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Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1572
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 23, 2008 - 09:36 pm: | 
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Barack Obamas' Grandparents; Madelyn & Stanley Dunham
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I hope this is in good taste
"...But now, more than anyone, I am thinking of Barack Obama's grandparents. One of the big mistakes we make when we look at the history of race in this country is to focus on big people and big events. What should be remembered is that, though our racial history is mired in utter disgrace, though the deep cowardice of post-reconstruction haunts us into the 21st century, at any point on the timeline, you can find ordinary white people doing the right thing. Frederick Douglass, himself a biracial black man, is a hero of mine. But arguably more heroic, is Helen Pitts, his second wife--a white woman, who traced her history back to the Mayflower, whose ancestors founded Richmond Township, NY, and who was cast out for marrying Douglass. Here is a white woman who spent the best years of her life fighting for suffrage and racial justice....
Read the entire Blog post: http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/i_hope_this_is_in_good_taste.php |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 7489
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, October 25, 2008 - 11:06 am: |
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Oooooh! They did what they was SUPPOSED to do and we supposed to give them a medal.
I'm going to go on this Negro's site and give him a piece of my mind!!! |
Steve_s
Veteran Poster
Username: Steve_s
Post Number: 405
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, October 26, 2008 - 07:19 am: |
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Oh, come on fellas  I refuse to believe that all three of you have not read Dreams From My Father.
Not to take anything away from Helen Pitts, but according to Wikipedia, she was approximately 46 years at the time she and the 66 year old Douglass were wed, unlike Ann Dunham, who was only about 18 when she announced her intentions to marry a 25 year old foreign student. That it would not have been outrageous for Obama's grandparents to have misgivings on those grounds alone, is proven by the fact that at the time, Barack Obama, Sr. was actually married to Kezia, with whom he had four children back in Kenya (with one more on the way, I believe). Then at Harvard he married another woman who would follow him to Kenya and have two children by him.
The point is not that his grandparents did not merely do "what they were supposed to do," after all, they raised the man who will likely be the next President of the United States.
More to the point is that in order to build up his self-esteem they created an image in his mind of his father as a heroic figure.
..................
The following excerpts are from a critical review of Dreams From My Father by David Samuels in The New Republic, entitled "How Ralph Ellison Explains Barack Obama":
Dreams from My Father is a story about the consequences of a fiction created by a white mother and well-meaning white grandparents in order to give a fatherless black child a sustaining myth by which to live...
The darkness of his father's actual life stands in sharp contrast to the invented character who was present throughout Obama's childhood and adolescence--a man who was universally liked, brilliant, strong, athletic, a great dancer, who never backed down from a chance to stand up for the universal rights of man; a figure so perfect and yet so troubling in his absence that it is easy to see how the young writer would need to uncover his failings in a public way.
Obama's father, whose lessons about the paramount importance of self-confidence were transmitted to his eager son through the agency of Gramps, in one of the few lines of actual instruction that he ever gives, can also be read in light of another memorable character...
The self-sacrifice involved by the Dunhams in raising their grandson is one of the most admirable parts of Obama's story, and there is every sign that Obama is fully aware of how hard his mother and his grandparents worked in order to help him find a place in the world. But in the end, they can't...
http://www.tnr.com/toc/story.html?id=5c263e1d-d75d-4af9-a1d7-5cb761500092
You may not agree with everything in Samuels's piece, but you can decide for yourselves. On that note, I finally read something - a book about Obama - by Shelby Steele, who I'd known only by his reputation as the Great Hobgoblin to so many African Americans. You've got to be kidding |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 3257
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, October 26, 2008 - 02:12 pm: |
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Chis, I do see your point. Sen Obama's grandparents did what many, many Black relatives of biracial children (and White adults) have done but rarely are given kudos for--taken them in and loved and cared for them even though society places a stigma on such relationships. However, instead of decrying this instance of credit, maybe we should focus more on giving proper credit to all who care for others when circumstances seem stacked against such relationships.
I think a reason why Obama rushing to be with his "Toot" is resonating so much with many Black people is that this--perhaps oddly enough--makes him even more "Black." Most of us do not have White grandparents, true. But many of us have been raised--in all or in large part--by a grandma, Big Momma, Nana. And of course folks of any race of a certain age certainly can relate to this feeling of the narrowing of one's kinship line at the older end. You take your elders for granted all of your life and then one day you wake up and discover that you are the "elder" of the clan...
Steve, please share more about your thoughts of Steele's book! |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12998
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, October 26, 2008 - 06:39 pm: |
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Indeed. Forget about bi-racial offspring; the "Madears" who populate the black underclass have raised a whole generation of black children born to drug-addicted or incarcerated parents.
Obama at least had 2 grandparents who had the wherewithal to be good role models and sensitive guardians. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12999
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, October 26, 2008 - 07:09 pm: |
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I don't know about Shelby Steele, but his cohort Thomas Sowell seems to be on a mission to discredit Obama, using his column to ridicule and demonize Barak, never once applying the same standards by which he judges Barak to expose Sarah Palin. He apparently thinks she can do no wrong.
I am always reluctant to cite jealousy to account for people's suspect motives but the only explanation I can fathom for Sowell's relentless criticism of Obama is that he resents and envies another black man for mounting an effective campaign for the presidency. As a result, Sowell has completely lost his credibility with me. |
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