During my recent drive to Pittsburgh for the Jubilee Conference, I listened to an audio recording of Barak Obama reading his first book, “Dreams From My Father,” written and published over a decade before he became the 44th President of the United States. While not a terribly well-written book, it was nonetheless an interesting insight into an unlikely Presidential legacy.
Since this was before he became President, it was not laden with the additional intensity of being the memoir of the First Black President of the United States. Instead, the book offers a glimpse into the experience of a mixed-race child from a broken home, trying to understand who he was, largely without knowing his father. Recounting men who were “father figures,” Obama somehow learned how to be a man. Yet the absence of his own father, whose race defined him more than his white mother’s did as he moved into community organization and advocacy, clearly made an impact on him.
The most intriguing aspect of this story was when he traveled to Kenya to meet his father’s family. The drama he encountered there would have put any American soap opera to shame, with people claiming to be his father’s children, women who were his father’s lovers, and family feuds over name and land.
This part of his story also paints a stark picture of the incredibly privilege associated with simply being born on American soil. Obama’s Kenyan half-siblings had a much harder life than he did, and had to overcome many more odds in order to gain education and opportunity. I gathered from listening that Obama is aware of this, and that it informs his decisions and humbles him.
While I do not agree with all of President Obama’s political policies, I think he is someone I could be friends with. His sense of humor and awareness of self strike me as being authentic. And reading this book has helped me to find praying for him easier. He is our nation’s President, yes. But he is also a man who had to grow up quickly and find his way in the world, avoiding so many of the pitfalls that have shipwrecked many men like him.
I think he did a pretty good job, in that respect.