Obama Sees Race as a Bridge

Painting by Derek Gores

Today is a day to celebrate Martin Luther King.
For more information on Obama's national call to service, visit usaservice.org. Find events in your community here.
But the call to service isn't just for a day:

WaPo: But the next president doesn't envision this call to service as a one-day event. He is intent on creating a culture of service. "Part of my message in every speech I hope that I give over the next four years is that government can't do everything and everyone has a role," Mr. Obama said.

The new administration is committed to expanding the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps, the 16-year-old organization administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service. It plans to create service organizations to get people to actively participate in finding solutions to the problems facing the country. There will be specific entities for those interested in energy independence, education, health-care reform and help for veterans. Mr. Obama has set a goal of 50 hours of community service per year for middle and high school students. To encourage 100 hours of service per year from college students, Mr. Obama proposes a $4,000 tax credit for their education. And he pledges to improve volunteer programs aimed at senior citizens.

 Roger Cohen at the NYT has some words, or rather a song, for Obama to the tune of Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire:

With apologies to Billy Joel, who’s more of a chronologist, and in tribute to a president, Barack Hussein Obama, representing a new post-cold-war generation of 21st-century Americans.

We Didn’t Start the Fire (2)


Bill Clinton, Tina Fey, capitalist China, O.J.,
Asia rising, Facebook, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ugg boots, Seinfeld
West Bank, Gaza City, Tupac Amaru Shakur

Mohamed Atta, W.M.D., Harry Potter, Reality TV
Tom Cruise, American Beauty, MP3, Oprah Winfrey

Schwarzenegger, YouTube, America’s got organic food
Armstrong, blogosphere, Monica Lewinsky

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Vlad Putin, Medvedev, Assad, Posh-and-Becks
The West Wing, Y2K, massacre in Falluja

Britney Spears, Spike Lee, Kurt Cobain, Sarkozy
Mia Hamm, Heath Ledger, Viagra, Napster

Lindsay Lohan, skinny jeans, Boston’s got a winning team
Lehman Brothers, A.I.G., subprime, Ponzi scheme

Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia, and a billion poor,
Tehran, Hezbollah, trouble with the jihadis

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

New Orleans, Bolaño, Sarah Palin no-go
TiVo, Hu Jintao, and the vegan-eco crowd

Tony Blair, Paris Hilton, Princess Di, Bin Laden
Pyongyang, the renditions gang, Roger Clemens in a cloud

ACT UP, Infinite Jest, O.J. Part Two, Johnny Depp
iPhones, Federer, Who Let the Dogs Out?

Halle Berry, cloned Dolly, and another Kennedy
Jon Stewart, American Psycho, tsunami, Danger Mouse Read the rest

Read the inaugural speeches of past presidents.
Obama sees race as a bridge:

WaPo: "There is an entire generation that will grow up taking for granted that the highest office in the land is filled by an African American," Obama said in an interview last week with The Washington Post. "I mean, that's a radical thing. It changes how black children look at themselves. It also changes how white children look at black children. And I wouldn't underestimate the force of that."

Beyond the symbolism of his historic achievement, Obama said, he hopes to use his presidency as an example of how people can bridge differences -- racial and otherwise. "What I hope to model is a way of interacting with people who aren't like you and don't agree with you that changes the temper of our politics," he said. "And then part of that changes how we think about moving forward on race relations. Race relations becomes a subset of a larger problem in our society, which is we have a diverse, complicated society where people have a lot of different viewpoints."