Obama Ipsum

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. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

I understand you switched venues at considerable expense and inconvenience because of unfair labor practices at the place you were going to be having this synod. And so this will be a difficult debate next week. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For part of what has been lost these past eight years can't just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. And when innocents in Bosnia and Darfur are slaughtered, that is a stain on our collective conscience.

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. As Commander-in-Chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home. For decades, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition. It is easier to blame others than to look inward; to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. For we have a choice in this country. 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. We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.

I'm not talking about blind optimism here - the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't think about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. The hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds. And all across the country, communities of faith are sponsoring day care programs, building senior centers, and in so many other ways, taking part in the project of American renewal.

Thank you very much everybody.