In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything … So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time. Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. … Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding. This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years.

I’ve been dealing with personal issues of situations where I perceive reverse racism, alongside my tears and frustration of the Jena 6 controversy in my home state, and it has been hard to reconcile the two. Taking inspiration from this speech I realize that the former is unimportant and distractive of the latter.

I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union. … it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs – to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for [our] own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope!

It wasn’t my first time in church when I felt hope. There were many many years in Southern Baptist churches were all I felt was boredom. As a baby when I developed a form of palsy and was completely paralyzed over half of my body, the pastor of a Southern Baptist church told my parents that it was God’s plan and they should just accept it. One of the deacons pulled them aside and shared scripture that said prayer, anointing with oil and laying-on-of-hands was what Jesus offered to the sick, completely contrary to the preachings of the Southern Baptist church. My parents met privately with that deacon and followed his advice. There was an immediate change in my condition, and I only know this happened — I was just a baby at the time — because in a successive Southern Baptist church my father told this story when it was his turn to speak during Adult Sunday School. I remember that day clearly, and I remember later when the pastor of this completely different church stood behind the pulpit and told the congregation that miracles do not happen and (basically) called my father a liar.

I don’t ask anyone else to believe my father’s story. There are many possible explanations that don’t involve God’s intervention, and recovery or reversal of palsy is not unknown, but by decrying one of its own longstanding members and denying its congregation hope that pastor spurred the exodus of nearly half the church. With no coercion and no conspiracy we resigned from that small town church and went to the only other church in town — a defamed Methodist church that was the focus of speculation and rumor. In that church people danced in aisles, sang with laughter, and believed that there was a brighter future for all of us.

That church is where I learned the feeling of hope, and saw the fire that can propel a people to act for the better.

Even if he doesn’t become POTUS, I think we are witnessing a great statesman unlike any we have seen for at least my nearly 40 years. Pardon me while I spend part of my day posting quotes from this speech that has impacted me deeply.

What I do want is to be continually challenged, however, and to remain part of an extended community. Preaching sunshine and roses doesn’t get folks off their rumps and participating.