Barack Obama's Speech on Race

Résumé du document

Analyse sur un extrait du discours d'Obama " Barack Obama's Speech on Race" donné le 18 mars 2018 publié dans The New York Times.
La problématique étant : How Barack Obama calls on American history to explain the inequalities that remain in the 21st century in the United States, but also to justify his candidacy and a program aimed at reducing them

The American history and its weaknesses, heart of the speech
A history that explains most of the inequalities
Despite the mistakes of the past, the necessity to build a different future

Extraits

[...] All of that led Obama to give this historic speech centered on the themes of race and unification as a response to Wright's comments. We will see how Barack Obama calls on American history to explain the inequalities that remain in the 21st century in the United States, but also to justify his candidacy and a program aimed at reducing them. To begin with, we will explain the references given by Obama to the history of the USA, to its most glorious but also the most painful moments. [...]

[...] The extract of the speech under study delivered by Barack Obama on March 18th is one of them. This speech was given at the Constitution Center, a highly symbolic place for the history of the United States, by the Senator and then candidate to the primary election of the Democratic party. It was transcripted later in the New York Times newspaper of that day. It has a particular meaning if we consider that it mainly talks about the necessity to reduce historical inequalities between the Black community and the rest of the American population. [...]

[...] Obama clearly understands the risk of calling the past too much but it is necessary in order to unite the nation. He does not only want to be elected by the Black people because of their frustrations and bitterness, but he wants to appear to all Americans to be able to reconcile all the communities. Also, the history, and the description of the social inequalities remain useful for Obama. It justifies, according to him, the large intervention of the state to help fight against inequalities that public authorities have contributed to create. [...]

[...] It also makes Obama appear as an American at first. Besides, to call the attention of the audience, Obama then comes to the weaknesses of the Declaration of independence but also the Constitution, saying that "words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage" (l.5) and reminding that the decision to maybe end with slavery was then delayed for twenty years. However, it was done only until the Civil War in 1965 with the fifteenth amendment, almost one century later. [...]

[...] However, Obama also insists many times on the fact that he wants all Americans to recognize themselves in his concerns. He wants them all "to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams'' (ll.72-73). Obama does not want to favorize the African-American community but to gather all communities: Blacks and other communities together. To conclude, behind the history of the building of the American nation, one should never forget a less glorious part of its past: the discriminations between communities, especially the African American, who still had to walk for many years after the abolition of slavery to get their civil rights. [...]