This is one of a series of Barack Obama’s views on the topics of the greatest concern to the citizens of the United States:

Hate crimes related to the immigration issue is unacceptable

Because immigration reform was used as a political football instead of a way of solving a problem, nothing happened. It is absolutely critical that we tone down the rhetoric when it comes to immigration, because there has been an undertone that has been ugly. Oftentimes, it has been directed at the Hispanic community. We have seen hate crimes skyrocket in the wake of the immigration debate, & that is unacceptable. We are a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants, and we can reconcile those two things.

People want to move beyond our divisions

I am absolutely convinced that white, black, Latino, Asian, people want to move beyond our divisions, and they want to join together in order to create a movement for change in this country. I’m not entirely faulting the media because, look, race is a factor in our society. There’s no doubt that in a race where you’ve got an African-American, and a woman, and there’s no doubt that that has piqued interest. They are desperate to move beyond the same, old arguments that we’ve been having and start actually getting something done in this country. The Republicans may have a different attitude, because they haven’t been appearing before forums that are diverse. The policies that they have promoted have not been good at providing ladders for upward mobility and opportunity for all people. That is a fight that all of us will fight. But I don’t want us to get drawn into this notion that somehow this is going to be a race that splits along racial lines.

2004 DNC speech merged "heritage" with "diversity"

The story of his interracial background is usually the first thing one hears about Obama. But it is also very often the first story he tells about himself.

At the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston, Obama made the famous speech that launched him as a new star in national politics. By the third sentence of that speech we had heard about his Kenyan father and grandfather, and by the eighth sentence we had met his white mother from Kansas. By the third paragraph we had the white grandparents as well as a reference to his parents’ "improbable love."

And then came a deft recasting of his pedigree that would have scandalized most Americans only a generation ago. "I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage." And "in no other country on earth is my story even possible." Here, he both compliments his nation and gilds his heritage with today’s golden word, "diversity."

The politics of fear undermines basic civil liberties

What we cannot continue to do is operate as if we are the weakest nation in the world instead of the strongest one, because that’s not who we are and that’s not what the US has been about, historically. It is starting to warp our domestic policies, as well. We haven’t even talked about civil liberties and the impact of that politics of fear–what that has done to us, in terms of undermining basic civil liberties in this country, what it has done in terms of our reputation around the world.

1980s boss predicted Obama would be heir to MLK’s voice

After seeing how Obama’s poitical career unfolded, Jerry Kellman, [Obama's boss for his 1980's Chicago communnity organizing job] made a bold prclaimation: Despite chatter in some quarters of the black community that Obama hadn’t lived the typical African-American experience, Kellman predicted that he would be the most likely heir to Martin Luther King’s legacy as both the chief advocate and the moral voice of black Americans. He said Obama saw this role for himself years ago, even if he is reluctant to admit it publicly today for fear of sounding immodest and perhaps distancing himself from his non-black constituents.

Kellman also predicted that Obama would assume this mantle with thoughtfulness and a full understanding of its gravity. "If you look at the King analogy," Kellman said, "Barack has become the expectation of his people, similar to King. Barack will take on that burden of being that person who changes the situation for African Americans."

Racial equality good for America as a whole

Q: Is race still the most intractable issue in America?

A: [Those who worked on civil rights in the past realized that] to achieve racial equality was not simply good for African-Americans, but it was good for America as a whole; that we could not be what we might be as a nation unless we healed the brutal wounds of slavery and Jim Crow. Now, we have made enormous progress, but the progress we have made is not good enough. As many have already mentioned, we live in a society that remains separated in terms of life opportunities for African-Americans, for Latinos, and the rest of the nation. And it is absolutely critical for us to recognize that there are going to be responsibilities on the part of African-Americans and other groups to take personal responsibility to rise up out of the problems that we face. But there has also got to be a social responsibility, there has to be a sense of mutual responsibility, and there’s got to be political will in the White House to make that happen.

Put the Confederate flag in a museum, not the state house

Q: The NAACP has asked tourists, groups and sporting events not to come to South Carolina until the confederate flag has been removed from the statehouse grounds. Do you agree with that? Why are you, the candidates, in South Carolina if they support the NAACP?

A: I think that the Confederate flag should be put in a museum. That’s where it belongs. But we’ve got an enormous debate that’s taking place in this country right now. And we’ve got to engage the people of South Carolina in that debate.

Muslim heritage gives Obama unique influence in Muslim world

Pro’s and Con’s: Muslim heritage gives Obama unique influence in Muslim world

Pro: We need to be more popular in the Muslim world. US policies are highly unpopular in the Muslim world and are blamed for most of the region’s ill. We need to be more popular with them.

Con: The Muslim world needs to be more popular with us. Who cares? They need to be more like us.

Pro: Obama will be uniquely positioned to deal with the foreign policy challenge of the century, the Muslim world. "I will go to Pakistan," Obama might pledge. The dramatic gesture might tilt the balance in a close race. The newly inaugurated President Obama’s visit to Pakistan, where he scattered ashes from the World Trade Center at the footsteps of a mosque, is widely credited with the change in Pakistani sentiment that led to Bin Ladin’s capture in 2009.

Con: The principal foreign policy challenge of the early 21st century is China, and Obama brings nothing to the table there.

No black or white America–just United States of America

A line in my speech at the 04 Democratic National Convention struck a chord. "There is not a black American and white American and Latino America and Asian American–there is the United States of America." For them, it seems to capture a vision of America finally freed from the past of Jim Crow and slavery, Japanese internment camps and Mexican braceros, workplace tensions and cultural conflict–an America that fulfills Dr. King’s promise that we be judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character.

I have no choice but to believe this vision. As the child of a black man and white woman, born in the melting pot of Hawaii, with a sister who is half-Indonesian, but who is usually mistaken for Mexican, and a brother-in-law and niece of Chinese descent, with some relatives who resemble Margaret Thatcher and others who could pass for Bernie Mac, I never had the option of restricting my loyalties on the basis of race or measuring my worth on the basis of tribe.

Forthright on racial issues and on his civil rights history

Obama has very strong support in the African American community, which was really long in coming. A lot of people had doubts about him. They thought he would downplay racial issues and . But he doesn’t do that. He speaks forthrightly about racial issues and has a great deal of history and experience in a civil rights-oriented struggles. So, in many ways, he breaks that mold of the black politician who really softens his message to the point of homogeneity to appeal to a wide range.

Defend freedom and equality under law

As a civil rights attorney and professor of constitutional law, Obama has a keen understanding and deep appreciation of our nation’s core values and guiding principles. Obama will be a fierce defender of the fundamental American values of freedom and equality under law.

Politicians: don’t use religion to insulate from criticism

I am a great admirer of our founding charter and its resolve to prevent theocracies from forming and its resolve to prevent disruptive strains of fundamentalism from taking root in this country. I think there is an enormous danger on the part of public figures to rationalize or justify their actions by claiming God’s mandate. I don’t think it’s healthy for public figures to wear religion on their sleeve as a means to insulate themselves from criticism, or dialogue with people who disagree with them.

Miscegenation a felony in 1960 when Obamas practiced it

Miscegenation. The word is humpbacked, ugly, portending a monstrous outcome: like antebellum or octoroon, it evokes images of another era, a distant world of horsewhips and flames, dead magnolias and crumbling porticos. And yet it wasn’t until 1967 – three years after Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize, a time when America had already begun to weary of black demands for equality, the problem of discrimination presumably solved – that the Supreme Court of the US would get around to telling the state of Virginia that its ban on interracial marriages violated the Constitution.

The civil rights movement was a success

As segregated as Chicago was, as strained as race relations were, the success of the civil rights movement had at least created some overlap between communities, more room to maneuver for people like me. I could work in the black community as an organizer or a lawyer and still live in a high rise downtown. Or the other way around: I could work in a blue-chip law firm but live in the South Side and buy a big house, drive a nice car, make my donations to the NAACP, speak at local high schools.