I admit: my last pro-Obama post was little more than pretty propaganda carefully designed to tug at the heartstrings.

But his speech yesterday about race nailed it for me. If you haven't seen or read it yet, you can watch it here or read the full text of it here.


The points he makes that strike the truest chords for me are:

1. People are complex and complicated. Dismissing someone as Racist based on something he or she says is disrespectful of their humanity and robs us of the opportunity to find common ground.



2. Our country has a history which is complex and complicated. Dismissing feelings of societal injustice, regardless of who is espousing them, as Racist (or some other label) robs us of the opportunity to have open discussion regarding current inequalities, and without that discussion, we will be unable to make a better future for our children and grandchildren.



3. Life is not an inherently zero-sum game: "...your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; ... investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper."

And here's an interesting potential side-effect of the current election year which may have a long-term, positive effect on the future of our country: people are caring about this election, and that emotional investment may actually have a physiological impact on the development of neurons in the brain. To quote from the latest issue of The Week:

"As we listen to the candidates and think about what is being said," neuropharmacologist John Roache tells LiveScience, "the brain processes the information, which grows neural connections." In addition, the more personally engaged people are in the process, Roache says, the more their brains are stimulated. So the fact that so many people have been volunteering, attending political rallies, and even arguing about the candidates this year suggests widespread brain-cell growth. "If we become emotionally engaged, the greater levels of emotion or commitment further enhance the brain processes," Roache says, "and connect them all the more with the emotion and physical activity involved." Roache notes that the "brain effect" of politics is completely nonpartisan.

It will be interesting to see where we are 8 years from now.