"The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons..." - Quote by Barack Obama
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old - is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.
More by Barack Obama
“This is a core principle of my presidency - if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.”
“When we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.”
“You know, sometimes I'll go to an 8th-grade graduation and there's all that pomp and circumstance and gowns and flowers. And I think to myself, it's just 8th grade ... An 8th-grade education doesn't cut it today. Let's give them a handshake and tell them to get their butts back in the library!”
More on Racism
“Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice.”
“The sad and tragic fact is that the civil rights movement, despite its honorable and courageous past, has over the years degenerated into a demagogic hustle, promoting the mindless racism they once fought against.”
“It isn't the American white man who is a racist, but it's the American political, economic and social atmosphere that automatically nourishes a racist psychology in the white man.”
More on Progress
“Partition is bad. But whatever is past is past. We have only to look to the future.”
“A society where the simple many obey the few seers can live; a society where all were seers could live even more fully. But a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are no longer attended to can achieve only superficiality, baseness, ugliness, and in the end extinction. On or back we must go: to stay here is death.”
“Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a time.”