Obama: ‘We Don’t Need a Ferguson Report’ To Know Racism Is Not ‘Banished’

BARACK OBAMA: "We do a disservice to the cause of justice by intimating that bias and discrimination are immutable. That racial division is inherent in America. If you think nothing's changed in the past 50 years, ask somebody who lived through the Selma, Chicago or the los Angeles of the 1950s. Ask the female CEO who might once have been assigned to the sectarial pool if nothing's changed. Ask your gay friend if it's easier to be out and proud in America now than it was 30 years ago. To deny this progress, this hard won progress, our progress would be to rob us of our own agency, our own capacity. Our responsibility. To do what we can to make America better. Of course, the more common mistake is to suggest that Ferguson is an isolated incident. That racism is banished. That the work that drew men and women to Selma is now complete and that whatever racial tengs remain is a consequence of those seeking to play the race card for their own purposes. We don't need a Ferguson report to know that's not true. We just need to open our eyes and our ears and our hearts to know that this nation's ras history still cast its long shadow upon us. We know the March is not yet over. We know the race is not yet won. We know that reaching that blessed destination where we are judged all of us by the content of our character requires admitting as much. Facing up to the truth. We are capable of bearing a great burden, James Baldwin, once wrote. Once we discover that the burden is reality and arrive where reality is."