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1、精选优质文档-倾情为你奉上University of Massachusetts at Boston Commencement AddressBoston, MA | June 2, 2006 Good morning President Wilson, Chancellor Collins, the Board of Trustees, faculty, parents, family, friends, and the Class of 2006. Congratulations on your graduation, and thank you for allowing me the h
2、onor to be a part of it. Its always great to be back in Boston. As some of you may have heard, I was here a few years ago to give the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention. It was an amazing experience for me. A humbling honor. A tremendous opportunity. And if you had come up to me a few
3、 years earlier and told me Id be there, I wouldve politely told you that you were out of your mind. Let me tell you what happened at the last convention I had been to. It was the year 2000, and I had just gotten my rear-end handed to me in my very first race for Congress. Didnt even make it past the
4、 primary. I was a little depressed, and more than a little broke, but some friends suggested that I get my mind off it by going to Los Angeles, where that years Democratic Convention was being held. So I decided to go. And when my plane landed in LA, I got my luggage, walked on over to the Hertz cou
5、nter, filled out all the forms to rent a car, gave my credit card to the nice woman behind the counter who, moments later, handed it back to me and said, “Mr. Obama, it seems we have a problem.” Thats right, my credit card was denied. After thirty more minutes of haggling, I finally made it to the c
6、onvention, only to learn that I was thought of so highly by the Democratic Party that my credentials barely granted me access to the mens room-let alone backstage where all the action was. And so, being the VIP that I was, I spent the rest of the week as the guy in the room who nobody knew, but ever
7、yone knew didnt belong. Needless to say, when they asked me to be the conventions keynote speaker just four years later, I made sure I was getting a car. All joking aside, receiving that honor was a welcome change-and, as MasterCard could attest, more than a little unlikely. But of course, America i
8、s an unlikely place-a country built on defiance of the odds；on a belief in the impossible. And I remind you of this because as you set out to live your own stories of success and achievement, its now your turn to help keep it this way. Its your turn to keep this daringly radical but unfailingly simp
9、le notion of America alive - that no matter where youre born or how much your parents have；no matter what you look like or what you believe in, you can still rise to become whatever you want；still go on to achieve great things；still pursue the happiness you hope for. Today, this dream sounds common-
10、perhaps even clich-yet for most of human history its been anything but. As a servant of Rome, a peasant in China, or a subject of King George, there were very few unlikely futures. No matter how hard you worked or struggled for something better, you knew youd spend your life forced to build somebody
11、 elses empire；to sacrifice for someone elses cause. But as the centuries passed, the people of the world grew restless. They were tired of tyranny and weary of their lot in life. And as they saw merchants start to sail across oceans and explorers set off in search of new worlds, they followed. It wa
12、s right here, in the waters around us, where the American experiment began. As the earliest settlers arrived on the shores of Boston and Salem and Plymouth, they dreamed of building a City upon a Hill. And the world watched, waiting to see if this improbable idea called America would succeed. For ov
13、er two hundred years, it has. Not because our dream has progressed perfectly. It hasnt. It has been scarred by our treatment of native peoples, betrayed by slavery, clouded by the subjugation of women, wounded by racism, shaken by war and depression. Yet, the true test of our union is not whether it
14、s perfect, but whether we work to perfect it. Whether we recognize our failings, identify our shortcomings, and then rise to meet the challenges of our time. And so weve broadened the American family by winning civil rights and voting rights for women and then African Americans；by choosing to welcom
15、e waves of new immigrants to our shores. Weve pushed the boundaries of opportunity by providing free education for our children and health care for our seniors and our poor；and weve won bargaining rightsand wage hikes and retirement security for our workers. None of this progress happened on its own
16、. Much of it seemed impossible at the time. But all of it came about because ordinary men and women had faith that here in America, our imperfect dream could be perfected. Now, there may be some who doubt that much has changed - those who doubt that things are better today than they were yesterday.
17、To them I say take a look at this class of 2006. More than half of you represent the very first member of your family to ever attend college. In the most diverse university in all of New England, I look out at a sea of faces that are African-American and Hispanic-American and Asian-American and Arab
18、-American. I see students that have come here from over 100 different countries, believing like those first settlers that they too could find a home in this City on a Hill - that they too could find success in this unlikeliest of places. , All of this has occurred in the midst of a city where No Iri
19、sh Need Apply signs once hung from stores. All of this in a city where, just thirty years ago, buses of black students were pelted with rocks as they pulled into schools in South Boston；where the Red Sox were once the team who refused to sign the great Jackie Robinson. But the problem isnt that weve
20、 made progress. The problem is that progress isnt good enough. There is more work to be done, more justice to be had, more barriers to break. And now its your generations turn to bring these changes about. The last century was undoubtedly an American century. Our victory over fascism liberated milli
21、ons. At home, we built a shared prosperity that created the largest middle-class in history. Ours was a nation of liberators；of free people；of prosperous people - and the world took notice. But today, just a few years into the twenty-first century, we already find ourselves in a different and precar
22、ious position. As revolutions in communications and technology have broken down barriers across the world, it has given more power to both our competitors and our enemies. No longer can we assume that a high-school education in Boston is enough to compete for a job that could easily go to a college-
23、educated student in Bangalore or Beijing. No more can we count on employers to provide health care and pensions and job training when their bottom-lines know no borders. Never again can we expect the oceans that surround America to keep us safe from attacks on our own soil. So what does this mean fo
24、r you？What role will you play in meeting these challenges？I do not pretend to have the answers. Each of you will have to discover your own. But perhaps I can offer a few suggestions that may be useful along the way. First, take risks. When I was on the brink of graduating from college, I had this cr
25、azy idea that I wanted to be a community organizer and work in low-income neighborhoods. My mother and grandparents thought I should go to law school, and my friends were all busy applying for jobs on Wall Street. But I went ahead and wrote letters to every organization in the country that I thought
26、 was working to empower low-income people. And finally, this small group of churches on the south side of Chicago wrote back and offered me a job helping them deal with the consequences of steel plants that had closed and put thousands out of work. The churches didnt have much money -so they offered
27、 me a grand sum of $12, 000 a year plus $2, 000 to buy a car. So I bought a beat up old car, packed up my belongings, got out a map, and started driving west to Chicago - a place I had never been and where I didnt know a living soul. About halfway between New York City and Chicago, I stopped for the
28、 night in a small town in Pennsylvania whose name I no longer remember. I found a motel that looked cheap and clean, I pulled into the driveway, and went to the counter, where there was an old guy doing crossword puzzles. I asked him for a room, and as he was filling out my information, he asked me
29、where I was headed. I said I was going to Chicago, and I told him I was going there to work as a community organizer. And he looked at me and he said, “You know, you look like a nice clean-cut young man, and youve got a nice voice. So let me give you a piece of advice - forget this community organiz
30、ing business. You cant change the world, and people wont appreciate you trying. What you should do is go into television broadcasting. Im telling you, youve got a future.” I couldve taken my mothers advice and I couldve taken my grandparents advice. I couldve taken the path my friends traveled. And
31、I couldve taken the words of wisdom from that old man in Pennsylvania. And, objectively speaking, Im sure he was right. But I knew there was something in me that wanted to try for something bigger. So dont let people talk you into doing the safe thing. Listen to whats in you and decide what it is th
32、at you care so much about that youre willing to take a chance. My second piece of advice is to stay global. As the world continues to change and we become more connected to each other, globalization will bring both benefits and disruptions to our lives. But either way, its here, and its not going aw
33、ay. We can try to build walls around us, and we can look inward, and we can respond by being frightened and angry about those disruptions. But thats not what were about. We are a confident country, not a fearful one. We can meet these challenges. And that means every single one of us needs to learn
34、more so we can compete more. It means we need an energy policy that will create new jobs in this country and end our dependence on oil from the Middle East. And it means we need to update our social contract to make sure that people have health care and pensions and training no matter where they wor
35、k or how many times they switch jobs. But it doesnt mean we should ever withdrawal. We are better than that. My third piece of advice is to cultivate a sense of empathy -to put yourself in other peoples shoes - to see the world from their eyes. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the w
36、orld -one that makes you understand that your obligations to others extend beyond people who look like you and act like you and live in your neighborhood. I know that, especially on this campus, so many of you have been serving at homeless shelters and high schools and youth centers and job placemen
37、t organizations all over the Boston area. And I hope this spirit of service lives on long after you leave here. But as you continue on in life, its not always easy. In the years to come, you will encounter all kinds of obstacles in the way of empathy. You will find people who, out of fear or need fo
38、r power, try to divide us and deny what we have in common. Youll hear that the Americans who sleep in the streets and beg for food got there because theyre all lazy or weak of spirit. That the immigrants who risk their lives to cross a desert have nothing to contribute to this country and no desire
39、to embrace our ideals. That the inner-city children who are trapped in the nations most dilapidated schools cant learn and wont learn and so we should just give up on them entirely. That the innocent people being slaughtered and expelled from their homes half a world away are somebody elses problem
40、to take care of. Youll hear all of this, and youll have to choose. Youll have to decide where your obligations lie. And let me tell you - the easiest thing in the world is to do nothing at all. To turn off the TV, put down the paper, and walk away from the stories about Iraq or Darfur or poverty or
41、violence or joblessness or hopelessness. To go about your busy lives, wishing these problems away but expecting someone else to do it. To remain detached；to remain indifferent；to remain safe. But I hope you dont do whats easy. I hope you do whats hard. I often imagine the young Americans -teenagers
42、and college kids not much older than you -from all over the country, watching the Civil Rights Movement unfold before them on their television sets. I imagine that they wouldve seen the marchers and heard the speeches, but they also probably saw the dogs and the fire hoses, or the footage of innocen
43、t people being beaten within an inch of their lives, or maybe they wouldve heard the news the day those four little girls died when someone threw a bomb into their church. Instinctively, they knew that it was safer and smarter to stay at home；to watch the movement from afar. But somewhere in their h
44、earts, they also understood that these people in Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi were their brothers and sisters；that what was happening was wrong；and that they had an obligation to make it right. And so when the buses pulled up for a Freedom Ride down South, they got on. And they rode. Thousand
45、s of them. And they changed the world. We need you to do the same. As Robert F. Kennedy once told a crowd of South Africans no older than you, “The world demands the qualities of youth；not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of coura
46、ge over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.” Finally, my last piece of advice is to stay amazed - to remain in wonder at this unlikely place we call America. I think its easy for some people to look at all the challenges we face；to look at poverty and war and racism and in
47、equality and hatred and helplessness, and to get down on this country as a result - to think that theres something wrong with us - that there is little hope to make things better. And if you ever feel like that yourselves, I ask you to remember all the amazing and unlikely things that have happened
48、in this country. This country where a young man from Illinois who failed at so many of the business and political ventures he attempted still went on to become the president who freed a people and saved a union. This country where a young black minister from Georgia who had nothing but a dream in his heart went on to lead his people to the promised land of civil rights and voting rights. This country where hundreds of parents all over the world who never had the chance to further their education could still watch their children become the first in their family to earn a degree o