After seven years as American leader, US President Barack Obama delivered his final State of the Union Address to members of the US Congress last week. Obama expressed hope in the future, asserting that “voices of unarmed truth and unconditional love” would have the final word. However, he cautioned that there were also voices “urging us to fall back into tribes, to scapegoat fellow citizens who don’t look like us, or pray like us, or vote like we do, or share the same background”. Obama’s warning: “We can’t afford to go down that path.”