The Obama Speech

Today Barack Obama gave a speech on race relations. That’s a lot like saying Lincoln gave a speech about a Civil War battle.

Speaking as one who disagrees with most of his policy prescriptions, I was moved and inspired. He began with America’s founding and his hopes that his campaign would be true to its principles. He talked about his personal history, and how the topic of race relations could not now be avoided because of the controversial statements (“God damn America”) by his long-time pastor, Jeremiah Wright. He said that Wright was wrong (hah) in many of his statements, but the Senator refused to reject the man:

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.

We all have been there. In our work, homes, schools, and churches we live with the faults of other individuals, struggling with them, loving them, and refusing to abandon them (it’s hard for us perfect people, nicht wahr?). And as a lifelong Episcopalian, I certainly can identify with Senator Obama’s decision to continue his membership in his church despite profound disagreements with statements by its leadership.

On a regular basis we are treated to the spectacle of humiliated wives standing by wayward husbands who confess their misdeeds before the cameras. Don’t they have any self-respect, we ask? Why don’t they cut this guy loose and move on? But the easy choice---made easier because everyone would applaud it---is often not the right choice for their families.

Barack Obama has been criticized as being an empty suit who makes great speeches. But this is one speech where he decided against the easy path, refused to attack his opponents, and called us to join him in the next stage of the American experiment. I have immense respect for him. © 2008 Stephen Yuen