Does America still want to be a "Melting Pot"?

Racism is an important issue in my life, so I am very exited that America has finally made the decision to elect a minority President. I was however, a bit disappointed in the comments of race President Obama mentioned in his Inaugural Address –perhaps more confused than disappointed. Elizabeth Alexander seems to agree with Obama’s comments about race for the most part, but her opinions also confuse me.
In his inaugural address President Obama continues to speak of unity. This makes sense since we are the United States of America. But he goes so far as to unify all of our backgrounds even though we all may not share the same history. While remembering those that shaped America into the country it is today, President Obama announces that “For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.” In these words Obama acknowledges that we are a people who have benefited from these endeavors whether we are decedents of slaves or immigrants. He acknowledges the immigrants who broke their backs working and eventually moves westward to and through America. With this statement President Obama announces that we all share this background whether we come from people who moved to this land willingly or as slaves. However, President Obama fails to mention those people who have remained on this land for centuries. Native Americans, who do not come from across oceans and have remained on this land for a considerably longer time than the first Americans, do not share these same backgrounds. Their struggles were quite different than the struggles of immigrants and slaves. To say that every American has a common background is false, yet President Obama fails to include all types of ancestry in his speech. It seems that Obama’s view of unity seems to involve uniting our backgrounds even though they are different, perhaps even polar opposites.
Elizabeth Alexander’s view, as expressed in her poem “Praise Song for the Day” seems to view American ancestry in a slightly different scope. At the beginning of her poem, Alexander mentions noise and din. She describes a compilation of spiritual and emotional sounds that we human beings hear everyday. She explains that this noise is the jumble of influences of “each one of our ancestors.” At this point in the poem, Alexander notes that we all have ancestors, but she doesn’t assume that our ancestors come from one source or another, or even both. She does, however, follow the same pattern as President Obama, by listing characteristics of the ancestors of some Americans while forgetting others’ ancestors.
Both Alexander, in her poem, and Obama, in his inaugural speech, emphasize the importance of unity within America and even throughout the world. To complicate this idea of unity, Obama recites “For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.” While our differences are a horrible sound to Alexander, our “patchwork heritage” is music to President Obama’s ears even though he has not expressed all aspects of American history and ancestry. Basically I found aspects of both Alexander’s poem, and Obama’s speech contradictory, and confusing. The common method of unity seems to be a unification of history and ancestry, even though this hodgepodge of ethnicity and social background make America a celebrated “Melting Pot.” The fact that America has voted black man into the presidency reflects more than just the racism or lack of racism in America. It also reveals that America’s concept of race is changing. But does this concept include the race of our ancestors? Obama’s speech as well as Alexander’s poem seem to lack the importance of racial differences when referring to ancestors. Our ancestors made us who we are today. Obama recognizes this, but he doesn’t mention the importance of these differences among our ancestors. But instead of forgetting or ignoring the differences of our backgrounds, I propose we acknowledge, embrace, and share these differences as well as the similarities.