Below is an excerpt from speech given by the President on June 17th, 2013, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Go here for the full transcript hosted at whitehouse.gov. 

Because issues like segregated schools and housing, lack of jobs and opportunity — symbols of history that are a source of pride for some and pain for others — these are not tangential to peace; they’re essential to it.  If towns remain divided — if Catholics have their schools and buildings, and Protestants have theirs — if we can’t see ourselves in one another, if fear or resentment are allowed to harden, that encourages division.  It discourages cooperation.   

Mounds of conservative news outlets have picked up on this, and the hyperbole runneth over. What the President said, however, is not nearly as unsettling as the implications.