The most presidential lorem ipsum in history.
I thought of the 900 men and women - sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, who won't be returning to their own hometowns. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists, was one of the most spiritual souls I ever knew. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races. We cannot walk alone.
While studying here, my father met my mother. So it's 1985, and I'm in Chicago, and I'm working with these churches, and with lots of laypeople who are much older than I am. I learned that everyone's got a sacred story when you take the time to listen. The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. That is why we plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses, and hundreds of millions to help those who have been displaced. Let me also address the issue of Iraq.
And slowly, I came to realize that something was missing as well - that without an anchor for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone. She's the one who taught me about hard work.
They could've heard words of anger and discord. Those are mutual interests.
We will all have to make concessions to achieve this. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny. It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end.
Thank you, God Bless you, and God Bless the United States of America.