奥巴马费城演讲：一个更完美的联邦.doc

1、“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.“Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched Americas improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had

2、 traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nations original sin

3、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.Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already e

4、mbedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to delive

5、r slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the cour

6、ts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for

7、a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may h

8、ave different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and gen

9、erosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Pattons Army during World War II and a white grandmother who work

10、ed on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. Ive gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the worlds poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two p

11、recious daughters. 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. Its a story that hasnt made me the most conven

12、tional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were

13、for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African American

14、s and white Americans.This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. 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

15、press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.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.On one end of

16、the spectrum, weve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that its based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, weve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary l

17、anguage to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caus

18、ed such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his

19、 political views? Absolutely - just as Im sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm werent simply controversial. They werent simply a religious leaders effort to speak out against

20、 perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in th

21、e actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.As such, Reverend Wrights comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set

22、 of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.Given my background, my politics, and my professed

23、 values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons

24、 that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same wayBut the truth is, that isnt all that I know of the man. The man I met more

25、 than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universit

26、ies and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing Gods work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from H

27、IV/AIDS.In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverends voice up into the rafters.And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else;

28、 at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lions den, Ezekiels field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and

29、hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and u

30、niversal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didnt need to feel shame about.memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild.“That has been my experience at Trinity. Like

31、other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinitys services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are fu

32、ll of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experien

33、ce in America.And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group

34、 in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I

35、can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more

36、 than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose t

37、he politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias

38、.But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.The fact is that the co

39、mments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that weve never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we

40、 will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isnt dead and buried. In fact, it isnt

41、even past.“ We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered u

42、nder the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still havent fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between todays black and w

43、hite students.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. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty