Totally stolen from Anil Dash, so's you know

[pearwaldorf]

Remarks of the Kwizatz Haderach (better known to the rest of the world as Barack Obama) at Knox College commencement ceremony

And then America happened.

A place where destiny was not a destination, but a journey to be shared and shaped and remade by people who had the gall, the temerity to believe that, against all odds, they could form “a more perfect union” on this new frontier. And as people around the world began to hear the tale of the lowly colonists who overthrew an empire for the sake of an idea, they started to come. Across oceans and the ages, they settled in Boston and Charleston, Chicago and St. Louis, Kalamazoo and Galesburg, to try and build their own American Dream. This collective dream moved forward imperfectly—it was scarred by our treatment of native peoples, betrayed by slavery, clouded by the subjugation of women, shaken by war and depression. And yet, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, people kept dreaming, and building, and working, and marching, and petitioning their government, until they made America a land where the question of our place in history is not answered for us. It’s answered by us.

Have we failed at times? Absolutely. Will you occasionally fail when you embark on your own American journey? You surely will. But the test is not perfection. The true test of the American ideal is whether we’re able to recognize our failings and then rise together to meet the challenges of our time. Whether we allow ourselves to be shaped by events and history, or whether we act to shape them. Whether chance of birth or circumstance decides life’s big winners and losers, or whether we build a community where, at the very least, everyone has a chance to work hard, get ahead, and reach their dreams.

Whatever else you may say about the man (his remarkable quietness about the war, his lack of support for gay marriage), he sure can speak.

See also essay on Abraham Lincoln

Comments

[starstealingirl.livejournal.com]

That's my alma mater!

I know that a lot of people at my school were kinda disappointed at the American focus of the speech. Our school is about 10% international students-- I think the general consensus was that he should have given a speech that included them.