After read­ing this, it seems clear to me that the ques­tion now is no longer whether Barack Obama deserves to be pres­i­dent of the United States, but whether the United States deserves Barack Obama as its pres­i­dent. The speech is one for the his­tory books.

Some high­lights after the jump:

The fact that so many people are sur­prised to hear that anger in some of Rev­erend Wright’s ser­mons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most seg­re­gated hour in Amer­i­can life occurs on Sunday morning.

…

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.

…

For the African-​American com­mu­nity, that path means embrac­ing the bur­dens of our past with­out becom­ing vic­tims of our past. It means con­tin­u­ing to insist on a full mea­sure of jus­tice in every aspect of Amer­i­can life. But 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.

…

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. But what we know — what we have seen – is that Amer­ica can change. That is true genius of this nation.

…

In the white com­mu­nity, the path to a more per­fect union means acknowl­edg­ing that what ails the African-​American com­mu­nity does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of dis­crim­i­na­tion - and cur­rent inci­dents of dis­crim­i­na­tion, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by invest­ing in our schools and our com­mu­ni­ties; by enforc­ing our civil rights laws and ensur­ing fair­ness in our crim­i­nal jus­tice system; by pro­vid­ing this gen­er­a­tion with lad­ders of oppor­tu­nity that were unavail­able for pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions. It requires all Amer­i­cans to real­ize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams…