“I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave-owners-an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brother, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for a s long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible. It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional of candidates. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts-that out of many, we are truly one.” (Barack Obama Speech on Race)
President Barack Obama spoke deeply about his roots in this paragraph. He spoke of their origin, work and contribution to his life that has made him the individual he is. I admire this passage because it took me to the beginning of the class of G.K. Chesterton “What I Saw in America”. I enjoyed how he mentions his story that is seared into his genetic makeup that this nation is more than the sum of its parts-that out of many, we are truly one.
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