Organizing for America | Austin Voter: His speech worked and is working

Post from Austin Voter:

His speech worked and is working

By Philosophistry.com - Mar 20th, 2008 at 4:28 am EDT

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For the couple hours after watching Obama's speech, I became engrossed in web surfing. I tried to find everybody's take on it. I read TheRoot, and Slate, and FoxNews. And I re-watched the speech. I was mostly interested in how this whole thing was going to play out politically. Watching politics has largely been a game to me.

But after reading so many links, I started to get dissatisfied. I had a nagging feeling that I shouldn't be engaging in Obama's speech on a meta level. Somehow I felt I needed to do more.

So a few hours later, I went to the library and picked up a copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Invisible Man. This would be the first time I've ever seriously engaged any black literature. And I'm 25. I graduated from High School and a four-year University, and while I may have been exposed to some documentaries about the mistreatment of blacks (ironically only in my 8th grade class with a black teacher), never I have I engaged the literary consciousness of the black experience.

And this is not out of any willful bias on my part. I just don't read much, and usually I only do so based on a specific recommendation from others. It's just nobody had mentioned it.

Obama's speech made it really clear to me that I didn't know what I didn't know. And I'm excited by that. I'm excited that he has in a way become a teacher to me. The fact that I made an effort to investigate a blind spot of knowledge on race gives me hope that other people are going to do the same. His speech worked and is working.

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