The Speech: Race and Barack Obama's a More Perfect Union

by T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting

Book Overview

After Senator Barack Obama delivered his celebrated speech, "A More Perfect Union," on March 18, 2008, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd noted that only Barack Obama "could alchemize a nuanced... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1596916672
• ISBN13: 9781596916678
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Powerful Words - 3.5 Stars

I like very much the idea behind "The Speech: Race and Barack Obama's `A More Perfect Union'". Edited by T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, this book brings together 15 very different people with very differing views on then Senator Obama's speech of March 18th, 2008. As Omar H. Ali puts it, "The fact is that there are at least as many ways to interpret the words contained within this or any other speech as there are people listening to or reading such words. No single interpretation can capture the entirety of what a particular speaker intends, or all the ways in which their speech is received." As I read each person's thoughts on that momentous speech, I compared it to my own view. There is a nice balance in this book ranging from extremely favorable opinions to disappointment over a chance missed. The essays are generally written in a very scholarly manner (prompting me to look up a few words) and include a great deal of historical context. I found myself trying to look at the speech through different eyes than my own (which saw the speech as yet another example of our President's intelligence and talent) - which I suppose, was really the point of his words that day. Was I editing the book, I might have made a few changes, though. First off - I would have let the writers know that the historical context of the speech would be provided at the beginning of the book. Many of them laid the groundwork of what was happening in the country and in the election at that time, and the repetition got tiresome by the third essay or so. Also, I would have either placed the text of the speech at the beginning, so that it was fresh in the reader's mind prior to reading the essays or would have broken the speech up - then grouping the essays that touched on each of those aspects together. (And then put the full text at the end of the book.) I found myself reading some parts of the speech over and over again when quoted in the essays, without having the text as a whole in the background of my thoughts. It is fascinating, though, to share the same experience with other people whose lives are so different from mine. To know that others - like Alice Randall (as I did) "...first heard The Speech on a car radio. And so it came to me initially as words in air. It came to me as songs often come to me, as disembodied sound that reaches the body with a kind of anonymity that entices one to believe that the voice one hears in one's own." To see pointed out very important elements that I missed: "At the center of The Speech are three words separating then from now: Not this time. These three words are Obama's victory. Not this time. Repeating this phrase twice and repeating the phrase "This time" six times, Obama begins to break with the past." For me, the most important there of the speech was that "It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education