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奥巴马2016霍华德大学毕业典礼演讲

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发表于 2016-7-12 21:29:57 | 显示全部楼层 |阅读模式
  对于霍华德大学2016届的毕业生来说可是激动人心的一天,因为,现任美国总统奥巴马在他们的毕业典礼上开讲了!

          奥巴马总统在演讲中说,无论你多不同意对方的意见,你都不应该试图让他们噤声。(So don’ttry to shut folks out, don’t
try to shut them down, no matter how much you mightdisagree with them. Don’t do
that -- no matter how ridiculous or offensive you mightfind the things that come
out of their mouths. Let them talk. Let them talk. If youdon’t, you just make
them a victim, and then they can avoid accountability. )
          THE PRESIDENT: Thank you! Hello, Howard! (Applause.) H-U!
          AUDIENCE: You know!
          THE PRESIDENT: H-U!
          AUDIENCE: You know!
          THE PRESIDENT: (Laughter.) Thank you so much, everybody. Please, please,
have a seat. Oh, Ifeel important now. Got a degree from Howard. Cicely Tyson
said something nice about me. (Laughter.)
          AUDIENCE MEMBER: I love you, President!
          THE PRESIDENT: I love you back.
          (无法观看的童鞋,点击这里哦!)
          To President Frederick, the Board of Trustees, faculty and staff, fellow
recipients of honorarydegrees, thank you for the honor of spending this day with
you. And congratulations to the Classof 2016! (Applause.) Four years ago, back
when you were just freshmen, I understand many ofyou came by my house the night
I was reelected. (Laughter.) So I decided to return the favorand come by
yours.
          To the parents, the grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, all the
family and friends whostood by this class, cheered them on, helped them get here
today -- this is your day, as well. Let’sgive them a big round of applause, as
well. (Applause.)
          I’m not trying to stir up any rivalries here; I just want to see who’s in
the house. We got Quad? (Applause.) Annex. (Applause.) Drew. Carver. Slow.
Towers. And Meridian. (Applause.) Restin peace, Meridian. (Laughter.) Rest in
peace.
          I know you’re all excited today. You might be a little tired, as well. Some
of you were up all nightmaking sure your credits were in order. (Laughter.) Some
of you stayed up too late, ended up atHoChi at 2:00 a.m. (Laughter.) Got some
mambo sauce on your fingers. (Laughter.)
          But you got here. And you've all worked hard to reach this day. You’ve
shuttled betweenchallenging classes and Greek life. You've led clubs, played an
instrument or a sport. Youvolunteered, you interned. You held down one, two,
maybe three jobs. You've made lifelongfriends and discovered exactly what you’re
made of. The “Howard Hustle” has strengthened yoursense of purpose and
ambition.
          Which means you're part of a long line of Howard graduates. Some are on
this stage today. Some are in the audience. That spirit of achievement and
special responsibility has defined thiscampus ever since the Freedman’s Bureau
established Howard just four years after theEmancipation Proclamation; just two
years after the Civil War came to an end. They created thisuniversity with a
vision -- a vision of uplift; a vision for an America where our fates would
bedetermined not by our race, gender, religion or creed, but where we would be
free -- in everysense -- to pursue our individual and collective dreams.
          It is that spirit that's made Howard a centerpiece of African-American
intellectual life and a centralpart of our larger American story. This
institution has been the home of many firsts: The firstblack Nobel Peace Prize
winner. The first black Supreme Court justice. But its mission has been toensure
those firsts were not the last. Countless scholars, professionals, artists, and
leaders fromevery field received their training here. The generations of men and
women who walked throughthis yard helped reform our government, cure disease,
grow a black middle class, advance civilrights, shape our culture. The seeds of
change -- for all Americans -- were sown here. And that’swhat I want to talk
about today.
          As I was preparing these remarks, I realized that when I was first elected
President, most of you --the Class of 2016 -- were just starting high school.
Today, you’re graduating college. I used tojoke about being old. Now I realize
I'm old. (Laughter.) It's not a joke anymore. (Laughter.)
          But seeing all of you here gives me some perspective. It makes me reflect
on the changes thatI’ve seen over my own lifetime. So let me begin with what may
sound like a controversialstatement -- a hot take.
          Given the current state of our political rhetoric and debate, let me say
something that may becontroversial, and that is this: America is a better place
today than it was when I graduated fromcollege. (Applause.) Let me repeat:
America is by almost every measure better than it was whenI graduated from
college. It also happens to be better off than when I took office -- (laughter)
--but that's a longer story. (Applause.) That's a different discussion for
another speech.
          But think about it. I graduated in 1983. New York City, America’s largest
city, where I lived at thetime, had endured a decade marked by crime and
deterioration and near bankruptcy. And manycities were in similar shape. Our
nation had gone through years of economic stagnation, thestranglehold of foreign
oil, a recession where unemployment nearly scraped 11 percent. The autoindustry
was getting its clock cleaned by foreign competition. And don’t even get me
started onthe clothes and the hairstyles. I've tried to eliminate all photos of
me from this period. I thoughtI looked good. (Laughter.) I was wrong.
          Since that year -- since the year I graduated -- the poverty rate is down.
Americans with collegedegrees, that rate is up. Crime rates are down. America’s
cities have undergone a renaissance. There are more women in the workforce.
They’re earning more money. We’ve cut teenpregnancy in half. We've slashed the
African American dropout rate by almost 60 percent, and allof you have a
computer in your pocket that gives you the world at the touch of a button.
In1983, I was part of fewer than 10 percent of African Americans who graduated
with a bachelor’sdegree. Today, you’re part of the more than 20 percent who
will. And more than half of blackssay we’re better off than our parents were at
our age -- and that our kids will be better off, too.
          So America is better. And the world is better, too. A wall came down in
Berlin. An Iron Curtainwas torn asunder. The obscenity of apartheid came to an
end. A young generation in Belfast andLondon have grown up without ever having
to think about IRA bombings. In just the past 16years, we’ve come from a world
without marriage equality to one where it’s a reality in nearly twodozen
countries. Around the world, more people live in democracies. We’ve lifted more
than 1billion people from extreme poverty. We’ve cut the child mortality rate
worldwide by more thanhalf.
          America is better. The world is better. And stay with me now -- race
relations are better since Igraduated. That’s the truth. No, my election did not
create a post-racial society. I don’t knowwho was propagating that notion. That
was not mine. But the election itself -- and thesubsequent one -- because the
first one, folks might have made a mistake. (Laughter.) Thesecond one, they knew
what they were getting. The election itself was just one indicator of
howattitudes had changed.
          In my inaugural address, I remarked that just 60 years earlier, my father
might not have beenserved in a D.C. restaurant -- at least not certain of them.
There were no black CEOs of Fortune500 companies. Very few black judges. Shoot,
as Larry Wilmore pointed out last week, a lot offolks didn’t even think blacks
had the tools to be a quarterback. Today, former Bull MichaelJordan isn’t just
the greatest basketball player of all time -- he owns the team. (Laughter.)
WhenI was graduating, the main black hero on TV was Mr. T. (Laughter.) Rap and
hip hop werecounterculture, underground. Now, Shonda Rhimes owns Thursday night,
and Beyoncé runs theworld. (Laughter.) We’re no longer only entertainers, we're
producers, studio executives. Nolonger small business owners -- we're CEOs,
we’re mayors, representatives, Presidents of theUnited States. (Applause.)
          I am not saying gaps do not persist. Obviously, they do. Racism persists.
Inequality persists. Don’t worry -- I’m going to get to that. But I wanted to
start, Class of 2016, by opening youreyes to the moment that you are in. If you
had to choose one moment in history in which youcould be born, and you didn’t
know ahead of time who you were going to be -- what nationality,what gender,
what race, whether you’d be rich or poor, gay or straight, what faith you'd be
borninto -- you wouldn’t choose 100 years ago. You wouldn’t choose the fifties,
or the sixties, or theseventies. You’d choose right now. If you had to choose a
time to be, in the words of LorraineHansberry, “young, gifted, and black” in
America, you would choose right now. (Applause.)
          I tell you all this because it's important to note progress. Because to
deny how far we’ve comewould do a disservice to the cause of justice, to the
legions of foot soldiers; to not only theincredibly accomplished individuals who
have already been mentioned, but your mothers and yourdads, and grandparents and
great grandparents, who marched and toiled and suffered andovercame to make this
day possible. I tell you this not to lull you into complacency, but to spuryou
into action -- because there’s still so much more work to do, so many more miles
to travel. And America needs you to gladly, happily take up that work. You all
have some work to do. Soenjoy the party, because you're going to be busy.
(Laughter.)
          Yes, our economy has recovered from crisis stronger than almost any other
in the world. Butthere are folks of all races who are still hurting -- who still
can’t find work that pays enough tokeep the lights on, who still can’t save for
retirement. We’ve still got a big racial gap in economicopportunity. The overall
unemployment rate is 5 percent, but the black unemployment rate isalmost nine.
We’ve still got an achievement gap when black boys and girls graduate high
schooland college at lower rates than white boys and white girls. Harriet Tubman
may be going on thetwenty, but we’ve still got a gender gap when a black woman
working full-time still earns just 66percent of what a white man gets paid.
(Applause.)
          We’ve got a justice gap when too many black boys and girls pass through a
pipeline fromunderfunded schools to overcrowded jails. This is one area where
things have gotten worse. When I was in college, about half a million people in
America were behind bars. Today, there areabout 2.2 million. Black men are about
six times likelier to be in prison right now than whitemen.
          Around the world, we’ve still got challenges to solve that threaten
everybody in the 21st century -- old scourges like disease and conflict, but
also new challenges, from terrorism and climatechange.
          So make no mistake, Class of 2016 -- you’ve got plenty of work to do. But
as complicated andsometimes intractable as these challenges may seem, the truth
is that your generation is betterpositioned than any before you to meet those
challenges, to flip the script.
          Now, how you do that, how you meet these challenges, how you bring about
change willultimately be up to you. My generation, like all generations, is too
confined by our ownexperience, too invested in our own biases, too stuck in our
ways to provide much of the newthinking that will be required. But us old-heads
have learned a few things that might be useful inyour journey. So with the rest
of my time, I’d like to offer some suggestions for how youngleaders like you can
fulfill your destiny and shape our collective future -- bend it in the direction
ofjustice and equality and freedom.
          First of all -- and this should not be a problem for this group -- be
confident in your heritage. (Applause.) Be confident in your blackness. One of
the great changes that’s occurred in ourcountry since I was your age is the
realization there's no one way to be black. Take it fromsomebody who’s seen both
sides of debate about whether I'm black enough. (Laughter.) In thepast couple
months, I’ve had lunch with the Queen of England and hosted Kendrick Lamar in
theOval Office. There’s no straitjacket, there's no constraints, there's no
litmus test for authenticity.
          Look at Howard. One thing most folks don’t know about Howard is how diverse
it is. When youarrived here, some of you were like, oh, they've got black people
in Iowa? (Laughter.) But it’strue -- this class comes from big cities and rural
communities, and some of you crossed oceans tostudy here. You shatter
stereotypes. Some of you come from a long line of Bison. Some of youare the
first in your family to graduate from college. (Applause.) You all talk
different, you alldress different. You’re Lakers fans, Celtics fans, maybe even
some hockey fans. (Laughter.)
          And because of those who've come before you, you have models to follow. You
can work for acompany, or start your own. You can go into politics, or run an
organization that holds politiciansaccountable. You can write a book that wins
the National Book Award, or you can write the newrun of “Black Panther.” Or,
like one of your alumni, Ta-Nehisi Coates, you can go ahead and justdo both. You
can create your own style, set your own standard of beauty, embrace your
ownsexuality. Think about an icon we just lost -- Prince. He blew up categories.
People didn’t knowwhat Prince was doing. (Laughter.) And folks loved him for
it.
          You need to have the same confidence. Or as my daughters tell me all the
time, “You be you,Daddy.” (Laughter.) Sometimes Sasha puts a variation on it --
"You do you, Daddy." (Laughter.) And because you’re a black person doing
whatever it is that you're doing, that makes it a blackthing. Feel
confident.
          Second, even as we each embrace our own beautiful, unique, and valid
versions of our blackness,remember the tie that does bind us as African
Americans -- and that is our particular awareness ofinjustice and unfairness and
struggle. That means we cannot sleepwalk through life. We cannotbe ignorant of
history. (Applause.) We can’t meet the world with a sense of entitlement.
Wecan’t walk by a homeless man without asking why a society as wealthy as ours
allows that state ofaffairs to occur. We can’t just lock up a low-level dealer
without asking why this boy, barely outof childhood, felt he had no other
options. We have cousins and uncles and brothers and sisterswho we remember were
just as smart and just as talented as we were, but somehow got grounddown by
structures that are unfair and unjust.
          And that means we have to not only question the world as it is, and stand
up for those AfricanAmericans who haven’t been so lucky -- because, yes, you've
worked hard, but you've also beenlucky. That's a pet peeve of mine: People who
have been successful and don’t realize they'vebeen lucky. That God may have
blessed them; it wasn’t nothing you did. So don’t have anattitude. But we must
expand our moral imaginations to understand and empathize with allpeople who are
struggling, not just black folks who are struggling -- the refugee, the
immigrant,the rural poor, the transgender person, and yes, the middle-aged white
guy who you may thinkhas all the advantages, but over the last several decades
has seen his world upended by economicand cultural and technological change, and
feels powerless to stop it. You got to get in his head,too.
          Number three: You have to go through life with more than just passion for
change; you need astrategy. I'll repeat that. I want you to have passion, but
you have to have a strategy. Not justawareness, but action. Not just hashtags,
but votes.
          You see, change requires more than righteous anger. It requires a program,
and it requiresorganizing. At the 1964 Democratic Convention, Fannie Lou Hamer
-- all five-feet-four-inches tall -- gave a fiery speech on the national stage.
But then she went back home to Mississippi andorganized cotton pickers. And she
didn't have the tools and technology where you can whip up amovement in minutes.
She had to go door to door. And I’m so proud of the new guard of blackcivil
rights leaders who understand this. It’s thanks in large part to the activism of
young peoplelike many of you, from Black Twitter to Black Lives Matter, that
America’s eyes have been opened -- white, black, Democrat, Republican -- to the
real problems, for example, in our criminal justicesystem.
          But to bring about structural change, lasting change, awareness is not
enough. It requireschanges in law, changes in custom. If you care about mass
incarceration, let me ask you: Howare you pressuring members of Congress to pass
the criminal justice reform bill now pendingbefore them? (Applause.) If you care
about better policing, do you know who your districtattorney is? Do you know who
your state’s attorney general is? Do you know the difference? Doyou know who
appoints the police chief and who writes the police training manual? Find out
whothey are, what their responsibilities are. Mobilize the community, present
them with a plan, workwith them to bring about change, hold them accountable if
they do not deliver. Passion is vital,but you've got to have a strategy.
          And your plan better include voting -- not just some of the time, but all
the time. (Applause.) Itis absolutely true that 50 years after the Voting Rights
Act, there are still too many barriers in thiscountry to vote. There are too
many people trying to erect new barriers to voting. This is theonly advanced
democracy on Earth that goes out of its way to make it difficult for people to
vote. And there's a reason for that. There's a legacy to that.
          But let me say this: Even if we dismantled every barrier to voting, that
alone would not changethe fact that America has some of the lowest voting rates
in the free world. In 2014, only 36percent of Americans turned out to vote in
the midterms -- the secondlowest participation rate onrecord. Youth turnout --
that would be you -- was less than 20 percent. Less than 20 percent. Four out of
five did not vote. In 2012, nearly two in three African Americans turned out.
Andthen, in 2014, only two in five turned out. You don’t think that made a
difference in terms of theCongress I've got to deal with? And then people are
wondering, well, how come Obama hasn’tgotten this done? How come he didn’t get
that done? You don’t think that made a difference? What would have happened if
you had turned out at 50, 60, 70 percent, all across this country? People try to
make this political thing really complicated. Like, what kind of reforms do we
need? And how do we need to do that? You know what, just vote. It's math. If you
have more votesthan the other guy, you get to do what you want. (Laughter.) It's
not that complicated.
          And you don’t have excuses. You don’t have to guess the number of
jellybeans in a jar orbubbles on a bar of soap to register to vote. You don’t
have to risk your life to cast a ballot. Other people already did that for you.
(Applause.) Your grandparents, your great grandparentsmight be here today if
they were working on it. What's your excuse? When we don’t vote, wegive away our
power, disenfranchise ourselves -- right when we need to use the power that
wehave; right when we need your power to stop others from taking away the vote
and rights ofthose more vulnerable than you are -- the elderly and the poor, the
formerly incarcerated trying toearn their second chance.
          So you got to vote all the time, not just when it’s cool, not just when
it's time to elect a President,not just when you’re inspired. It's your duty.
When it’s time to elect a member of Congress or acity councilman, or a school
board member, or a sheriff. That’s how we change our politics -- byelecting
people at every level who are representative of and accountable to us. It is not
thatcomplicated. Don’t make it complicated.
          And finally, change requires more than just speaking out -- it requires
listening, as well. Inparticular, it requires listening to those with whom you
disagree, and being prepared tocompromise. When I was a state senator, I helped
pass Illinois’s first racial profiling law, and oneof the first laws in the
nation requiring the videotaping of confessions in capital cases. And wewere
successful because, early on, I engaged law enforcement. I didn’t say to them,
oh, you guysare so racist, you need to do something. I understood, as many of
you do, that theoverwhelming majority of police officers are good, and honest,
and courageous, and fair, and lovethe communities they serve.
          And we knew there were some bad apples, and that even the good cops with
the best ofintentions -- including, by the way, African American police officers
-- might have unconsciousbiases, as we all do. So we engaged and we listened,
and we kept working until we builtconsensus. And because we took the time to
listen, we crafted legislation that was good for thepolice -- because it
improved the trust and cooperation of the community -- and it was good forthe
communities, who were less likely to be treated unfairly. And I can say this
unequivocally: Without at least the acceptance of the police organizations in
Illinois, I could never have gottenthose bills passed. Very simple. They would
have blocked them.
          The point is, you need allies in a democracy. That's just the way it is. It
can be frustrating and itcan be slow. But history teaches us that the
alternative to democracy is always worse. That's notjust true in this country.
It’s not a black or white thing. Go to any country where the give andtake of
democracy has been repealed by one-party rule, and I will show you a country
that doesnot work.
          And democracy requires compromise, even when you are 100 percent right.
This is hard toexplain sometimes. You can be completely right, and you still are
going to have to engage folkswho disagree with you. If you think that the only
way forward is to be as uncompromising aspossible, you will feel good about
yourself, you will enjoy a certain moral purity, but you’re notgoing to get what
you want. And if you don’t get what you want long enough, you will
eventuallythink the whole system is rigged. And that will lead to more cynicism,
and less participation, and adownward spiral of more injustice and more anger
and more despair. And that's never been thesource of our progress. That's how we
cheat ourselves of progress.
          We remember Dr. King’s soaring oratory, the power of his letter from a
Birmingham jail, themarches he led. But he also sat down with President Johnson
in the Oval Office to try and get aCivil Rights Act and a Voting Rights Act
passed. And those two seminal bills were not perfect --just like the
Emancipation Proclamation was a war document as much as it was some clarion
callfor freedom. Those mileposts of our progress were not perfect. They did not
make up forcenturies of slavery or Jim Crow or eliminate racism or provide for
40 acres and a mule. But theymade things better. And you know what, I will take
better every time. I always tell my staff --better is good, because you
consolidate your gains and then you move on to the next fight from astronger
position.
          Brittany Packnett, a member of the Black Lives Matter movement and Campaign
Zero, one of theFerguson protest organizers, she joined our Task Force on 21st
Century Policing. Some of herfellow activists questioned whether she should
participate. She rolled up her sleeves and sat atthe same table with big city
police chiefs and prosecutors. And because she did, she ended upshaping many of
the recommendations of that task force. And those recommendations are nowbeing
adopted across the country -- changes that many of the protesters called for. If
youngactivists like Brittany had refused to participate out of some sense of
ideological purity, then thosegreat ideas would have just remained ideas. But
she did participate. And that’s how changehappens.
          America is big and it is boisterous and it is more diverse than ever. The
president told me thatwe've got a significant Nepalese contingent here at
Howard. I would not have guessed that. Right on. But it just tells you how
interconnected we're becoming. And with so many folks fromso many places,
converging, we are not always going to agree with each other.
          Another Howard alum, Zora Neale Hurston, once said -- this is a good quote
here: “Nothing thatGod ever made is the same thing to more than one person.”
Think about that. That’s why ourdemocracy gives us a process designed for us to
settle our disputes with argument and ideas andvotes instead of violence and
simple majority rule.
          So don’t try to shut folks out, don’t try to shut them down, no matter how
much you mightdisagree with them. There's been a trend around the country of
trying to get colleges to disinvitespeakers with a different point of view, or
disrupt a politician’s rally. Don’t do that -- no matterhow ridiculous or
offensive you might find the things that come out of their mouths. Because asmy
grandmother used to tell me, every time a fool speaks, they are just advertising
their ownignorance. Let them talk. Let them talk. If you don’t, you just make
them a victim, and thenthey can avoid accountability.
          That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t challenge them. Have the confidence to
challenge them, theconfidence in the rightness of your position. There will be
times when you shouldn’t compromiseyour core values, your integrity, and you
will have the responsibility to speak up in the face ofinjustice. But listen.
Engage. If the other side has a point, learn from them. If they’re wrong,rebut
them. Teach them. Beat them on the battlefield of ideas. And you might as well
startpracticing now, because one thing I can guarantee you -- you will have to
deal with ignorance,hatred, racism, foolishness, trifling folks. (Laughter.) I
promise you, you will have to deal with allthat at every stage of your life.
That may not seem fair, but life has never been completely fair. Nobody promised
you a crystal stair. And if you want to make life fair, then you've got to
startwith the world as it is.
          So that’s my advice. That’s how you change things. Change isn’t something
that happens everyfour years or eight years; change is not placing your faith in
any particular politician and then justputting your feet up and saying, okay,
go. Change is the effort of committed citizens who hitchtheir wagons to
something bigger than themselves and fight for it every single day.
          That’s what Thurgood Marshall understood -- a man who once walked this
year, graduated fromHoward Law; went home to Baltimore, started his own law
practice. He and his mentor, CharlesHamilton Houston, rolled up their sleeves
and they set out to overturn segregation. They workedthrough the NAACP. Filed
dozens of lawsuits, fought dozens of cases. And after nearly 20 years ofeffort
-- 20 years -- Thurgood Marshall ultimately succeeded in bringing his righteous
cause beforethe Supreme Court, and securing the ruling in Brown v. Board of
Education that separate couldnever be equal. (Applause.) Twenty years.
          Marshall, Houston -- they knew it would not be easy. They knew it would not
be quick. Theyknew all sorts of obstacles would stand in their way. They knew
that even if they won, that wouldjust be the beginning of a longer march to
equality. But they had discipline. They hadpersistence. They had faith -- and a
sense of humor. And they made life better for all Americans.
          And I know you graduates share those qualities. I know it because I've
learned about some of theyoung people graduating here today. There's a young
woman named Ciearra Jefferson, who’sgraduating with you. And I'm just going to
use her as an example. I hope you don’t mind,Ciearra. Ciearra grew up in Detroit
and was raised by a poor single mom who worked seven daysa week in an auto
plant. And for a time, her family found themselves without a place to call home.
They bounced around between friends and family who might take them in. By her
senior year,Ciearra was up at 5:00 am every day, juggling homework,
extracurricular activities, volunteering,all while taking care of her little
sister. But she knew that education was her ticket to a better life. So she
never gave up. Pushed herself to excel. This daughter of a single mom who works
on theassembly line turned down a full scholarship to Harvard to come to Howard.
(Applause.)
          And today, like many of you, Ciearra is the first in her family to graduate
from college. And then,she says, she’s going to go back to her hometown, just
like Thurgood Marshall did, to make sureall the working folks she grew up with
have access to the health care they need and deserve. Asshe puts it, she’s going
to be a “change agent.” She’s going to reach back and help folks like
hersucceed.
          And people like Ciearra are why I remain optimistic about America.
(Applause.) Young people likeyou are why I never give in to despair.
          James Baldwin once wrote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but
nothing can bechanged until it is faced.”
          Graduates, each of us is only here because someone else faced down
challenges for us. We areonly who we are because someone else struggled and
sacrificed for us. That's not just ThurgoodMarshall’s story, or Ciearra’s story,
or my story, or your story -- that is the story of America. Astory whispered by
slaves in the cotton fields, the song of marchers in Selma, the dream of a
Kingin the shadow of Lincoln. The prayer of immigrants who set out for a new
world. The roar ofwomen demanding the vote. The rallying cry of workers who
built America. And the GIs who bledoverseas for our freedom.
          Now it’s your turn. And the good news is, you’re ready. And when your
journey seems too hard,and when you run into a chorus of cynics who tell you
that you’re being foolish to keep believingor that you can’t do something, or
that you should just give up, or you should just settle -- youmight say to
yourself a little phrase that I’ve found handy these last eight years: Yes, we
can.
          Congratulations, Class of 2016! (Applause.) Good luck! God bless you. God
bless the UnitedStates of America. I'm proud of you.
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