President Barack Obama was in town on Sunday to deliver the commencement address at Morehouse, the historically black, all-male college in Atlanta. President Obama was his usual self as he delivered the Commencement Address. Obama received a polite smattering of applause when he told the graduates that they can no longer use the color of their skin as an excuse for making bad decisions.
Without elaborating, Mr. Obama said men in the black community continue to make bad choices. Obama, who is biracial, said he, too wrote off his failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. “Excuses are tools of the incompetent used to bridge bridges to nowhere and monuments of nothingness,” he said to another smattering of polite applause.
Obama acknowledged that racism and the “bitter legacy of slavery and segregation” have not vanished entirely just because he is the first biracial president. “We know those are still out there,” he said. But Obama dashed the hopes and dreams of the Morehouse graduates when he reminded them that millions of smart young people from China and India — many of whom “started with a whole lot less than all of you did” — will crush them in the global work force.
“Nobody is going to give you anything that you have not earned,” he reminded the graduates.
“Nobody cares how tough your upbringing was. Nobody cares if you suffered some discrimination. And moreover, you have to remember that whatever you’ve gone through, it pales in comparison to the hardships previous generations have endured. And they overcame them. And if they can overcome them, you can overcome them too.”
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