Obama's MLK speech
After the cut is Obama's MLK Day speech.

I've put more effort into it already than it deserves, so my apologies if it's sloppy or unrefined. I'm also aware of some of the minds who read my journal, and better observations may be found that what I've given. Feel free to chime in either way. This applies most especially if you feel I was inaccurate.

Throughout his speech I added my comments where I thought appropriate. His speech remains in black, as that seemed appropriate to his theme. My comments are in blue, as in red, white and.



Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: The Great Need of the Hour
Atlanta, GA | January 20, 2008

The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho, they could not enter. The walls of the city were too steep for any one person to climb; too strong to be taken down with brute force. And so they sat for days, unable to pass on through.

But God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram's horn, they should speak with one voice. And at the chosen hour, when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.

There are many lessons to take from this passage, just as there are many lessons to take from this day, just as there are many memories that fill the space of this church. As I was thinking about which ones we need to remember at this hour, my mind went back to the very beginning of the modern Civil Rights Era.

Because before Memphis and the mountaintop; before the bridge in Selma and the march on Washington; before Birmingham and the beatings; the fire hoses and the loss of those four little girls; before there was King the icon and his magnificent dream, there was King the young preacher and a people who found themselves suffering under the yoke of oppression.

And on the eve of the bus boycotts in Montgomery, at a time when many were still doubtful about the possibilities of change, a time when those in the black community mistrusted themselves, and at times mistrusted each other, King inspired with words not of anger, but of an urgency that still speaks to us today:

"Unity is the great need of the hour" is what King said. Unity is how we shall overcome.

What Dr. King understood is that if just one person chose to walk instead of ride the bus, those walls of oppression would not be moved. But maybe if a few more walked, the foundation might start to shake. If a few more women were willing to do what Rosa Parks had done, maybe the cracks would start to show. If teenagers took freedom rides from North to South, maybe a few bricks would come loose. Maybe if white folks marched because they had come to understand that their freedom too was at stake in the impending battle, the wall would begin to sway. And if enough Americans were awakened to the injustice; if they joined together, North and South, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, then perhaps that wall would come tumbling down, and justice would flow like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.


Maybe if white folks marched because they had come to understand that their freedom too was at stake in the impending battle

"White folks?" Is that a term of endearment? I have to say, it doesn't sound like one. It sounds divisive.

Also... what??? Well shoot, Mr. Obama. Here I thought "white folks" marched because they believed in doing the right thing. I thought "white folks" GAVE freedom and civil rights to blacks in this country because it was the right thing to do.

But you have shown me the way! Now I know that's crazy talk. Whites did it for entirely selfish reasons. Thank you so much for clearing that up.


Unity is the great need of the hour - the great need of this hour. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country.

I'm not talking about a budget deficit. I'm not talking about a trade deficit. I'm not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans.

I'm talking about a moral deficit. I'm talking about an empathy deficit. I'm taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.

We have an empathy deficit when we're still sending our children down corridors of shame - schools in the forgotten corners of America where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education.


Skin? Not economics? We shouldn't focus on poor schools? We must focus only on schools with the right quota of black children?

How is that not racism?


We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can't afford a doctor when their children get sick.


This is probably my biggest gripe of the speech.

when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit

Why must I continue to explain concepts to liberals as if they are infants? More important why must they continue to act like sheep, lapping up this pap?

First, companies are in business TO MAKE MONEY. They are not your friend. They are providing a service. The service they provide is giving you the money you do not have for the home you would like to have. In exchange for giving you that money they make a profit over time. It is a win-win deal THAT IS ENTIRELY VOLUNTARY. If you don't like lenders, save your money and don't sign the contract!

Second, companies would prefer the customer PAY THEIR BILLS. They make money when they make a deal with the customer that the customer then fulfills. Generally when their customer fails to live up to their end of the deal the company takes a loss. That means the company LOSES MONEY, for those still confused.

Do you know there is talk about risk to mortgage companies right now due to people defaulting on their homes? How do you figure that happens? Why aren't mortgage companies giggling with glee at the defaulting mortgages? Because "when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit" isn't how it works! The companies lose too!

This is your understanding of business and you want to RUN THE COUNTRY???


We have a deficit in this country when there is Scooter Libby justice for some and Jena justice for others; when our children see nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree today, in the present, in the twenty-first century.


Is this how we achieve unity? Speeches contrasting two entirely different cases that would be brought up in the same sentence for only the reasons of one being white and the other about blacks, and that it's more inferred Bush bashing?

What about "Sandy Berger justice," Senator? Sandy Berger stole classified documents relating to 9/11 from the National Archive. Scooter Libby was prosecuted because he misremembered the exact day TWO YEARS previous that he'd had a conversation. The chief witness in his case, Tim Russert, was guilty of the exact same offense, BTW, but proof of that was deemed inadmissible. Libby was tried for ONE reason only, due to his ties to Bush. He was a sacrificial lamb the Democrats demanded in their never ending vendetta. So is that what you mean by Scooter Libby justice, Democrat vendettas?

And Jena? Really?!? Jena? What justice would that be? Would that be the justice where a black guy hits him in the back of the head to knock him down so he and his other black friends can beat on the guy for being white, but that ISN'T a hate crime? THAT kind of justice?

We STILL don't know the story of what happened in Jena. And likely never will. Because the media sensationalized it and played up the race issue, and Al Sharpton race-baited and marched several times as many blacks down there as there is population in that small town. Intimidation AFTER THE SUPPOSED INJUSTICE WAS CORRECTED, is THAT the justice of which you speak?



We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities; when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged.


We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities;

Bill O'Reilly has a standing invitation for anyone to provide him with a veteran who is not a substance abuser or mentally ill for Bill to immediately see is given a home. No takers yet.

when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged.

I don't know where to begin on this one.
Did you just, in one sentence, CONDEMN Bush for interfering in a country
that had broken a ceasefire with us,
that Clinton created a policy that we should overthrow,
that promised inspections "without conditions" but then wouldn't allow us to inspect,
and that had rape rooms, rampant torture and mass SLAUGHTER,
while, in the VERY SAME SENTENCE,
advocate that we directly interfere with a country because there is slaughter???


And we have a deficit when it takes a breach in our levees to reveal a breach in our compassion; when it takes a terrible storm to reveal the hungry that God calls on us to feed; the sick He calls on us to care for; the least of these He commands that we treat as our own.

Well, congrats to him. This is such meaningless rhetoric there is too little to really refute.

Oh, wait. I get it. The people of New Orleans are black, and the country doesn't help black people.

The city of New Orleans, run by a black man who declared it a "chocolate city" to comfort his constituency was aware, as was every one running the city for THREE DECADES, that New Orleans was likely to flood. Who, exactly, didn't show what compassion to whom?

A breach in compassion? How many cities across this great Republic VOLUNTARILY took in the refugees, and who are still dealing with crime problems and squatters as a result? Senator, why don't YOU take them all in now, then?


So we have a deficit to close. We have walls - barriers to justice and equality - that must come down. And to do this, we know that unity is the great need of this hour.

Unfortunately, all too often when we talk about unity in this country, we've come to believe that it can be purchased on the cheap. We've come to believe that racial reconciliation can come easily - that it's just a matter of a few ignorant people trapped in the prejudices of the past, and that if the demagogues and those who exploit our racial divisions will simply go away, then all our problems would be solved.

All too often, we seek to ignore the profound institutional barriers that stand in the way of ensuring opportunity for all children, or decent jobs for all people, or health care for those who are sick. We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price.


All these things for all people would be based on economics, not skin.


But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes - a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.


So far all I've heard is how "white folks" are selfish, racist, and lack undersanding. How exactly does that provoke unity?


It's not easy to stand in somebody else's shoes. It's not easy to see past our differences. We've all encountered this in our own lives. But what makes it even more difficult is that we have a politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart - that puts up walls between us.


I agree, sir! Finally!

There is only one problem. THIS SPEECH would be a great example. After that we can move on to the nearly identical speeches from the other Democrat front runners.


We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don't think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.

... and according to this speech the "white folks" are racists and keep black children from learning or living.


For most of this country's history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man's inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays - on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.

Wait. Didn't you just get done talking about unity and understanding? Isn't this "no one can understand what we endure" the opposite of that?


And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community.


Finally! Some straight talk.

Out of wedlock birth rates!
No snitching!
Drug abuse!
Thug culture!
Rap!
Blame whitey racism!
Lack of personal responsibility. All the things Bill Cosby has been saying for some time.
I'm ready for it!
Here it comes!


We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.

Wait, what?

We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them.

Well, yes. That's true. To my knowledge blacks are not real keen on gays.

Do you mean, for instance, your church and your spiritual leader giving its highest social achievement award just ONE MONTH AGO to a guy who said:
"These false Jews promote the filth of Hollywood. It's the wicked Jews, the false Jews that are promoting lesbianism, homosexuality, [and] Zionists have manipulated Bush and the American government [over the war in Iraq]?"


The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community.

You mean, for instance, your church and your spiritual leader giving its highest social achievement award just ONE MONTH AGO to a guy who:

has said "These false Jews promote the filth of Hollywood. It's the wicked Jews, the false Jews that are promoting lesbianism, homosexuality, [and] Zionists have manipulated Bush and the American government [over the war in Iraq]"

has called all whites "potential humans," "unevovlved," "liars," and a few other good ones

And who preaches that whites were invented by an evil scientist, and were destined to rule for 6,000 years before the original black peoples of the world regained dominance, a process that began in 1914?

Like that? Did you discuss these feelings at your church or with Farrakhan before the award?


For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.

For example, Ray Nagin?
In response to his black citizen's fear of an influx of Mexicans coming to New Orleans post-Katrina the Mayor said on Martin Luther King Day:
"I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day," Nagin said in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech. "This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be."


I applaud the effort to address these things and look forward to hearing evidence of some some straight talk to the offenders.

Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.


Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party.

For example, the first half of this speech.


So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others - all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face - war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.


Now you're talking, sir.


Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.

But if changing our hearts and minds is the first critical step, we cannot stop there. It is not enough to bemoan the plight of poor children in this country and remain unwilling to push our elected officials to provide the resources to fix our schools. It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms. It is not enough for us to abhor the costs of a misguided war, and yet allow ourselves to be driven by a politics of fear that sees the threat of attack as way to scare up votes instead of a call to come together around a common effort.


Hold on a second. You were just talking about unity and here you go with the divisiveness again? What's that about?


our elected officials to provide the resources to fix our schools

This sounds an awful lot like "more taxpayer money." I'm fairly sure that the data would show that urban schools have the highest cost per student, with the lowest return, and are serving minorities. But I'd have to do some digging.

Catholic schools, who don't care about race, I believe usually have the lowest cost per student, I believe wiht typically very good results.

Speaking of which, Democrats like to tout their love for choice. How about the choice of schools to which we send our children? Then blacks would be free to make choices that don't keep them under the yoke of government. What's wrong with school choice?

Meanwhile, what criteria would you use to determine who should get extra funding? You've helpfully already answered that:
"where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education"
Which means the same thing would be happening, just not to the same color.


It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms

More divisivness! Those evil drug companies!

Are they the only ones blocking reform? I've read some great stuff on how costs would be lowered signifcantly if we removed government regulation, as well as employer involvement.

What disparities? If the alternative is equally abysmal care to everyone, as in England and other countries, at an enormous cost to taxpayers, is that an improvement? I think I need some specifics here.


yet allow ourselves to be driven by a politics of fear that sees the threat of attack as way to scare up votes instead of a call to come together around a common effort.

What common effort? Did I miss that part of the speech? I get the "BUSH BAD" divisiveness, but what are we commonly supposed to do?


The Scripture tells us that we are judged not just by word, but by deed. And if we are to truly bring about the unity that is so crucial in this time, we must find it within ourselves to act on what we know; to understand that living up to this country's ideals and its possibilities will require great effort and resources; sacrifice and stamina.

And that is what is at stake in the great political debate we are having today. The changes that are needed are not just a matter of tinkering at the edges, and they will not come if politicians simply tell us what we want to hear. All of us will be called upon to make some sacrifice. None of us will be exempt from responsibility. We will have to fight to fix our schools, but we will also have to challenge ourselves to be better parents. We will have to confront the biases in our criminal justice system, but we will also have to acknowledge the deep-seated violence that still resides in our own communities and marshal the will to break its grip.


but we will also have to challenge ourselves to be better parents.

HUZZAH! And only... what... 92% of the way through the speech?

But it's a start. I can't wait to see where you take me next, now, sir!


We will have to confront the biases in our criminal justice system

"The biases in"... ... More racism based divisiveness, sir? Really? Aw jeez.

You couldn't go with, "we will have to confront and condemn criminal activity?"

It had to be, "Whitey keeps blacks down?"


That is how we will bring about the change we seek. That is how Dr. King led this country through the wilderness. He did it with words - words that he spoke not just to the children of slaves, but the children of slave owners. Words that inspired not just black but also white; not just the Christian but the Jew; not just the Southerner but also the Northerner.

words that he spoke not just to the children of slaves, but the children of slave owners

What about the children of blacks who were slave owners?

What about the children of people who were neither black nor children of slave owners? You do know that not every white is descended from a slave owner, right? In the South, the principle area of slavery, only 1 in 5 whites were slave owners.

I understand this is all rhetorical, but I'm hoping we work toward unity by reminding people that not all whites are the descendents of slave owners.


He led with words, but he also led with deeds. He also led by example. He led by marching and going to jail and suffering threats and being away from his family. He led by taking a stand against a war, knowing full well that it would diminish his popularity. He led by challenging our economic structures, understanding that it would cause discomfort. Dr. King understood that unity cannot be won on the cheap; that we would have to earn it through great effort and determination.

That is the unity - the hard-earned unity - that we need right now. It is that effort, and that determination, that can transform blind optimism into hope - the hope to imagine, and work for, and fight for what seemed impossible before.

The stories that give me such hope don't happen in the spotlight. They don't happen on the presidential stage. They happen in the quiet corners of our lives. They happen in the moments we least expect. Let me give you an example of one of those stories.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organizes for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She's been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and the other day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.


No offense to Ashley, but I've a couple of comments. Where was her dad? Single parent households are prone to problems, from poverty to a lack of education for the children. It's rampant in the black community. Where was her father? That sounds like the makings of a great moral lesson.

Long term health care is usually also covered by insurance. Why didn't her mother have that? Also, there are usually government programs for such things as food stamps to feed children.

Also, what level of education did her mother have? What career was she in at the time? These are small details that might be relevant to a story whose moral is that taxpayers must supply health care to all Americans and illegal immigrants.

One other thing. I hope Ms. Paige has increased her knowledge on grocery prices since she was nine. Pasta is often roughly a dollar a pound. Sometimes it's on sale for half price. Rice is $8 for 20 pounds in bulk. Relish and mustard are usually about a $1 for 12 oz, and bread is usually two bucks a loaf. She could have had a pound of food for the cost of one relish and mustard sandwich. I feel bad that she suffered unecessarily. She and her mother should have been better shoppers. Clearly education is key.



So Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we begin. It is why the walls in that room began to crack and shake.


With all due respect, sir, what the hell are you talking about?

The Secretary of State for the most powerful country in the world, THIS COUNTRY, is black. And a woman! She represents us to the rest of the world!

You're a Senator!

So many examples come to mind I can't think through the flood.

That a white chick and a black guy got along is some revelation to you? Aren't your parents different races?!? I think they got along!

I have to say I missed the point here. Either that or you are locked in some kind of time warp.


And if they can shake in that room, they can shake in Atlanta.

And if they can shake in Atlanta, they can shake in Georgia.

And if they can shake in Georgia, they can shake all across America. And if enough of our voices join together; we can bring those walls tumbling down. The walls of Jericho can finally come tumbling down. That is our hope - but only if we pray together, and work together, and march together.


Wait... So Jericho, the thing you want to knock down, is what, exactly?

The conclusion I'm coming to is disquieting.



Brothers and sisters, we cannot walk alone.


In the struggle for peace and justice, we cannot walk alone.

In the struggle for opportunity and equality, we cannot walk alone

In the struggle to heal this nation and repair this world, we cannot walk alone.

So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us, and lift up an America that is truly indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all. May God bless the memory of the great pastor of this church, and may God bless the United States of America.


So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us

Again I find myself confused. Pronouns can do that.

"I ask you to walk with me." "Tear down the walls that divide us."

If whites are included in the "us" and the "you," would you mind counting the examples in your speech that involved racial equality or unity, then subtracting a number equal to those of racial disparity?

I don't think you will end with a unifying number.

And if "us" is just blacks, where were the examples of divided blacks, aside from gay and Jew bashing? And shouldn't gay and Jew bashing just be condemned, period?

I'm left confused and distraught, Senator.

It would seem to me anyone who heard or read this speech and walked away feeling better is woefully ignorant of far too much, and likely imagined a lot more than was actually there.