My ignorance astounds even me sometimes.

Alas,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias

http://thinkagain.theatlantic.com/

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12795806

Exam #6: Marketing

...I made shit up. What else can I say. 

Snowstorm > shopping plans. boo.

Today, I formatted my macbook harddrive and erased everything.

What an amazing feeling.

three new things I hate

- queen's cafetaria

- suburbia

- dickwads who misuse "supposably" and "presumably"

I just realized...I have a HUGE unconscious fear of falling from heights. Wow.

Exam #5: Microeconomics II

Not perfect, but still pretty clutch. ahah.

Now 6 days of doing nothing...time for some xmas shopping. :)

Exam #4: Finance

Redemption.

Exam #3 : Management Information Systems

Exam time: 3 hours
Number of questions: 1

Time spent staring at screen blankly: 1 hour

What a day for apathy.

P.S. Rejection from Manulife came via voicemail...see above. Back to sleep.

update: Second rejection, PwC. Thank god I was a lot more annoyed for that. Back to finance.

As God will be my witness, I hereby grant Steven Wang the permission to fail his next exam with grace and humility. I will hold no grudge against him for his immature foolishness and subsequent forced re-prioritizing, and will continue to work with him afterwards to ensure the future success of more important matters thereafter.

signed,

Exam #2 : Business Decision Models

Exam time: 3 hours
4 questions, 85 marks: 1.5 hours
1 question, 15 marks: 1.5 hours

Trying hard not to think about this exam...because this is the first time in a long while I've choked up this badly on a math question.

Maybe I'll forgive myself when I wake up tomorrow morning. We'll see. For now let's just sleep on this burn in my stomach.

Witty quote, stolen off of facebook:

"I love you is 8 letters - but then again, so is bullshit"

Haha...not really clever, but guilty pleasure nonetheless.

Exam #1 : Linear Algebra

Exam time: 3 hours
Time spent on non-proofs, 7 questions: 1/2 hour
Time on proofs, 3 questions: 2.5 hours

Would have left WAY earlier, if I actually knew how to do proofs in
linear algebra XD. Hurray for my bullshitting skills.

Now...the burning question haunting eternity...what to make for lunch?

Decisions, decisions.

Goal next semester: get to intermediate-high level, photoshop. Start now.

Senses of the Mind

"Sometimes it appears that we're reaching a period when our senses and
our minds will no longer respond to moderate stimulation. We seem to
be reaching an age of the gross, persuasion through speeches and books
is too often discarded for disruptive demonstrations aimed at
bludgeoning the unconvinced into action. The young--and by this I'd
don't mean any stretch of the imagination all the young, but I'm
talking about those who claim to speak for the young--at the zenith of
physical power and sensitivity, overwhelm themselves with drugs and
artificial stimulants. Subtlety is lost, and fine distinctions based
on acute reasoning are carelessly ignored in a headlong jump to a
predetermined conclusion. Life is visceral rather than intellectual.
And the most visceral practitioners of life are those who characterize
themselves as intellectuals. Truth is to them revealed rather than
logically proved. And the principal infatuations of today revolve
around the social sciences, those subjects which can accommodate any
opinion, and about which the most reckless conjecture cannot be
discredited. Education is being redefined at the demand of the
uneducated to suit the ideas of the uneducated. The student now goes
to college to proclaim, rather than to learn. The lessons of the past
are ignored and obliterated, and a contemporary antagonism known as
"The Generation Gap." A spirit of national masochism prevails,
encouraged by an effete core of impudent snobs who characterize
themselves as intellectuals." - Spiro Agnew, 1970

comment.

Here's the long awaited long post from Steven. I figured I might as well write this 4 in the morning...it's not like I have any better time to do so, with stuff going on these days.

Not going to talk about school/exams - hellishly busy - expected. Not going to talk about work search - horribly behind - expected. Not going to talk about extracurriculars - overwhelming - expected.

No, let's talk about music. I've been thinking about writing this for quite some time. Random, I suppose.

So it's interesting how music plays quite a bit into my life - and it can't be more true with -poke- and mackenzie in general - the subtle undertones are all too glaring. however, I kept dancing around this issue (pardon the pun), so I just feel like finally putting down a written record, no matter how botched that record might be. Again, it's not meant to be a diagnosis...it's merely a list of symptoms for my records. I leave those judgements up to you.

So I was your regular stupid kid - I started off listening to pop stuff from Britney Spears and Backstreet boys in grade 4. Cool kids in the class were doing it. Then I remember O-Town, Liquid dreams came around. Then the Napster phenomenon. I remember getting ecstatic over downloading songs at 10kb/s over the internet...for free! and they weren't even lame songs...my cool classmates were listening to them! Only now do I realize how sexually innuenduous my childhood songs have been - absolutely hilarious. Oh well, weren't fairy tales similar in that regard? full of sex and violence.

I believe Kazaa came up next, and hence came a lot of downloading at ridiculously slow speeds. I didn't know - I was having a good time. I am pretty sure Eminem came up during this time too - it was pretty addictive, given how I was at the stage of puberty at that time. Crude humour, angst at isolation, an naive sort of cynicism at authority, a lack of fatherly figure, a disdain/sexual hunger of women, coming from an overbearing ego - trademarks of an important stage in my life. Marks suffered - I was failing English, failing French - failing to communicate with my superiors and peers, essentially.

Adolescent rap translated into mainstream hip-hop in grade 8, when I moved from scarborough to north york (long story, not relevent) 50 cent, g-unit, sean paul, snoop dogg, Chingy...very swagger-y. sexually charged. clever, but not very intelligent. upbeat abt the present - lots of bling involved. again...i guess because friends listened to them. Good fun. represented a period where I was enthusiastic about what I can do (like the rappers themselves...again...huge egos. haha). Clearly worked in a bizarre way, because I ended up getting into the prestigious William Lyon Mackenzie Collegiate Institute, coming from an impoverished school for dejected youth of all ages, Avondale. Good stuff. However, another important artist introduced was Linkin Park, which will become very important later on.

Linkin park was the perfect segue from rap/hiphop into rock, which became a staple of a majority of my late junior high/early high school years. for those of you who don't know, Linkin park was the epitome of nu metal and raprock, a fusion genre of 2 very different styles. It was pretty much the first band I've heard to have such a strong connection between melodic harmony with lyrical relevance. and now I've realized how much lyrics affected me (and unfortunately it still does) - I was always fixated on the 'message' - a clear example being "In the End" especially. similarly, Eminem played a similar role in my earlier years. Anyhow, Hybrid Theory and Meteora became the defining albums of those years, and in came rock: Hoobastank, Maroon5, Evanescence, Good Charlotte, Yellowcard, Switchfoot. With those bands, with those lyrics, came a sense of defeat. A sense of diminishing returns. A sense that maybe I don't have what it takes. however, by channeling the definition of myself through these vapid interpretations, i became progressively better (if i say so myself) on applying this channeling to my overall communication ability. a litmus test for this? english marks. Call this the emo stage if you will. the fixation on the message and its interpretation within media - by mastering control of the interpretation of message, you face that trade off where the interpretation of message controls you - how you felt, how you thought. Good or bad, it seemed that my grade 10-11 years were awfully concentrated on not only a lack of ego and self-optimism, but also a pretentious attitude I took on in interpreting others. Let's just say I ran into some trouble with that, haha.

And came grade 10 summer. the godsend summer. I just came out of a useless summer course (sorry william - making our own card game wasn't exactly that productive), and i applied for garbage job at cne w/ liz and ray. It was at that time that Ray handed me his uber-dvd music library. I'm not going to sugarcoat this - Ray became a critical component of my lifetime intellectual development from that moment on - don't tell him that tho, haha. This is where I got introduced to the umbrella genre EDM - electronic dance music. and this is the part I want to explain the most.

So by now you guys are probably rolling your eyes...EDM - bullshit music. even more bullshit than the most garbage pop music. garbage lyrics. repetitive beats. runs on forever. just like bollywood music, but even shittier (jk Mayur :P)

Which is partly true - I also thought it as such when I first heard just your regular eurodance - subpar pop lyrics + beats that were crappier than 50 cents' - what is there to like? the more hardcore 1's i heard were old school acid techno...just a bunch of fucked up beats on a synthetic drum..nauseating.

Then I listened to my first real trance - Paul van Dyk - "Nothing but You" - absolutely changed my life from there. Nothing was said. there was no message to interpret. there was nothing to know, but everything was right. there were pictures, there was video - there was a lovely couple finding each other - but that didn't matter either. I felt music through the chill of my spine for the first time.

for a brief, dashing moment, my life made perfect sense. Even though none of it did. And hence began my transition from lyrical fixation, onto melodic fixation. I think I finally understood what music was from that point. And mentally, philosophically, ideologically, this moved me to the current stage. I believe the technical word is called existentialism, but quite frankly, I don't care what it's called. none of that is relevant anyways. When people were laughing off the concept of doublethink, I can only smile inside - guilty as charged. Beauty and sadness, triumph and defeat, touching and aloof - this has all meshed into my existence so seamlessly. a life where the tiniest layers, the smallest details, flow into one grand finale, one fluid body of pure apocalyptic beauty. It's almost like life, miniaturized. for a moment, it'll all make sense.

So i hope this somewhat explains my periods of uber-uploads of EDM music...I realize you guys are probably not into that kind of stuff anyways. But this might explain why I can't resist putting the music on...my mind won't allow it. But this was not instantaneous musical transition - trance is unfortunately somewhat of an acquired taste - there were a lot of overlaps that make my story somewhat inconsistent - but I still feel like I need to keep a record, because music has been shockingly instrumental into developing me into who I am today, the more I think about it. I've been listening to trance for 4 years now, which probably the longest I've stayed in a genre. So a lot of solidification during that time.

I don't know where I'll go for here. Perhaps jazz? opera? I realize I'm getting more conservative in nature as I age, so I think my music choice will start reflecting that.

quick update: a song, just for fun. it's pretty good.
Late Night Alumni - Another Chance [Kaskade's Homage to Roger]

Not a good start to my week. Fuck econ.

The analysis indicates that the author of http://shadypensieve.blogspot.com is of the type:

ISTJ - The Duty Fulfillers



The responsible and hardworking type. They are especially attuned to the details of life and are careful about getting the facts right. Conservative by nature they are often reluctant to take any risks whatsoever.

The Duty Fulfillers are happy to be let alone and to be able to work int heir own pace. They know what they have to do and how to do it.

Analysis
This show what parts of the brain that were dominant during writing.


Taken from http://www.typealyzer.com/

So there always a fucking decision matrix somewhere.

Hah. Stop bitching abt the short entries...I'll write something long soon.

Let's write something constructive around here:

 

Interview number two: Manulife Financial Actuarial Intern, HK office.
Interview time: Nov 19, 2:00pm

Do I want this job? Yes, actually.

Tips, anyone?

the world can reward your idiocy, but I'm not going to.

what a bunch of bitches.

what a load of shit.

let's drop some emo trance around here. trentemoller ftw!

Trentemoller - Miss you

The great thing about Queen's Commerce is that 9 days out of 10, you are reminded of the reason why you love it here.

What a delicious lecture.

"In God we trust - all others, bring data."

Somewhat disgruntled.

My first cooking attempt.

Philistines. Cretins. Ignoramuses.

Pity these words exist.

Is there truly a forum to express yourself at will?

Is there a soapbox that liberates the mind and soul?

Is there some place, somewhere, where regard for the self's privacy is vanquished by the temptation of revelation?

Are all these possible as a non-trivial solution, instead of shouting into an empty void of self-doubt and madness?

Seems not.

Linear dependence it is, then. Even with Facebook. Even with ranting blogs. Even with all this bullshit.

So...how was your day, people? :)

Can't sleep. Woke up at 4pm and had been listening to this since. It's got a nice house vibe. Can't remember my dream now.

DJ Tiësto Feat Julie Thompson - Do You Feel Me

Dream jotting, number 1:

- I was going to be a captain of a voyage.

- I got a free t-shirt

- I missed the ship, no matter how hard I tried to get there on time.

- people tried to help, but they always ended up screwing it for me (I vividly recall Henry Chak being one of them)

- I don't remember what the trip was for, but it was exciting

- there was this constant sense of dread, relief, dread

Control your emotions, Steven. You already know the truth. Don't deny it.

Deadmau5 - 1981 (Adam K Remix)

Despite whatever grievances I may have with my marketing professor, I must admit that I greatly admire, appreciate, and envy for one of his most profound talents: no matter how much full of shit he believes you are, he will always and consistently give you a great smile, an acknowledging nod, and a near-impenetrable sense of sincerity and understanding. And this is before he even starts his spiel on how he understands where you're coming from, yada yada...

This is something only a first-rate marketing professor/professional can give, something you cannot fully believe in until you witness it yourself. And when you do witness it...when he looks in your eye and gives off a smile that is the hallmark of sincerity... I must say I was quite enraptured. What a maestro.

Reminds me of a old quote by Nietzsche.

p.s. are we meeting over xmas break?

Only in this program would I actually consider midterm week actually
easier than my regular week.

Just a whimsical thought...

Now...relax...unwind...and start studying.

Arnej - Sunday Morning Walk

this week is a bad week.

I finally get why people are so much more marks-driven this year...haha it's all about tops choices for exchange :P

Which means I've been in the dark for 2 months now...oops. Gotta start being perfectionist again.

Tentative choices for now (in tentative order):
ESADE, Barcelona
SMU, Singapore
HKUST, Hong Kong
RSM, Netherlands
Tsinghua SEM, Beijing
HEC Paris, France

Haha...business schools and their acronyms, psh. :P

Self-proposal: less facebook, more blogging.

School update: school's going well, all in all. It's a huge amount of work, but I'm very glad I'm able to barely hold on. It's sort of like a cheap, roller coaster thrill. Ohhh...so much work, so much work. 6 courses is killer. Can't wait for a break..note: need to bug you guys more about helping me in lin alg. Apparently I'm already starting to suck.

Work: So I've started applying for summer jobs now, to make up for the lost time last summer. Wish me luck, haha

Other business: still can't participate in sports well. Joined Model UN + International affairs association to fill in the time. Is it just me that's a bit flabbergasted with the state of political arena in Canada right now? People are so entranced by the US election, like it's some primetime soap opera. And Canadian politics gets left in the sidelines.(I'm also guilty as charged). I know the US election is a huge thing, but come on, you have a civic duty on Tuesday......stop spending your time gushing about how Obama is the next messiah. Try actually learning the issues.

House stuff: I discovered that I like cooking. :) And I hate cleaning. But I also hate dirty houses. - -;

Drinking: Less binge drinking = better times.

INTJ - Jung Typology Test / Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Your Type is

INTJ

Introverted	Intuitive	Thinking	Judging
Strength of the preferences %
22	75	12	22

Post yours! http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

Who am I?

I've been avoiding this question for much too long.

not intending to offend ur sense of privacies of course, but i was
curious what you guys think abt the election this year (canadian -
i've heard enough abt US brouhaha) care to share your political
preferences? :)

--
Steven

oh...k. so I can almost talk like a regular human being now.
malocclusion is still not completely gone (due to a f'ed up procedural
shit), but it's not really noticeable so I should stop bitching.

as for school...hard, for the first time, in a long time. very hard.
i've never had so much demanded from me, especially not so much
pressure that is not attributed to my own messed up
perfectionist/procrastination tendencies.

i love it.

food for thought:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination#The_tense-afraid_type
it's hilarious how diagnostic-al wikis get, eh?

Anyone in the mood for a trance song? lol

It is interesting that the Olympics is finishing up on the 24th. So right after I watch the men's marathon, I will have to endure a whole new experience of my own: a three hour operation.

I'm putting all the details I can recall here because I feel somewhat responsible of offering an explanation to you guys, as well as needing to reference at least some of the important transformations during my life.

What I'm going through is called an orthognathic surgery, and is done by an oral maxillofacial surgeon called Dr. Tocchio. Nice friendly guy. He planned this since I was 13 years old with my orthodontist, Dr. Nguyen. They usually have to collaborate because the orthodontists have to line up the teeth first before the oral maxillofacial surgeon can determine how much to move the jaw. 

Which brings me to the diagnosis and prognosis. What I have is called class III malocclusion, vernacularly known as an underbite. Mine is a special case where the right bone of my mandible grew at a faster rate than the left side, which causes half of my teeth to completely miss each other when I bite. A big gap between my teeth also does not serve my speech abilities well, and I am lucky to not have developed a lisp as of yet because the mandible grew out during teen years and not when I was a baby. This condition is most likely to be recessive genetic trait, as neither of my parents show these symptoms. (Didn't stop them from blaming me for this condition, though) So the surgery is serves both functional and aesthetic purposes.

The surgery procedures, as I said, takes around 3 hours at NYGH. Dr. Tocchio will sedate me with an anesthesiologist (thank god and science), and then start cutting into my gums from the inside of my mouth. He will start with the lower jaw by cutting each side of the mandible 3 times, and taking out a bone from each side, and then sliding the broken mandible to the appropriate position. To secure the broken jaw to place, he'll put in titanium plating and screws to hold the face together while the bones grow back. Then he will conduct another "controlled bone fracture" on my upper jaw. (A controlled bone fracture is when a piece of your bones is completely detached from the rest of the skeletal structure, but remains attached to soft tissue-applies to both of my jaws) He will shift the upper jaw a bit to line up with the rest of my face, and graft the two pieces he took from my lower jaw into the upper jaw. The titanium plating and screws follow. In other words, he will break both of my jaws before putting it together again with titanium. Lastly, he will have to line up my chin again because it got slanted during development, so that involves cutting into my gums below my bottom incisors, controlled bone fracture, realignment, securement, etc. 

He's very professional.

So then it'll be 2 hospital nights, a few days of liquid diet, and week of numbness. Hopefully the swelling comes down then. The 2 biggest risks are infections, and permanent numbness (only for useless face muscles, not the important motor ones), in that order. Nothing too serious. Hopefully, I'll regain speech function by mid-September, which is just in time for school. Too bad there's still braces after this, and I'll have to add elastics too to make my teeth and face muscles adjust to the new bite. So that elusive smile won't finish until...quite a while. Hopefully by this Christmas.

So yeah, that's basically what I'm been planning for this summer. Sadly, this had to take priority over a summer job. Oh well.

Just a neat music video I refound today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYbLR67_F9E

I'm a modern man.
I'm a modern man.
I'm a modern man.
I'm a modern man.

I'm a modern man,
A man for the millennium,
Digital and smoke free.

A diversified multicultural postmodern deconstructionist,
Politically anatomically and ecologically incorrect.

I've been uplinked and downloaded.
I've been inputted and outsourced.
I know the upside of downsizing.
I know the downside of upgrading.

I'm a high tech lowlife.
A cutting edge state-of-the-art bicoastal multitasker,
And I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond.

I'm new wave but I'm old school,
And my inner child is outward bound.

I'm a hot-wired heat-seeking warm-hearted cool customer,
Voice activated and biodegradable.

I interface from a database,
And my database is in cyberspace,
So I'm interactive,
I'm hyperactive,
And from time-to-time,
I'm radioactive.

Behind the eight-ball,
Ahead of the curve,
Riding the wave,
Dodging a bullet,
Pushing the envelope.

I'm on point,
On task,
On message,
And off drugs.
I got no need for coke and speed,
I got no urge to binge and purge.

I'm in the moment,
On the edge,
Over the top,
But under the radar.

A high concept,
Low profile,
Medium range ballistic missionary.
A street-wise smart bomb.
A top gun bottom feeder.

I wear power ties,
I tell power lies,
I take power naps,
I run victory laps.

I'm a totally ongoing bigfoot slam dunk rainmaker with a proactive outreach.
A raging workaholic.
A working rage-aholic.
Out of rehab,
And in denial.

I got a personal trainer,
A personal shopper,
A personal assistant,
And a personal agenda.

You can't shut me up,
You can't dumb me down.
'Cause I'm tireless,
And I'm wireless.
I'm an alpha male on beta blockers.

I'm a non-believer and an over-achiever.
Laid back but fashion forward.

Up front,
Down home,
Low rent,
High maintenance.

Super size,
Long lasting,
High definition,
Fast acting,
Oven ready,
And built to last.

I'm a hands on,
Foot loose,
Knee jerk,
Head case.

Prematurely post traumatic,
And I have a love child who sends me hate mail.

But I'm feeling,
I'm caring,
I'm healing,
I'm sharing.
A supportive bonding nurturing primary care giver.

My output is down,
But my income is up.
I take a short position on the long bond,
And my revenue stream has its own cash flow.

I read junk mail,
I eat junk food,
I buy junk bonds,
I watch trash sports.

I'm gender specific,
Capital intensive,
User friendly,
And lactose intolerant.

I like rough sex.
I like rough sex.
I like tough love.
I use the f word in my email,
And the software on my hard drive is hard core, no soft porn.

I bought a microwave at a mini mall.
I bought a mini van in a mega store.
I eat fast food in the slow lane.

I'm toll free,
Bite sized,
Ready to wear,
And I come in all sizes.

A fully equipped,
Factory authorized,
Hospital tested,
Clinically proven,
Scientifically formulated medical miracle.

I've been pre-washed,
Pre-cooked,
Pre-heated,
Pre-screened,
Pre-approved,
Pre-packaged,
Post-dated,
Freeze-dried,
Double-wrapped,
Vacuum-packed,
And I have an unlimited broadband capacity.

I'm a rude dude,
But I'm the real deal.
Lean and mean.
Cocked, locked and ready to rock.
Rough tough and hard to bluff.

I take it slow.
I go with the flow.
I ride with the tide.
I got glide in my stride.

Drivin' and movin',
Sailin' and spinnin',
Jivin' and groovin',
Wailin' and winnin'.

I don't snooze,
So I don't lose.
I keep the pedal to the metal,
And the rubber on the road.

I party hearty,
And lunch time is crunch time.

I'm hanging in,
There ain't no doubt.
And I'm hanging tough,
Over and out.

disturbing revelation.

i just recalled my last dream tonight. in it, i assisted in the murder/torture (can't remember which) of a classmate. the main perpetrator was of course, another classmate.

i swear to god, i hold no grudges against this dude.

How do you tell if we're in a slowdown, recession, or a full depression?

When other people lose their jobs, economists call it a slowdown.

When you lose your job, economists call it a recession.

When economists lose their jobs, it's a full depression. :)

If the truth is that you can find CFL lighting in friggin dollar
stores now...you absolutely have NO excuse whatsoever to not convert.
When considering lifetime costs, people are literally paying you to be
environmentally friendly. Haha.

Because of DC++, I am now officially an HD junkie.

sigh.

--
Steven Wang

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama 

"A More Perfect Union"

Constitution Center

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.