I'm Really Excited About The Prospect Of

Whatever Success I Have Achieved, Whatever Positions Of Leadership I Have Held Have Depended Less On Ivy League Degrees Or Sat Scores Or Gpas And Have Instead Been Due To That Sense Of Connection And Empathy, The Special Obligation I Felt As A Black Man Like You To Help Those Who Need It Most, People Who Didn't Have The Opportunities That I Had Because There, But For The Grace Of God Go I. I Might Have Been In Their Shoes. I Might Have Been In Prison. I Might Have Been Unemployed. I Might Not Have Been Able To Support A Family. And That Motivates Me.

We Have A Choice. We Can Shape Our Future, Or Let Events Shape It For Us. And If We Want To Succeed, We Can't Fall Back On The Stale Debates And Old Divides That Won't Move Us Forward.

To Avoid Being Mistaken For A Sellout, I Chose My Friends Carefully. The More Politically Active Black Students. The Foreign Students. The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors And Structural Feminists And Punk-rock Performance Poets.

For Now, Decisions Are Upon Us And We Cannot Afford Delay. We Cannot Mistake Absolutism For Principle Or Substitute Spectacle For Politics, Or Treat Name-calling As Reasoned Debate.

We Didn't Become The Most Prosperous Country In The World Just By Rewarding Greed And Recklessness. We Didn't Come This Far By Letting The Special Interests Run Wild. We Didn't Do It Just By Gambling And Chasing Paper Profits On Wall Street. We Built This Country By Making Things, By Producing Goods We Could Sell.