Essay One - "A More Perfect Union"

This is my essay for my English 1A class. The prompt we were given was a section from Barack Obama's speech "A More Perfect Union" given on the presidential campaign trail in spring (?) of 2008. Here it is:

As a general rule, racial discrimination does not exist today. People perceive they are being discriminated against today because historically, certain populations were most certainly discriminated against in society. The memories of that shame, anger, and humiliation as a result of discrimination have been passed down from generation to generation. President Obama is quite right when he says “That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition and prevents the African-American community from…bringing about real change.” Three ways of bringing about that real change are: Education, personal responsibility, and service.

Before any change can begin, people who feel they are victims of discrimination need to do one important thing – stop playing the victim. Take charge of your life, take personal responsibility for your situation and stop blaming others for all your troubles. It doesn’t matter if you are blaming your troubles on your skin color, my skin color, the person who molested you/raped you/bullied you; You need to step up and say “Okay, this happened. Now what am I going to do about it? What am I going to do with my life from now on?” Because if all you do is sit around for the rest of your life and stew in your anger or sorrow that resulted from a tragedy that was perpetrated against you, or maybe not even you but to your family generations ago… There is nothing but misery that awaits you for the rest of eternity.

Once we accept responsibility for ourselves and for our actions, we can move forward. You now have the power to do whatever you will with your life. An education, whether by way of a college, university or trade school, is the second most powerful tool one has to better their station in life. Ignorance is what keeps men down, not race. When you obtain knowledge you arm yourself with truth and no one who has truth can be kept back from their desires and success.

A few years ago there was a discussion between the characters Phoebe and Joey on the popular NBC sitcom “Friends” which when summed up goes like this: It is impossible to do something for someone else without getting something for yourself, therefore it is impossible to be completely selfless, you are always being selfish even when you don’t mean to. The theory behind it was that even if you did something nice for someone else, you still walked away feeling good about it and have received something in return for your service – the good feeling.

When we are serving others, we gain something in return. We feel good. That feeling is addicting and can lead to doing more good things for others. If we are all doing this, everyone benefits and there is no need for a population of misery, suspicion and doubt. Granted, this is an extremely ideal suggestion, but not impossible to be carried out. You have to be dedicated to serving others, knowing that in a round about way you are serving yourself. If you are dedicated, there is no time to feel sorry for yourself or angry about a perceived slight or discrimination. You will be too busy to notice, too busy to perpetuate the generational anger and suspicion, and time will heal those wounds.

Our country is still young, many of its citizens still hurt from past atrocities. As these three principles are practiced, change will come. Life is messy. It does not come neatly wrapped and with a toy and a drink at a drive-through when you want it to. Hardships can’t be nuked in the microwave in three minutes and come out tasting good. But with patience, hard work and dedication - these things will not only be a memory of the past, but the anger and frustration will be too.