PerfectUnion Speech
Question1
Arefather’s sins really a burden of the son? If people lived in such asociety, would it not only lead to anarchy? According to Jandt(2013), “all humans have a genetic mark similarly to a woman wholived around 200,000 years ago in Sub-Sahara in Africa,” (para 1).Thus, people are brothers and sisters from common ancestry, and itwould not be right to have a grudge against a sibling or resenthim/her for wrong committed by his/her parents. Therefore, one canagree with Obama that “just as black anger often provedcounterproductive, so have these white resentments distractedattention from the real culprits of the middle-class squeeze….”(Obama, 2008, para. 36.). When blacks direct their anger to ageneration that did not in any way participate in the sins ofancestors, they only make whites retaliate as they feel that blacksare being unfair, and this makes racism continue to be perpetrated.As a consequence, whites start resenting blacks in turn and as anation, people deviate from issues that affect them such asdevelopment and governance. If various races worked together as ateam, much attention would be dedicated to important issues insteadof debating about problems of people of color. Moreover, as a resultof anger and resentment, blacks and whites avoid working for eachother comfortably reducing productivity, which greatly costs thenation economically and socially.
Question2
Thepast isn’t dead and buried in fact, it isn’t even past.”(Obama, 2008, para. 27.) When Obama quotes William Faulkner, he wantsto bring people to attention of the fact that still today people areracially discriminated as it was in the past. Thus, as a consequenceracism is not a thing that people have left behind, but one that theyhave carried along all these years. The color of your skin stillmatters in the society whether people practice it consciously orsubconsciously, and if that determines the people one works orassociates with, then, how different is today’s era of JimCrow(Feagin, 2014, p.142)? Moreover, if these diversities are whatmakes people be labeled, how is today different from when people werehunted for being different? As a result, Obama states that the USAhas not moved from its past. The implication of this statement isracism is deep rooted in the lives of Americans and still blacks andwhites treat each other with prejudice. As a result, blacks will notequally get a chance as their white counterparts and vice versa whenseeking an opportunity as racism is a factor. The white police havebeen accused of discriminating black society and using extremeviolence compared to when handling people of their race As a resultof racism, there has been tension between these two races, and it hascontinued to spill to others as widely witnessed in ballot 2016,which polarized the country even further. Thus, Obama’s statementwas a call to action for every individual that lives within theborders of the USA to embrace sisterhood and brotherhood and treateach other as equals without discrimination.
Question3
Maybethe issue of racism can be solved with the emergence of transracialsociety. It is possible to achieve this as it has been witnessedthrough various adoptions, but the question remains whether it iscausing more harm or good in the society. Transracial community isdesirable where people have no previous knowledge of racism this isbecause as long as people live in a world where there arerecognitions like Black Entertainment TV and Oscar awards, which arecurrently associated with dominance of a particular race, a black orwhite child will remain to be so, even in the hands of transracialparents. Racism is something that is mentally set because of historyand parental upbringing. Imagine this scenario, if a black parentreprimanded a white child as that is his/her mode of upbringing, thebaby might feel that the guardian is unfair unlike if it was a whiteparent doing so. Similarly, the case would be same if it was a blackchild being brought up by white parents because of what people learnfrom the society about race relationships. Such issues, which arecomplex make the existence of transracial society undesirable.However, Robert Dale Morrison states that “the quickest cure forracism would be to have everyone in the country adopt a child ofanother race. No matter what your beliefs when you hold afour-day-old infant, love him, and care for him, you don’t see skincolor, you see a little person that is very much in need of yourlove,” (Morrison, 2004, para 1 Adoptions From The Heart, 2016,para 2.) Nevertheless, if people could treat each other equally andwith love and deviate completely from seeing some individuals aspeople of color and lesser or unintelligent, it would be possible toachieve such a society. Moreover, those people that have beenracially discriminated need to forgive with love as “love conquersall.” Also, all medias channels, governments, advocacy andreligious groups should be in the forefront in support of such asociety, and its working should be witnessed in action and not words.
References
AdoptionsFrom The Heart. (2016, October 26). Transracial adoption: Whenparenting a child of another race. Retrieved fromhttps://afth.org/transracial-adoption/
Feagin, J. R.(2014). Racial oppression today everyday practice. In RacistAmerica roots, current realities, and future reparations(3rd ed., pp. 142-167). New York, NY: Routledge.
Jandt,F.E. (2013). Anintroduction to intercultural communication: Identities in a globalcommunity(7 th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Morrison, A.(2004). Transracial Adoption: The pros and cons and the parents’perspective. HarvardBlackLetter Law Journal,20,163-200.
NationalConstitution Center. (2009). Obama speech on race at the NationalConstitution Center [Interactive website]. Retrieved fromhttp://constitutioncenter.org/amoreperfectunion/
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