The New Nation - Internet Edition

Rashidul Bari

Speaking in Philadelphia , the place where 221 years ago the Constitutional Convention was held, Sen. Barrack Obama discarded racially emotional remarks made by his former Pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Earlier Rev. Wright claimed that "God Dam America " is more appropriate sentiment than "God bless America " and asserted that the September 11 terrorist attack on America -represented the "chickens coming home to roost". He also accused America as a racist society that dropped nuclear bombs on Japan and helped to oppress Palestinian and South American. Finally he said that America invented AIDS to eliminate blacks from the earth.

Using some 4, 992 words, speaking relatively small crowds, the Senator of Illinois reiterated his view that some of Wright's comments were "not only wrong but divisive." But in his speech, Obama also offered a context that explained Wright's ravings: "For the men and women of Rev. Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor have the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table."

Obama's speech on race was so influential that it reminds me about Pericles oration of funeral. When Pericles (495-429), the Athenian's General- was asked to give the funeral oration for the Athenian fallen soldiers who had died at one of the opening battles of the Peloponnesian War, he took the chance not only to praise the fallen, but also Athens itself. In the same way-when Sen. Obama was asked to deliver a speech about Rev. Wright before the nation, he used the occasion to heal the nation. The way, Athenians praised Pericles' funnel oration, in the same way Obama's speech has been admired by Americans as enshrining the highest ideals of democracy. When I asked Jerald Posman, the Vice President of York College, to make a comment about Obama's speech on race, he replied, "The speech Obama made on race on 18 March, 2008 was the best political speech since John F. Kennedy speech on Catholicism-in 1961." Many Americans sentiments are as same as the Vice President when it comes the importance of Obama's speech on race-in which he applied his oratory skills to heal the racial divide.

Although Rev. Wright's talks about the American nightmare, nevertheless Sen. Obama's speech perused us to believe in American dream. However, the possible Democratic party candidate for 2008 presidential election-admitted that he had sat in the church and heard while his pastor Wright's made all the controversial remarks about 9/11 and AIDS by using series of interrogative sentences:

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 political views? Absolutely

Although Sen. Obama is a charismatic leader, and was so persuasive to convince us that he was innocent, nevertheless it has been difficult for the senator to distance himself completely from the retired minister of the church where he has worshipped for two decades. However, he attempt to persuade people to reduce the racial gap, "Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough."

Rev. Wright offense Obama for being speaking as atypical politician, but I think that every single words uttered out from Obama in Philadelphia on "A More Perfect Union" was right because we are still living a segregated society 221 years after the Decoration of Independence-where Thomas Jefferson proclaimed, "All men are created equal". There is no equality in the United Sates. For example, in America 50% of the blacks do not have the high school degree! More blacks are in the prison and street than any other ethnicity in the United States . When I was accompanied Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, who work to creating a world without poverty, on a book tour to India , in 2006, he said, "we have created a society that does not allow opportunities for those people to take care of themselves because we have denied them those opportunities." Although Sen. Obama admits this facts but he thinks that only white people are not held responsible for this inequality, "…expressed a profoundly 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…"

Nobody is perfect, so does Obama, but he has some good aspiration, and we have to make progress toward it under his leadership-because he is the symbol of an undivided America . He is the icon of lasting peace, hope and American dream. Thus we ask Obama to initiate a dialogue to solve the racial issue-only then we can achieve our goal of making a more perfect union.

No single speech will recalibrate America 's consideration of race and politics, but Americans are closer today, thanks to this remarkable address, to facing American history and perfecting the nation. Thanks to Obama, and millions of golden minds, one day there would be no segregation, no discrimination. One day there would be no division between and among Americans. One day there would be no black America , and there would be no white America . One day there would be only one America -the United States of America . Thanks to Obama, Americans are not too far from that day-when we sit down together on the table of brotherhood to create a more perfect union-the Union that Dr. Martin Luther King taught us to create.

(Rashidul Bari, Secretary of Bangladeshi American for Obama, is a Bangladeshi born writer based in the United States.)