President Obama, speaking today in Selma on the 50th anniversary of the historical Bloody Sunday march:
"Look at our history. We are Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea, pioneers who braved the unfamiliar, followed by a stampede of farmers and miners, and entrepreneurs and hucksters. Thats our spirit. Thats who we are.
"We are Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou Hamer, women who could do as much as any man and then some. And were Susan B. Anthony, who shook the system until the law reflected that truth. That is our character.
"Were the immigrants who stowed away on ships to reach these shores, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free - Holocaust survivors, Soviet defectors, the Lost Boys of Sudan. Were the hopeful strivers who cross the Rio Grande because we want our kids to know a better life. Thats how we came to be. (Applause.)
"Were the slaves who built the White House and the economy of the South. (Applause.) Were the ranch hands and cowboys who opened up the West, and countless laborers who laid rail, and raised skyscrapers, and organized for workers rights.
"Were the fresh-faced GIs who fought to liberate a continent. And were the Tuskeegee Airmen, and the Navajo code-talkers, and the Japanese Americans who fought for this country even as their own liberty had been denied.
"Were the firefighters who rushed into those buildings on 9/11, the volunteers who signed up to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. Were the gay Americans whose blood ran in the streets of San Francisco and New York, just as blood ran down this bridge. (Applause.)
"We are storytellers, writers, poets, artists who abhor unfairness, and despise hypocrisy, and give voice to the voiceless, and tell truths that need to be told.
"Were the inventors of gospel and jazz and blues, bluegrass and country, and hip-hop and rock and roll, and our very own sound with all the sweet sorrow and reckless joy of freedom.
"We are Jackie Robinson, enduring scorn and spiked cleats and pitches coming straight to his head, and stealing home in the World Series anyway. (Applause.)
"We are the people Langston Hughes wrote of who build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how. We are the people Emerson wrote of, who for truth and honors sake stand fast and suffer long; who are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.
"Thats what America is. Not stock photos or airbrushed history, or feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others. (Applause.) We respect the past, but we dont pine for the past. We dont fear the future; we grab for it. America is not some fragile thing. We are large, in the words of Whitman, containing multitudes. We are boisterous and diverse and full of energy, perpetually young in spirit. Thats why someone like John Lewis at the ripe old age of 25 could lead a mighty march."
Title: Obama: Were the Slaves Who Built the White House
The White House was built by a combination of slaves, freed slaves and white immigrant labor.
The main residence, as well as foundations of the house, were built largely by enslaved and free African-American laborers, as well as employed Europeans.[14] Much of the other work on the house was performed by immigrants, many not yet with citizenship. The sandstone walls were erected by Scottish immigrants, employed by Hoban,[15] as were the high-relief rose and garland decorations above the north entrance and the "fish scale" pattern beneath the pediments of the window hoods.
Of course, the original White House was burned in 1814 by the British during the War of 1812. It was reduced in the blaze to just the exterior walls remaining, most of them so damaged that they had to be torn down as well, leaving only the old sandstone foundations remaining.
Tellingly, there is little mention of slave labor or freed slave labor in rebuilding the Capitol and WH in 1815. Apparently, much of the slave labor involved in the original construction was in quarrying sandstone at a distant site. The fire left only the foundations intact and sound so there was far less demand for slave labor when the WH was completely rebuilt, beginning in 1815.
A watercolor of the shell of the White House following the British arson in 1815:
Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on. Robert Kennedy
Obama: Were the Slaves Who Built the White House
What's this we crap? The closest Obama has come to getting callouses on his hands from building anything is getting callouses on his tongue from babbeling so much bull sh!t.
We shot a bear! And from this inspiring rhetoric every easily influenced sluggard will be wandering around with pride and with his chest puffed out as if he had done something. If someone wasn't there, he played no part in it.
Actually, Obama's family was deeply affected by the slave trade.
Namely, rounding up tribesmen who lost tribal wars or who were considered surplus males by their chiefs and selling them in the slave markets of Africa.
Obama came from a line of Muslim slavers who invaded Africa. They weren't in Africa for agriculture. They wanted conquest and the slaves that go with it.
The African continent was far too deadly for any white man to venture there. Too many tropical diseases that killed most white men. They had to buy the slaves at coastal slave auctions.
Obama's family, being Muslims, were neck-deep in this. It is how and why he has the middle name 'Hussein'. That means, mostly, that he came from a conquering Islamic tribe who took over areas of Africa and lived off the despicable slave trade, supplying fresh meat to the Ottoman empire. A relative handful of all the African slaves ever sold came to the Americas.
Notice the strong Muslim Arab presence in Kenya where Obama's family immigrated to so they could participate in the slave trade.