A More Perfect Speech

Obama's speech on race: "A More Perfect Union"



I'm a little late to the game (I was at work), and this speech has been reviewed to death now. However, I'm just going to add my two cents anyway.

First, let me say that if you have not watched it yet, you absolutely need to do so. Your kids will be watching it in history class in the future.

This was not a campaign speech, it was a call to duty, both for him and from him. Obama saw the dangers in the racial campaign wars, and how the discourse itself was damaging the very idea of unity his campaign is beginning to sow. He felt this speech was his duty. As Americans, it is our duty to remember the spirit of the civil rights movement that we all celebrate each year with Dr. King's birthday and Black History Month. There was plenty more work to do when Reagan almost singlehandedly suspended the Civil Rights Era by polarizing the country along racial lines to get elected. Senator Obama today asked us to pick up where we left off, to get back on track fighting for what the Constitution already guarantees - true equality.

I also believe the reactions to today's speech are some of the biggest windows into the current hearts and minds of America. CNN did its best to illustrate how vapid the entire MSM is. During the speech and soon after, two headlines from CNN were "Obama speech: Former pastor 'like family to me'" and "Obama: Constitution stained by 'sin of slavery'". Neither title even suggests the scope or the purpose of the speech. This speech was not just a reaction to the media's attention on Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. That may have influenced the timing, but unlike the first headline suggests, this was not a speech about him. This was not a speech about how the Constitution is wrong, as the second headline suggests, but rather about how because of the guarantee that all men are created equal, we're still not where the Constitution needs us to be. The speech is about the fact that America has the ability to get there, and he knows that we have made some progress, and can make much more. It's about so much more than any one of the lines in his speech - it's about the very faith in a better America that is pushing him toward the White House. The very same faith that we all share when we go out in droves to support him, to hear him speak, and to cast our ballots.

Sadly, this brings me to Senator Clinton. If she can resist this tidal wave and somehow not immediately step down, realizing that she's now the foil in the way of history, I'm not sure what to say. A friend and Clinton supporter said to me today: "Eloquent as usual, but where's the substance?" after he watched the speech. This scared the hell out of me. Clinton's supporters have seemingly become so poisoned that they immediately equate eloquence with emptiness. I fear for the damage she has already done the the people that support her. The speeches we remember throughout history - King, Kennedy, FDR, were remembered because of their message and their delivery. This speech will join that list in the future.

The same Clinton supporter suggested that he only gave the speech because his poll numbers said he should. That certainly would have been Clinton's motivation, but I'll say it again: this was not a campaign speech. If he had wanted a campaign speech, he would have more directly addressed the attacks on Wright and left it at that. He might have used the time to talk policy, but then the speech would have lost its entire purpose. It would have become just another speech on the campaign trail. No, instead he used this opportunity to say what many people have been waiting years for a respected, powerful, black person to say on the most public of stages. This was not just a campaign speech. This was history.

The most important point in all this is that it does not matter that he was running for president when he gave this speech. He spoke about a pandemic that has infected this country since its inception, and that as a public, we seem to have forgotten our mission to cure it. These words simply needed to be spoken. I just consider myself fortunate that I can now cast a vote for the man who said them in the next presidential election.

UPDATE: I meant to flesh out the Clinton stepping down bit, since I really believe this speech drew the party together around Obama and marks the true end of Clinton's candidacy. But this comment on Glenn Greenwald's post about the speech (also worth reading as always) makes my point perfectly for me.