WE Blog

Barack Obama didn’t take the safe route and simply denounce some inflammatory statements made by his pastor. In a bold, moving and, frankly, grown-up speech today in Philadelphia, Obama went much further in discussing the racial divides in our country, their causes and the hope for continuing to make our nation a more perfect union. He discussed how issues and people, including his pastor, are more complicated than caricatures being pushed by those on the right and left, and how ignoring wounds won’t make them heal. He argued that we have a choice: We can continue to accept “a politics that breeds division and conflict and cynicism,” or we can come together and realize that we share many of the same challenges and aspirations.
“In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand — that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us,” Obama said. “Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.”