Obama Ipsum

Now don't get me wrong. We shouldn't use the obstacles we face as an excuse for cynicism. 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 first issue that we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism - it is an important part of promoting peace. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich.

Because for two hundred and thirty two years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women - students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors - found the courage to keep it alive. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus.

I learned that those things I was too weak to accomplish myself, He would accomplish with me if I placed my trust in Him. They cheered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial when Dr. I don't know what Bible they're reading, but it doesn't jibe with my version. 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. We know that is God's vision.

That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe. But I've got news for them, too. I can assure you it is not. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow. I just think he doesn't know. Trade can bring new wealth and opportunities, but also huge disruptions and changing communities.

They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren't rich, because in a generous America you don't have to be rich to achieve your potential. Now, as children of God, we believe in the worth and dignity of every human being; it doesn't matter where that person came from or what documents they have. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed.

Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.