Andrew Young
Barack Obama's election has made us tremendously proud, but it has given us, I'm afraid, too much hope. I'm constantly reminding [the black community] that he has never once promised, "Yes I can." He has always said, "Yes we can." He has never set himself up as a savior of the world. He set himself up as someone who articulates and represents and can hopefully lead us to be the best America that we can be. He isn't just black; he's an Afro-Asian-Latin European. That means he's a global citizen and an all-American boy. He defies categorization. The fact that his father and grandfather on one side were black doesn't make him any more of a black President than his grandfather on the other side being white would make him a white President. We claim him, and we are proud of him, but the fact is that he has not had the experiences of deprivation, humiliation and racism that I had to grow up with — which is good. He has the label without the scars.