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동아일보와 타임지에서 퍼옴 /우리 아이들에게도
적용해도 좋을것 같습니다.
오바마, 취임후 흑인사회에 첫 메시지
“고맙다, 하지만…”
“열심히 배워라… 아무도 운명을 대신 써주진 않는다”
버락 오바마 미국 대통령(사진)이 자신을 대통령으로 만들어준 1등 공신인 흑인 커뮤니티에 던진 첫 메시지는 “고맙다. 하지만 책임감을 가지라”였다.
오바마 대통령은 16일 뉴욕에서 열린 NAACP(National Association for the Advancement of Colored People · 유색인종 지위 향상을 위한 협회) 창립 100주년 기념식에서 특별 연설을 했다. 취임한 지 6개월이 흐른 즈음에 흑인 사회를 상대로 가진 첫 연설이다.
그는 “민권 지도자들의 용기와 활력, 희생이 오늘 이 자리의 나를 만들었다”고 감사를 표하면서 소수 인종이 처한 현실을 지적했다.
“이제 미국에 더는 차별이 없다고 말하고 싶은 유혹을 느낄 수 있다. 실제로 오늘날보다 더 차별이
적었던 시대는 없었다. 그러나 실수하지 말라. 차별의 고통은 여전히 느껴진다. 같은 일을 하고도
다른 인종과 남성에 비해 여전히 임금이 적은 흑인 여성에 의해, 환영받지 못한다고 느끼는 라티노
들에 의해, 무릎 꿇고 기도했다는 이유만으로 의심받는 무슬림에 의해, 동성애자들에 의해….”
이어 그는 “경제난이 모든 인종을 강타했지만 가장 실업률이 높은 건 흑인이다. 의료보험 없이 질병에 가장 많이 시달리는 것도 흑인”이라고 지적했다. 지난 2년간 인종문제에 대해 매우 조심스럽고 우회적인 표현만 사용해 온 그로선 이례적으로 강한 표현이었다.
그러면서 그는 “교육은 불평등에 맞서는 데 가장 강력한 무기이며, 기회를 찾는 데 가장 좋은 길”이라고 강조했다. 그는 흑인 부모들에게 “책임감을 가지라”며 “집에서 X박스(게임기)를 치우고, 아이들의 취침시간을 관리하라. 학부모 모임에 참가하고 책을 읽어주고 숙제를 도와주라”고 촉구했다. 그리고 “아이들이 큰 뜻을 품게 하라. 아이들이 래퍼(rapper)만이 아니라, 과학자 기술자 의사 교사 대법관 대통령이 되겠다는 열망을 갖도록 하자”고 말했다.
그는 청소년들을 향해 “여러분이 흑인이라면 범죄와 갱의 환경 속에서 자라날 가능성이 더 높고, 빈민가에서 산다면 부유층 동네 아이들은 겪지 않을 도전에 부딪히게 될 것이다. 하지만 그게 나쁜 성적과 수업을 빼먹는 이유가 될 수는 없다. 교육을 포기할 이유가 될 수 없다”며
“아무도 너의 운명을 써놓지 않았다. 너의 운명은 너의 손에 있다. 잊지 말라”고 당부했다.
워싱턴=이기홍 특파원 sechepa@donga.com 동아일보
President Obama delivered a fiery sermon to black America on Thursday night, warning black parents that they must accept their own responsibil ities by “putting away the Xbox and putting our kids to bed at a reason able hour,” and telling black children that growing up poor is no reason to get bad grades.
“No one has written your destiny for you,” he said, directing
his remarks to “all the other Barack Obamas out there” who might one
day grow up to be president. “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!”
Mr. Obama spoke for 45 minutes to an audience of several thousand people
, most of them black, clad in tuxedos and ball gowns, who had gathered in a ballroom of the Hilton New York to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the nation’s largest civil rights organization.
He was one part politician and one part black preacher as he spoke lilting cadences, his voice quiet at times, thundering at others, in unusually personal terms. At one point, when his audience shouted back at him, repeating his words, he threw back his head and laughed, saying, “I’ve got an amen corner back there.”
Mr. Obama spoke directly about his own upbringing, crediting his mother (who was white) with setting him straight, and departing from his prepared text to talk about how his life might have turned out had she not. “When I drive through Harlem and I drive through the South Side of Chicago and I see young men on the corners,” he said, “I say there but for the grace of God go I.”
It was an unusual moment for a president who has sought to transcend
race and has only reluctantly embraced his unique place in history. Six months into his presidency, Mr. Obama has seemed more comfortable embracing his identity as the first black American president overseas than at home, as was the case during his trip to Ghana last week, when he declared, “I have the blood of Africa within me.”
At home, though, Mr. Obama has largely avoided talking about himself in racial terms. As a candidate, he jumped into the issue of race relations
when his campaign was threatened by the controversial remarks of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and delivered a pointed speech to black fathers on Father’s Day in 2008.
But the White House was low-key in preparations for the N.A.A.C.P. event. When a reporter tried to cast the speech as Mr. Obama’s first to the black community, the press secretary, Robert Gibbs, demurred, saying, “I think the first speech to black America and the first speech to white America,
the first speech to America was the Inaugural Address.”
But there was no mistaking Thursday night that Mr. Obama was speaking directly to black America. In part, it was a policy speech.
Mr. Obama told his audience what it wanted to hear on housing, the criminal justice system, education, health care, and jobs — all issues
central to the N.A.A.C.P.’s agenda.
Even as he urged blacks to take responsibility for themselves, he spoke of the societal ills — high unemployment, the housing and energy crisis — that have created the conditions for black joblessness. And he said the legacy of the Jim Crow era is still felt, albeit in different ways today.
“Make no mistake, no mistake: the pain of discrimination is still felt in America,” Mr. Obama said, by African-American women who are paid
less for the same work as white men, by Latinos “made to feel unwelcome
,” by Muslim Americans “viewed with suspicion” and by “our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.”
Mr. Obama paid particular attention to education, declaring that more than 50 years after the Supreme Court’s landmark segregation case, Brown v. Board of Education, “the dream of a world-class education is still being deferred all across this country” as African-American students lag behind white classmates in reading and math.
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.
But as much as a policy speech, it was a personal one. Details of the address were closely held, partly because Mr. Obama was still working on it through the afternoon.
Aides said he intended to make the case for personal responsibility — a frequent theme of his presidency — in the context of the civil rights
movement and how it has shaped his own life. But he also wanted to send a message to black parents, and especially to black children.
“They might think they’ve got a pretty jump shot or a pretty good flow,” Mr. Obama said, “but our kids can’t all aspire to be LeBron or Lil Wayne.
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.” New York times
