Barack Obama's Landmark Speech is four years old this week -- and his words are as true as ever ...
Barack Obama speech on race - part 1/4 - Captioned - 3/18/08
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Barack Obama:
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I chose to run for president 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 prefect our union by understanding that we have different stories, but we hold common hopes;
that we may not look the same we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction -- towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and the generosity of the American people.
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Barack Obama speech on race - part 2/4 - Captioned - 3/18/08
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Barack Obama speech on race - part 3/4 - Captioned - 3/18/08
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Barack Obama's speech on race - part 4 - Captioned - 3/18/08
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Transcript: Barack Obama's Speech On Race
by CBSNews
The following are the remarks prepared for delivery by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama on March 18, 2008 in Philadelphia.
Barack Obama: [part 4]
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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.
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When it comes to the challenges we all face as Americans, sometimes it's our common struggles, that is what defines our common humanity.
And America has no shortage of common struggles ...
Barack Obama's Landmark Speech is four years old -- and his words are as true as ever ... may we continue to learn how to take them more seriously to heart.