"A More Perfect Union"

Although I missed the original speech by Obama on the 18th, I was luckily able to find a full version. I rarely actually say anything about the links I hyperlink to, but I have to stop and say that I highly recommend taking the time to watch this speech if you have not done so already.
Perhaps it is from the years of painfully watching President Bush give speeches and talk in an impromptu fashion, but every time Obama speaks I can hardly believe my eyes or ears. It isn’t full of embarrassing Bushisms (or Obama-isms, I suppose) and it isn’t awkward. It is the way one would always picture the American president to speak. It was sincere and touching.
The speech was in response to the media criticism of his former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and the following criticism of Obama (cough, Fox News, cough). However, the speech was not about him trying to necessarily apologize for the pastor, but to talk about the conditions of race in this country. After all, this is why the Reverend made these comments. This led to the most candid and eloquent speeches about race I’ve ever heard, especially in a country where it is taboo to discuss such things.
“This 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 experience in America.”
I thought that this was one of the most effective words of the speech. I obviously have no idea what it is like to be African American but this helps me understand. That African Americans, especially of the pastor’s generation, want to make this country a more equal place, but they are also held back by the bitterness that has come from having to fight so much for their civil rights.
This, however, was my favorite quote of the entire speech and on this note I will leave you:
“For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies. We can do that. But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change. That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." "