Letters: SARAKAY, IT'S ABOUT WAY MORE THAN SEN. OBAMA

RE SARAKAY Smullens' recent op-ed on Barack Obama:

I, too, am a Democrat, and I, too, want my country back. But my vision of our country is slightly different from yours. I'm not the descendant of immigrants who came here for opportunity, freedom of speech and the end of religious persecution. I'm the proud legacy of a people who were brought here in chains, whose labor was (and often still is) used to make others extremely wealthy, whose wombs were used to breed more chattel, who suffered more than just emotional abuse for centuries, who were terrorized by lynchings, rapes and murders, who were denied basic human rights until as recently as the 1960s and who have struggled to hold America to account for her promise of holding certain truths to be self-evident, including that all people are created equal.

Because of the struggles of my ancestors to claim our hard-earned stake in the American Dream, I'm free to speak my mind, to live a rich, full life where I get to contribute to others through the stories I tell, to have a loving marriage with a white man, to raise our son (with another child on the way) and to imagine the legacy we will leave them.

With all due respect, I do not have the experience that we cherish our history. If we did, we would look to the tremendous breakthroughs of the late 1960s and early '70s to propel us toward the vision of America far more noble than the one we currently discuss in the media or see in film or on TV. My experience of most Americans, even my educated friends, is that they have very short memories.

Affirmative action is being debated at the Supreme Court and in swanky cafes just off Rittenhouse Square, but somehow we have forgotten the context for how such legislation came about. In Philadelphia, the crime rate is outrageous, but who is looking beyond "stop and frisk" to solve the social, economic, educational and psychological problems that have caused such disregard for life among certain members of the black community?

I could go on and on about the work that needs to be done, just on a local level, that, if we were a people steeped in our history, should be the source of outrage, not just among blacks, but among whites, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Latinos, Asians, homosexuals . . . Don't even get me started on what's going on nationally, let alone globally: Katrina, the institutionalized raping of Congolese women, etc.

I write not to be a hater or a pot-stirrer, but as one who is tired of the mythology of America that has excluded my ancestors for so long. Barack Obama is a wonderful candidate - full of intelligence, hope, dignity, grace and vision. But he can't do it alone.

We the people are responsible for making manifest the promise of America. The world looks to us as a beacon of democracy. Until we take responsibility for all our citizens, until we own our original sin of enslavement, oppression and discrimination, we cannot stand with integrity before the world.

The hatred others feel for us as a nation is the same hatred that many among us feel for their compatriots - still. Barack Obama is a wonderful candidate. My fear is that white liberals and conservatives alike will use him to say, "See, look how far we've come."

My hope is that he will not be used as a token, but rather as a proud, empowering reminder of the work yet to do to restore our integrity as a nation.

Adrienne Kenton, Philadelphia