Summary Perefect Union
Braulio Perez
12/09/10
SUMMARY “PERFECTING UNION” In the reading “Perfecting the Union” the author, Roger Cohen, starts by saying that Barack Obama wasn’t elected because of his words, or the economic resolutions he proposed, but it was because of “the self-respect of the American people.” Although, going against all odds Obama stuck to a simple plan based on “fundamental decency, civility, and good sense of the American people,” plan that today is forging a new way of politics. Before his election, at his democratic convention speech that cleared him from any obscure assumption, he said, “For alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga: a belief that we are connected as one people,” he means by this that we as a united nation could go through good and rough times together. Obama’s point is that America can be better beyond the consequences caused by the events on 9/11 and that the “American idea: hope” is still alive. As Cohen says, just by the given fact that we now have an African-American as the President of the United States, it shows that Americans are changing, it shows that we can prove to the world that we can build a better future, and that based on Obama’s experience, we can leave America’s “original sin” (slavery) a thing of the past.
RESPONSE After reading this article, the author clearly portraits a new America, but the reality is that, in order to become one, we have to learn and start accepting people by who they are, and not look at things such as religion and culture; and even though there are many Americans willing to change, we are very far from achieving this unity that Obama talks about. In my case as a former marine and the only Hispanic in an all-white-American platoon, I saw that racism still exists amongst Americans, and if it wasn’t for my white complexity, I would have been outcasted from the rest of my platoon; however, I heard every racist joke or comment there is out there,
12/09/10
SUMMARY “PERFECTING UNION” In the reading “Perfecting the Union” the author, Roger Cohen, starts by saying that Barack Obama wasn’t elected because of his words, or the economic resolutions he proposed, but it was because of “the self-respect of the American people.” Although, going against all odds Obama stuck to a simple plan based on “fundamental decency, civility, and good sense of the American people,” plan that today is forging a new way of politics. Before his election, at his democratic convention speech that cleared him from any obscure assumption, he said, “For alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga: a belief that we are connected as one people,” he means by this that we as a united nation could go through good and rough times together. Obama’s point is that America can be better beyond the consequences caused by the events on 9/11 and that the “American idea: hope” is still alive. As Cohen says, just by the given fact that we now have an African-American as the President of the United States, it shows that Americans are changing, it shows that we can prove to the world that we can build a better future, and that based on Obama’s experience, we can leave America’s “original sin” (slavery) a thing of the past.
RESPONSE After reading this article, the author clearly portraits a new America, but the reality is that, in order to become one, we have to learn and start accepting people by who they are, and not look at things such as religion and culture; and even though there are many Americans willing to change, we are very far from achieving this unity that Obama talks about. In my case as a former marine and the only Hispanic in an all-white-American platoon, I saw that racism still exists amongst Americans, and if it wasn’t for my white complexity, I would have been outcasted from the rest of my platoon; however, I heard every racist joke or comment there is out there,