Nominations, which are now being accepted for the 2008 award, should consist of a statement about why you believe your nominee is deserving.

The final selection will be made by the NCEW Foundation board and will be announced in time for the Sept. 17-20 NCEW convention in Little Rock, Ark., when the presentation will be made.

Since 2000, an honorarium of $1,000 has been awarded the recipient, to be used to "further work in progress or begin a new project."

Past winners include: James Hawkins of Florida A&M University (1990); Larry Kaggwa of Howard U. (1992); Ben Holman of the U. of Maryland (1996); Linda Jones, Roosevelt U., Chicago (1998); Ramon Chavez, U. of Colorado, Boulder (1999); Erna Smith of San Francisco State (2000); Joseph Selden of Penn State (2001); Cheryl Smith; Paul Quinn College (2002); Rose Richard, Marquette University (2003), Leara D. Rhodes of the University of Georgia (2004), Denny McAuliffe of the University of Montana (2005), Pearl Stewart of Black College Wire (2006) and Valerie White of Florida A&M University.

Nominations may be e-mailed to Richard Prince, NCEW Diversity Committee chair, richardprince@hotmail.com.
The deadline is May 15.
Thanks!
---
Richard Prince
Diversity Committee chair
National Conference of Editorial Writers
Alexandria, Va

Conference: A Better Economic Deal for Young People

Release from " A Better Deal":

It's getting harder for young adults to get ahead in America. Compared to previous generations, today's 20-somethings earn less, carry more debt and pay more for everything from health care to housing. With young people voting in record numbers, it's time to put this generation's economic crisis on the national agenda and build a movement for a better deal.

May 8 & May 9
The Liaison Capitol Hill
415 New Jersey Ave. NW
WASHINGTON, DC

What: Hundreds of young activists meeting to learn about their generation's economic crisis. The conference is not just about ideas, though – it's about action. Attendees will get the tools to connect politics to the personal financial struggles of young voters, and get hooked up with others to build a movement for a better deal in their communities.

This conference is FREE and limited travel scholarships are available

Details: http://www.abetterdealconference.org/

Partnership:
Rock the Vote, Common Cause, Campus Progress, The Student PIRGs, Young People For, Voto Latino, Young Workers United, Mobilize.org, Black Youth Vote, United States Students Association, Third Wave Foundation, Hip Hop Caucus, Center for Progressive Leadership, Qvisory, The Roosevelt Institution, Drum Major Institute, Generation Change / Center for Community Change, Building Movement Project, Future Majority.com, CIRCLE, The American Prospect, NCLR Líderes, NAACP Youth and College Division, Interfaith Youth Core, APIAVote, The Project on Student Debt

More updates: 2008 Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair

We're pleased to announce a number of updates since our last blog entry regarding THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Spring 2008 Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair.

First, because of response, we have determined to extend the Fair until May 10, 2008. The extended date will not only reflects the later commencement at some schools, including many graduate schools, but also accommodate those employers who have told us they have later application deadlines.

Additionally, we have created a new Career Fair Survey, and invite all jobseekers who use the Fair to bookmark and visit it to share your experience of the employers' sites and the jobs you applied to. This input will not only help us to follow up with employers and improve our next Fair, but survey respondents will also be eligible to participate in THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online Collegiate Focus Group for a $50 honorarium.

Finally, we're pleased to announce a number of new employers that have recently joined as participants in the Fair:

• BET Networks
• Grant Thornton LLP
• IBM
• Liberty Mutual
• NEC Electronics America, Inc.
• Palm Restaurant Group

Please visit these employers and the other Fair participants to review the links and opportunities they have posted for students and new college graduates.

Invitation: Underrepresented Student Groups Family & Work Survey

We received the following invitation from enterprising student researchers at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia. While not affiliated with THE BLACK COLLEGIAN, the survey appeared to take seriously the worthy goal of exploring student views about their future plans for work and family. Based on our discussions with the authors, it also seemed well designed to specifically take into account the (possibly significant) influences of gender, ethnic and racial background in developing these views.

After corresponding with the survey authors, we said we would be happy to pass along word of their invitation to our readers. Following is the provided introduction to the survey.

We encourage any of our readers who participate in the survey to stop back here and let us know about the experience, and any thoughts on career and family it may have raised for you.

Hi, my name is Samantha, and I am a student researcher at the University of Mary
Washington, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, working under the supervision of Dr.
Mindy Erchull and Dr. Miriam Liss.

We are collecting data from individuals between the ages of 18 and 30 who have never been married or have had any children. We are especially interested in exploring the experiences of ethnic minority college students as these groups have been traditionally underrepresented in the research on career and family plans.

Do African American students expect a greater division of labor than Hispanic
American students?

Is there a difference in drive to marry between Asian American students and African American students?

These are just some of the questions we hope to answer with our research. There has been very little research completed on ethnic minority students and we are seeking your assistance. Please help us learn more about college students' expectations on their future regarding work and family. If you are interested, I’d love to have you fill out my survey. By following the link below, you are helping
broaden the research and understanding of traditionally underrepresented groups
of college students' expectations for their career and family life.

As an added bonus, once you complete the survey you will be entered into a drawing to win a $25 gift card at Target.

Thank you for your participation, feel free to share this information and link with your friends!

Follow this link to go to the survey: http://www.ff5umw.com/samconsent.html

More new employers join Virtual Career Fair

New employers announcing that they are considering new graduates and/or student candidates for open positions have been posted to THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Spring 2008 Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair. (These employers joined since we started prepared the previous posting, after March 21)

Central Michigan University
FBI
GE Global Research
Harris Corporation
Institute for Defense Analyses
Parsons
Raytheon
The TJX Companies, Inc.
Towers Perrin, Consulting

New employers joining Virtual Career Fair

New employers announcing that they are considering new graduates and/or student candidates for open positions have been posted to THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Spring 2008 Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair. (These employers joined since we started preparing the previous posting, up through March 20.)

• Commonwealth School (Boston)
• Eckerd Youth Alternatives
• Hartford Customer Services Group
• Honda R&D Americas, Inc.
• Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
• Northrop Grumman
• Procter & Gamble
• United States Steel Corporation
• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
• Walgreens

• Zenith Insurance
  

This thread on the blog will be updated throughout the Career Fair, which is scheduled to run March 15-April 25, so that users can use the RSS feed feature be notified as new employers join. (If we see adequate interest and need expressed by Fair participants, we may extend the Fair to accommodate those campuses with slightly later graduation dates.)

However, we will limit the labels for these posts to "What's New" and "Careers and Jobs" and, by request, also "Internships," as many or most the employers have also provided information and links specifically pertaining to internship or coop opportunities at their organizations.

Updates: Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair @ BCO

THE BLACK COLLEGIAN's Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair that we announced in our earlier posting, Nearing Graduation and Still No Job. NOW what?, is now well underway, with new employers joining the Fair every day since it was launched.

We've been modifying the flow of the Fair on-the-fly for this year, expanding it beyond its original scope, to good results. We decided to post occasional updates about the Fair to the blog, so that users subscribed to our http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlackCollegian using the "careers and jobs" or "what's new" category can automatically learn about developments and new hiring employers added right up through graduation.

Additionally, we've changed a few things around that we'll discuss more fully on the blog as the Fair goes on. For one thing, we've added a Career Fair Survey , where we invite Career Fair visitors to return to our site and provide their feedback and suggestions on the employer websites they've visited and jobs they've applied to, as well as feature for suggestions for the next Fair. We're doing this because our goal this year was to get jobseekers with the most direct access to the open opportunities and the best introductory information specifically for entry-level candidates, new grads and students. We are constantly adjusting the format and the links for the Fair as new employers join up to save time for our readers who still need a job before graduation. We are also planning to run a paid focus group for jobseekers after the Fair, and survey respondents will be the first people we'll consider for invitation to the group.

Helping us kick off the Fair were these employers, who immediately responded to our invitations for those companies who were still seeking entry-level and student candidates for open opportunities this season:

• American Heart Association
• Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
• Bulloch County (GA) Schools
• The Children's Place and Disney Store North America
• City Year, Inc.
• Electronic Arts
• Enterprise Rent-a-Car
• Green Dot Public Schools
• HDR
• Inflexxion
• Intel
• Jersey City Public Schools
• Madison Metropolitan School District
• MPI Research
• MTA Metro-North Railroad
• National City Corporation
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• National Trust for Historic Preservation
• Pennsylvania Department of Transportation
• The Pepsi Bottling Group
• Proofpoint, Inc.
• San Antonio Police Department
• Shell Oil Company
• Spherion
• Stryker Medical
• U.S. Department of State
• Wells Fargo Advantage Funds

To receive additional updates about the Fair and new employers as they come in, feel free to subscribe to our feed, and stop back frequently until you find a job.

Good luck!

Transcript: Barack Obama’s Speech on Race

March 18, 2008 - Transcript

The following is the text as prepared for delivery of Senator Barack Obama’s speech on race in Philadelphia, as provided by his presidential campaign.








“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

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.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – 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.

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.

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.

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.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.” 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.

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.

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.