FAITH, RACE AND BARACK OBAMA[1]
Jul 6th 2006
From The Economist print edition
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7141808
There could be far more like him, if gerrymandering vanished
HOW can Americans overcome their divisions? Barack Obama, the son of a lapsed
Kenyan Muslim, has some arresting thoughts. On the subject of tackling head-on
the mutual suspicion that sometimes exists between religious America and
secular America, THE JUNIOR SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS DELIVERED LAST WEEK ONE OF
THE BEST SPEECHES OF HIS BRIEF CAREER.[2]
He told the story of a doctor who wrote to him when he was running for the
Senate in 2004. The doctor said he might vote for Mr Obama, but was repelled by
a line on his campaign website promising to fight right-wing ideologues who
want to take away a womans right to choose. The doctor wrote: I sense that
you have a strong sense of justice, [but] whatever your convictions, if you
truly believe that those who oppose abortion are all ideologues driven by
perverse desires to inflict suffering on women, then you, in my judgment, are
not fair-minded.
Mr Obama says he felt a pang of shame. The offending words, which he called
standard Democratic boilerplate language, had been posted on his website by
campaign staffers. He had them changed; not because he had changed his mind
about abortion, but because he wanted to extend the same presumption of good
faith to others that the doctor had extended to me.
Concerning the proper role of religion in politics, Mr Obama cautions against
extremism of both stripes. Believers cannot abandon what they believe; but in a
nation that includes Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and
non-believers, democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate
their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. Even if
all Americans were Christian, it would not be easy to decide which passages of
scripture should guide public policy. Should we go with Leviticus, which
suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is abomination? he asks. Or
should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mounta passage that is so radical
that its doubtful that our own Defence Department would survive its
application? His elegantly non-committal answer: Before we get carried away,
lets read our Bibles.
For someone so inexperienced, and whose policies are so ill-defined, Mr Obama
is extraordinarily popular. He is only 44, but people are already begging him
to run for president. Something about him fills a gap in American politics: he
seems not to be faking when he talks of mending Americas religious and racial
divides. He is that rare thing, a black politician who addresses the whole
nation, not just an ethnic enclave.
That this is rare is tragic. It is also virtually inevitable, given the way
the electoral system works. As a senator, Mr Obama is accountable to an entire
states voters. But every other black member of Congress sits in the House of
Representatives, where most represent gerrymandered [3] majority-black
districts. Unlike Mr Obama, they need not bother appealing to whites. They need
not worry about the ideological centre ground, either; since no Republican can
win a majority-black district, the crucial contest is the Democratic primary,
in which only the most passionate Democrats vote.
Racial gerrymandering has two effects. First, and most conspicuously, it
allows some crummy candidates to win by prodding racial sore spots. Cynthia
McKinney, for example, a congresswoman from Georgia, seems to believe that
every misfortune that befalls her or America is somehow rooted in racism. When
she was reproached for punching a policeman in March, the real issue, she said,
was that he was a racist for not recognising her. Had he realised her rank, he
would not have stopped her as she strode past him. Ms McKinney is also known
for her interest in conspiracy theories about the murders of Martin Luther King
and the rapper Tupac Shakur, and about President George Bushs supposed
foreknowledge of the attacks of September 11th 2001. That last enthusiasm cost
her her seat in 2002, a misfortune her father blamed on the Jews. But she won
it back in 2004.
The second effect of racial gerrymandering is less obvious, but more
important. Most members of the congressional black caucus are fine politicians.
But the process by which they are chosen practically guarantees that they
cluster near one pole of American politics, to the left of most Democrats and
indeed most blacks. This makes them less influential than they should be, even
when Democrats control the House. And they find the House a rotten launching
pad for higher office, because running in a 60% black district is poor
preparation for a statewide campaign. Mr Obama is the only black senator, and
there are no black governors.
Why polarisers prevail
Fans of racial gerrymandering argue that the Voting Rights Act of 1965
requires it. This is not obvious from the text, but bureaucrats and judges have
read it that way. Fretting that racially separate voting districts depend on
the demeaning assumption that voters of a particular race...think alike, the
Supreme Court has occasionally struck down the most contorted gerrymanders
(including, in 1995, the first district in Georgia to elect Ms McKinney). But
most pass muster, and the civil-rights establishment is zealous in their
defence. There was a big hoo-hah two weeks ago when House Republicans postponed
a vote to renew for another 25 years certain emergency provisions of the Voting
Rights Actprovisions that had originally been due to expire in 1970. This was
wrongly portrayed as a reluctance to renew the act itself, which is permanent.
The right of black Americans to vote is no longer up for debate.
Unfortunately, there is not much debate about gerrymandering either. Incumbents
like picking their voters, whether they are black, white, Republican or
Democratic. The practice may help polarise America along racial, religious and
political lines, but it also helps them keep their jobs.
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2006.
=====================================================================
CALL TO RENEWAL KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Washington, DC
Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to speak here at the Call to
Renewals Building a Covenant for a New America conference. Ive had the
opportunity to take a look at your Covenant for a New America. It is filled
with outstanding policies and prescriptions for much of what ails this country.
So Id like to congratulate you all on the thoughtful presentations youve
given so far about poverty and justice in America, and for putting fire under
the feet of the political leadership here in Washington.
But today Id like to talk about the connection between religion and politics
and perhaps offer some thoughts about how we can sort through some of the often
bitter arguments that weve been seeing over the last several years.
I do so because, as you all know, we can affirm the importance of poverty in
the Bible; and we can raise up and pass out this Covenant for a New America. We
can talk to the press, and we can discuss the religious call to address poverty
and environmental stewardship all we want, but it wont have an impact unless
we tackle head-on the mutual suspicion that sometimes exists between religious
America and secular America.
I want to give you an example that I think illustrates this fact. As some of
you know, during the 2004 U.S. Senate General Election I ran against a
gentleman named Alan Keyes. Mr. Keyes is well-versed in the Jerry Falwell-Pat
Robertson style of rhetoric that often labels progressives as both immoral and
godless.
Indeed, Mr. Keyes announced towards the end of the campaign that, Jesus
Christ would not vote for Barack Obama. Christ would not vote for Barack Obama
because Barack Obama has behaved in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ
to have behaved.
Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama.
Now, I was urged by some of my liberal supporters not to take this statement
seriously, to essentially ignore it. To them, Mr. Keyes was an extremist, and
his arguments not worth entertaining. And since at the time, I was up 40 points
in the polls, it probably wasnt a bad piece of strategic advice.
But what they didnt understand, however, was that I had to take Mr. Keyes
seriously, for he claimed to speak for my religion, and my God. He claimed
knowledge of certain truths.
Mr. Obama says hes a Christian, he was saying, and yet he supports a
lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination.
Mr. Obama says hes a Christian, but supports the destruction of innocent and
sacred life.
And so what would my supporters have me say? How should I respond? Should I
say that a literalist reading of the Bible was folly? Should I say that Mr.
Keyes, who is a Roman Catholic, should ignore the teachings of the Pope?
Unwilling to go there, I answered with what has come to be the typically
liberal response in such debates - namely, I said that we live in a pluralistic
society, that I cant impose my own religious views on another, that I was
running to be the U.S. Senator of Illinois and not the Minister of Illinois.
But Mr. Keyess implicit accusation that I was not a true Christian nagged at
me, and I was also aware that my answer did not adequately address the role my
faith has in guiding my own values and my own beliefs.
Now, my dilemma was by no means unique. In a way, it reflected the broader
debate weve been having in this country for the last thirty years over the
role of religion in politics.
For some time now, there has been plenty of talk among pundits and pollsters
that the political divide in this country has fallen sharply along religious
lines. Indeed, the single biggest gap in party affiliation among white
Americans today is not between men and women, or those who reside in so-called
Red States and those who reside in Blue, but between those who attend church
regularly and those who dont.
Conservative leaders have been all too happy to exploit this gap,
consistently reminding evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their
values and dislike their Church, while suggesting to the rest of the country
that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage;
school prayer and intelligent design.
Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait. At best, we may try to
avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending
anyone and claiming that - regardless of our personal beliefs - constitutional
principles tie our hands. At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss
religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting
on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or
thinking that the very word Christian describes ones political opponents,
not people of faith.
Now, such strategies of avoidance may work for progressives when our opponent
is Alan Keyes. But over the long haul, I think we make a mistake when we fail
to acknowledge the power of faith in peoples livesin the lives of the
American peopleand I think its time that we join a serious debate about how
to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.
And if were going to do that then we first need to understand that Americans
are a religious people. 90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate
themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed
Christians, and substantially more people in America believe in angels than
they do in evolution.
This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by
skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches. In fact, it speaks to a
hunger thats deeper than that - a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue
or cause.
Each day, it seems, thousands of Americans are going about their daily rounds
- dropping off the kids at school, driving to the office, flying to a business
meeting, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets - and theyre
coming to the realization that something is missing. They are deciding that
their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not
enough.
They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. Theyre looking
to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that
shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And
so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is
listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down that long
highway towards nothingness.
And I speak with some experience on this matter. I was not raised in a
particularly religious household, as undoubtedly many in the audience were. My
father, who returned to Kenya when I was just two, was born Muslim but as an
adult became an atheist. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists
and Methodists, was probably one of the most spiritual and kindest people Ive
ever known, but grew up with a healthy skepticism of organized religion
herself. As a consequence, so did I.
It wasnt until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community
organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual
dilemma.
I was working with churches, and the Christians who I worked with recognized
themselves in me. They saw that I knew their Book and that I shared their
values and sang their songs. But they sensed that a part of me that remained
removed, detached, that I was an observer in their midst.
And in time, I came to realize that something was missing as wellthat
without a vessel for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community
of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone.
And if it werent for the particular attributes of the historically black
church, I may have accepted this fate. But as the months passed in Chicago, I
found myself drawn - not just to work with the church, but to be in the church.
For one thing, I believed and still believe in the power of the
African-American religious tradition to spur social change, a power made real
by some of the leaders here today. Because of its past, the black church
understands in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and cloth
the naked and challenge powers and principalities. And in its historical
struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more
than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an
active, palpable agent in the world. As a source of hope.
And perhaps it was out of this intimate knowledge of hardshipthe grounding
of faith in strugglethat the church offered me a second insight, one that I
think is important to emphasize today.
Faith doesnt mean that you dont have doubts.
You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first
of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because
you have sins to wash away - because you are human and need an ally in this
difficult journey.
It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to
walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street in the
Southside of Chicago one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a
choice, and not an epiphany. I didnt fall out in church. The questions I had
didnt magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side,
I felt that I heard Gods spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will,
and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.
Thats a path that has been shared by millions upon millions of Americans -
evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike; some since birth,
others at certain turning points in their lives. It is not something they set
apart from the rest of their beliefs and values. In fact, it is often what
drives their beliefs and their values.
And that is why that, if we truly hope to speak to people where theyre at -
to communicate our hopes and values in a way thats relevant to their own -
then as progressives, we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.
Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian
or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where
or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it
tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from
religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be
unwelcome - others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of
faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.
In other words, if we dont reach out to evangelical Christians and other
religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, then the Jerry Falwells
and Pat Robertsons and Alan Keyeses will continue to hold sway.
More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of
religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral
terms. Some of the problem here is rhetorical - if we scrub language of all
religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which
millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social
justice.
Imagine Lincolns Second Inaugural Address without reference to the
judgments of the Lord. Or Kings I Have a Dream speech without references to
all of Gods children. Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what
had seemed impossible, and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.
Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation
is not just rhetorical, though. Our fear of getting preachy may also lead us
to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent
social problems.
After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the
unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten
point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual
callousness - in the imperfections of man.
Solving these problems will require changes in government policy, but it will
also require changes in hearts and a change in minds. I believe in keeping guns
out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the
gun manufacturers lobby - but I also believe that when a gang-banger shoots
indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, weve
got a moral problem. Theres a hole in that young mans heart - a hole that the
government alone cannot fix.
I believe in vigorous enforcement of our non-discrimination laws. But I also
believe that a transformation of conscience and a genuine commitment to
diversity on the part of the nations CEOs could bring about quicker results
than a battalion of lawyers. They have more lawyers than us anyway.
I think that we should put more of our tax dollars into educating poor girls
and boys. I think that the work that Marian Wright Edelman has done all her
life is absolutely how we should prioritize our resources in the wealthiest
nation on earth. I also think that we should give them the information about
contraception that can prevent unwanted pregnancies, lower abortion rates, and
help assure that that every child is loved and cherished.
But, you know, my Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he
should go, when he is old he will not turn from it. So I think faith and
guidance can help fortify a young womans sense of self, a young mans sense of
responsibility, and a sense of reverence that all young people should have for
the act of sexual intimacy.
I am not suggesting that every progressive suddenly latch on to religious
terminology - that can be dangerous. Nothing is more transparent than
inauthentic expressions of faith. As Jim has mentioned, some politicians come
and clapoff rhythmto the choir. We dont need that.
In fact, because I do not believe that religious people have a monopoly on
morality, I would rather have someone who is grounded in morality and ethics,
and who is also secular, affirm their morality and ethics and values without
pretending that theyre something theyre not. They dont need to do that. None
of us need to do that.
But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask
believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public
square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy
Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American
history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious
language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not
inject their personal morality into public policy debates is a practical
absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it
grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Moreover, if we progressives shed some of these biases, we might recognize
some overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it
comes to the moral and material direction of our country. We might recognize
that the call to sacrifice on behalf of the next generation, the need to think
in terms of thou and not just I, resonates in religious congregations all
across the country. And we might realize that we have the ability to reach out
to the evangelical community and engage millions of religious Americans in the
larger project of American renewal.
Some of this is already beginning to happen. Pastors, friends of mine like
Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes are wielding their enormous influences to confront
AIDS, Third World debt relief, and the genocide in Darfur. Religious thinkers
and activists like our good friend Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo are lifting up
the Biblical injunction to help the poor as a means of mobilizing Christians
against budget cuts to social programs and growing inequality.
And by the way, we need Christians on Capitol Hill, Jews on Capitol Hill and
Muslims on Capitol Hill talking about the estate tax. When youve got an estate
tax debate that proposes a trillion dollars being taken out of social programs
to go to a handful of folks who dont need and werent even asking for it, you
know that we need an injection of morality in our political debate.
Across the country, individual churches like my own and your own are
sponsoring day care programs, building senior centers, helping ex-offenders
reclaim their lives, and rebuilding our gulf coast in the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina.
So the question is, how do we build on these still-tentative partnerships
between religious and secular people of good will? Its going to take more
work, a lot more work than weve done so far. The tensions and the suspicions
on each side of the religious divide will have to be squarely addressed. And
each side will need to accept some ground rules for collaboration.
While Ive already laid out some of the work that progressive leaders need to
do, I want to talk a little bit about what conservative leaders need to dosome
truths they need to acknowledge.
For one, they need to understand the critical role that the separation of
church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the
robustness of our religious practice. Folks tend to forget that during our
founding, it wasnt the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most
effective champions of the First Amendment. It was the persecuted minorities,
it was Baptists like John Leland who didnt want the established churches to
impose their views on folks who were getting happy out in the fields and
teaching the scripture to slaves. It was the forbearers of the evangelicals who
were the most adamant about not mingling government with religious, because
they did not want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice
their faith as they understood it.
Moreover, given the increasing diversity of Americas population, the dangers
of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no
longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a
Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every
non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we
teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobsons, or Al Sharptons? Which
passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with
Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is
abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he
strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a
passage that is so radical that its doubtful that our own Defense Department
would survive its application? So before we get carried away, lets read our
bibles. Folks havent been reading their bibles.
This brings me to my second point. Democracy demands that the religiously
motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than
religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to
argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious
reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply
point to the teachings of my church or evoke Gods will. I have to explain why
abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths,
including those with no faith at all.
Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of
the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no
choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims
based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of whats
possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise.
Its the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected
to live up to Gods edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base ones life
on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy
making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing. And if you doubt that,
let me give you an example.
We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to
offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop,
binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has
commanded.
Of course, in the end God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last
minute, and Abraham passes Gods test of devotion.
But its fair to say that if any of us leaving this church saw Abraham on a
roof of a building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the
police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac
away from Abraham. We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do
not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can
do is act in accordance with those things that we all see, and that we all
hear, be it common laws or basic reason.
Finally, any reconciliation between faith and democratic pluralism requires
some sense of proportion.
This goes for both sides.
Even those who claim the Bibles inerrancy make distinctions between
Scriptural edicts, sensing that some passages - the Ten Commandments, say, or a
belief in Christs divinity - are central to Christian faith, while others are
more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life.
The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of
Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage
nevertheless are opposed to a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Religious
leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they
should recognize this wisdom in their politics.
But a sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries
between church and state. Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the
wall of separation - context matters. It is doubtful that children reciting the
Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of
muttering the phrase under God. I didnt. Having voluntary student prayer
groups use school property to meet should not be a threat, any more than its
use by the High School Republicans should threaten Democrats. And one can
envision certain faith-based programs - targeting ex-offenders or substance
abusers - that offer a uniquely powerful way of solving problems.
So we all have some work to do here. But I am hopeful that we can bridge the
gaps that exist and overcome the prejudices each of us bring to this debate.
And I have faith that millions of believing Americans want that to happen. No
matter how religious they may or may not be, people are tired of seeing faith
used as a tool of attack. They dont want faith used to belittle or to divide.
Theyre tired of hearing folks deliver more screed than sermon. Because in the
end, thats not how they think about faith in their own lives.
So let me end with just one other interaction I had during my campaign. A few
days after I won the Democratic nomination in my U.S. Senate race, I received
an email from a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical School that said
the following:
Congratulations on your overwhelming and inspiring primary win. I was happy
to vote for you, and I will tell you that I am seriously considering voting for
you in the general election. I write to express my concerns that may, in the
end, prevent me from supporting you.
The doctor described himself as a Christian who understood his commitments to
be totalizing. His faith led him to a strong opposition to abortion and gay
marriage, although he said that his faith also led him to question the idolatry
of the free market and quick resort to militarism that seemed to characterize
much of the Republican agenda.
But the reason the doctor was considering not voting for me was not simply my
position on abortion. Rather, he had read an entry that my campaign had posted
on my website, which suggested that I would fight right-wing ideologues who
want to take away a womans right to choose. The doctor went on to write:
I sense that you have a strong sense of justice...and I also sense that you
are a fair minded person with a high regard for reason...Whatever your
convictions, if you truly believe that those who oppose abortion are all
ideologues driven by perverse desires to inflict suffering on women, then you,
in my judgment, are not fair-minded....You know that we enter times that are
fraught with possibilities for good and for harm, times when we are struggling
to make sense of a common polity in the context of plurality, when we are
unsure of what grounds we have for making any claims that involve others...I do
not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this
issue in fair-minded words.
Fair-minded words.
So I looked at my website and found the offending words. In fairness to them,
my staff had written them using standard Democratic boilerplate language to
summarize my pro-choice position during the Democratic primary, at a time when
some of my opponents were questioning my commitment to protect Roe v. Wade.
Re-reading the doctors letter, though, I felt a pang of shame. It is people
like him who are looking for a deeper, fuller conversation about religion in
this country. They may not change their positions, but they are willing to
listen and learn from those who are willing to speak in fair-minded words.
Those who know of the central and awesome place that God holds in the lives of
so many, and who refuse to treat faith as simply another political issue with
which to score points.
So I wrote back to the doctor, and I thanked him for his advice. The next
day, I circulated the email to my staff and changed the language on my website
to state in clear but simple terms my pro-choice position. And that night,
before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own - a prayer that I might extend
the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to
me.
And that night, before I went to bed I said a prayer of my own. Its a prayer
I think I share with a lot of Americans. A hope that we can live with one
another in a way that reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all. Its
a prayer worth praying, and a conversation worth having in this country in the
months and years to come. Thank you.
---------------------------------
[1] Barack Obama was born on August 4th, 1961, in Hawaii to Barack Obama,
Sr. and Ann Dunham. Obama graduated from Columbia University in 1983, and moved
to Chicago in 1985 to work for a church-based group seeking to improve living
conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and high unemployment. In
1991, Obama graduated from Harvard Law School where he was the first African
American editor of the Harvard Law Review. Sworn into office January 4, 2005,
Senator Obama is focused on promoting economic growth and bringing good paying
jobs to Illinois.
[2] Original speech: Call to Renewal Keynote Address
(http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-call_to_renewal_keynote_address/index.html,
attached below).
[3] Gerrymandering is a controversial form of redistricting in which
electoral district or constituency boundaries are manipulated for an electoral
advantage. The word "gerrymander" is named for the American politician Elbridge
Gerry (July 17, 1744 November 23, 1814)[1], and is a portmanteau of his name
and the word "salamander," which was used to describe the appearance of a
tortuous electoral district Gerry created in order to disadvantage his
electoral opponents. "Gerrymander" is used both as a verb meaning "to commit
gerrymandering" as well as a noun describing the resulting electoral geography.
Ideally, it is pronounced with a hard G, as with Elbridge Gerry's actual name,
but ignorance of this has made the "jerry" pronunciation common.
Gerrymandering may be used to advantage or disadvantage particular
constituents, such as members of a racial, linguistic, religious or class
group, often in the favor of ruling incumbents or a specific political party.
Although all electoral systems which use multiple districts as a basis for
determining representation are susceptible to gerrymandering to various
degrees, governments using single winner voting systems are the most
vulnerable. Most notably, gerrymandering is particularly effective in
nonproportional systems that tend towards fewer parties, such as first past the
post.
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