Obama: “No excuses – Your destiny is in your hands”
“Obama Tells Fellow Blacks: ‘No Excuses’ for Any Failure “ read the headline of a front page article in today’s New York Times.
President Barak Obama addressed the N.A.A.C.P. convention on the organization’s 100th anniversary in New York on Thursday, where he warned black parents that they must accept their own responsibilities by “putting away the Xbox and putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour,” and telling black children that growing up poor is no reason to get bad grades.
The President’s delivery sounded like a stern admonition from a church pulpit. His speech echoed much of the theme used in his address to Ghanaians last week during his trip to Africa, where he declared, “I have the blood of Africa within me.”
Reminiscent of similar past speeches delivered by Bill Cosby and Collin Powell, the President said, “No one has written your destiny for you,” he said, “Your destiny is in your hands, and don’t you forget that. That’s what we have to teach all of our children! No excuses! No excuses!”
Emphasizing that there were roles for black children beyond sports and rap music, he said, “ I want them aspiring to be scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, not just ballers and rappers. I want them aspiring to be a Supreme Court justice. I want them aspiring to be president of the United States of America.”
The organization’s president, Benjamin T. Jealous, said afterward that the address “was the most forthright speech on the racial disparities still plaguing our nation” Mr. Obama has given since moving into the White House.
Once again, the President has skillfully shown that he knows how to use the most powerful tool available to his office, suasion: the act of influencing or persuading.
