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It is that fundamental belief, it is that fundamental belief, I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper that makes this country work. People are coming together around a simple truth - that we are all connected, that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. America, we cannot turn back.
But we also know that government initiatives are not enough. 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. 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. Today, America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future - and to leave Iraq to Iraqis. That is the world we seek.
We have real enemies in the world. Because whether it's poverty or racism, the uninsured or the unemployed, war or peace, the challenges we face today are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten-point plan. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. This is not simply about America's interests.
After the war, they studied on the G.I. The challenges we face require tough choices, and Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end. Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world. Instead, it must be a cause for action to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state; to recognize Israel's legitimacy; and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.
In the following century, men and women of faith waded into the battles over prison reform and temperance, public education and women's rights - and above all, abolition. We cannot ignore that we have a right and a duty to protect our borders. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps - even if you don't have boots. So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed.
God bless you.