Mr. Obama told them: “I can’t tell you how many people have come up to Michelle and myself and said, ‘You know, I was kind of skeptical, but then my daughter, she wouldn’t budge, she just told me I needed to vote for Obama.’ Or, ‘Suddenly I saw my son, he was out volunteering and knocking on doors and traveling and getting involved like never before.’ And so new generations inspired previous generations, and that’s how change happens in America.”

He said this applied not just to campaigns but to service, like teaching or joining the Peace Corps.

“And as this is broadcast all around the world,” he added, “we know that young people everywhere are in the process of imagining something different than what has come before. Where there is war, they imagine peace. Where there is hunger, they imagine people being able to feed themselves. Where there is disease, they imagine a public health system that works for everybody. Where there is bigotry, they imagine togetherness. The future will be in your hands if you are able to sustain the kind of energy and focus that you showed on this campaign. I promise you that America will get stronger and more united, more prosperous, more secure — you are going to make it happen, and Michelle and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts.”

via the NY Times

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Came such light:

K’Naan is a Somali-Canadian Rapper and Poet.   He left Somalia at the age of 14 to come to the US and then on to Canada. During his youth he witnessed terrible things: murder, rape, continuous violence.  His story, at least to someone like me- US resident, middle class, white – is like something out of a movie.  Can I really relate to what he’s been through?  At first glance probably not.  But if you dig a little deeper his story is also universal:  Out of hardship, out of darkness,  there can be beauty.  There can be love,  and there can be light.    It’s just your choice to find it right?

African rapper K’Naan once blew up half his school with a hand grenade. Now he’s using music to push for peace. Jane Cornwell met him

Somali rapper K’Naan fired his first gun at the age of eight. At 11, he found a hand grenade, detonated it by mistake and blew up half his school. At 12, he was running through the streets of Mogadishu after seeing his three best friends shot dead.

As the civil war escalated – it rages in Somalia to this day – he saw riots, rapes, mob rule. He watched his neighbourhood turn from a coastal idyll to “The River of Blood”, named by the UN as “the worst place on earth”. His mother walked through gunfire to the US Embassy to get her family a visa. K’Naan Warsame was 14 when they left in January, 1991. Theirs was the last ever commercial flight out.

-Jane Cornwall Via The Telegraph

I thought  for quite a while about whether to include this video and his story on this blog.  After all,  this is a blog about positive uplifting things.   But I also know that often,  the people looking for something uplifting are also the ones peeking out from sort of darkness in their lives.  I guess the point is:  Sometimes the darkness makes the light even more potent,  even brighter than it would be alone… 

“I want to show that change doesn’t have to be loud and famous, that struggle can become power,” K’Naan says. “And whether it’s the hip-hop crowd or high school kids, everyone seems to get it.”

In the years since his leaving Somalia K’Naan has  spoken  before the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.  In 1999  he performed a spoken word piece criticizing the UN for their failed aid missions to Somalia. 

more info about K’Naan can be found here and here and here.

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