Scott Olson/Getty Images(CHICAGO) — In a farewell address to the American people Tuesday night, President Obama reaffirmed his belief in the ability of ordinary Americans to bring about positive change in country and tackled issues of race, inequality and a corrosive political environment.
“This is where I learned that change only happens when ordinary people get involved, and they get engaged, and they come together to demand it,” President Obama said in his adopted hometown of Chicago, where he first became involved in public service as a community organizer.
“After eight years as your President, I still believe that. And it’s not just my belief. It’s the beating heart of our American idea – our bold experiment in self-government,” the president said.
“It’s the conviction that we are all created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It’s the insistence that these rights, while self-evident, have never been self-executing; that We, the People, through the instrument of our democracy, can form a more perfect union.”
The president critiqued those elements of society that he identified as potential threats to the American democracy, including income inequality, race relations, and unwillingness to compromise on political ideas.
While acknowledging decades of progress on racial issues, he said that “race remains a potent and often divisive force in our society” and noted there was an unrealistic idea after his election that we had entered a “post-racial America.”
“If we’re going to be serious about race going forward, we must uphold laws against discrimination – in hiring, in housing, in education and the criminal justice system. That’s what our Constitution and highest ideals require. But laws alone won’t be enough. Hearts must change,” Obama said.
“For white Americans, it means acknowledging that the effects of slavery and Jim Crow didn’t suddenly vanish in the ‘60s; that when minority groups voice discontent, they’re not just engaging in reverse racism or practicing political correctness; that when they wage peaceful protest, they’re not demanding special treatment, but the equal treatment our Founders promised,” he continued.
He also warned that “stark inequality is also corrosive to our democratic ideas.”
“While the top one percent has amassed a bigger share of wealth and income, too many of our families, in inner cities and rural counties, have been left behind – the laid-off factory worker; the waitress and health care worker who struggle to pay the bills – convinced that the game is fixed against them, that their government only serves the interests of the powerful –that’s a recipe for more cynicism and polarization in our politics,” he said.
In an email announcing the speech to supporters last week, Obama said the speech would be “a chance to say thank you for this amazing journey … and to offer some thoughts on where we all go from here.”
In giving a final speech, Obama is continuing in a tradition first started by the President George Washington in 1796 and continued by many outgoing presidents since. Most recently, President George W. Bush gave a farewell speech eight years ago from the East Room of the White House.
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