Dreams From My Father

We have a very angry black man with a specific black agenda as our president and he’s very smart. So smart, in fact, that I believe his desire to bootstrap the blacks into equality will benefit all.

However, here’s his problem:

“They understand business, what it means to cooperate. They pool their money. Make each other loans. We don’t do that, see. The black merchants around here, we’re all like crabs in a bucket.” Further from Foster, former president of a local Chicago area Chamber of Commerce. “Maybe you can’t blame us for being the way we are. All those years without opportunity, you have to figure it took something out of us.”

“It’s a losing battle unless you do like the Koreans – work your family sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. As a people, we’re not willing to do that anymore. I guess we worked for so long for nothing, we feel we shouldn’t have to break our backs to survive. That’s what we tell our children anyway.”

Certainly an interesting take on the plight of the black culture - to know the answer and deny it, well, you reap what you sow.

In Africa Obama finds a familial culture, poor as dirt, but prideful. The destitution is unbelievable; the comparison to the poor blacks of America is startling. Yet, the familial pride of the African is perhaps necessary for existence. The pride seems to be a deep core factor – they certainly appear to have nothing of a tangible nature to be proud of, perhaps they’re proud of the fact that they remain proud even in the life of destitution.

This is an important book because it’s clear that Obama has an agenda. His book chronicles an amazing life of travel and learning. He’s a phenomenal person; I believe he may well have the basic decency to help us all by helping his heritage. Although it is interesting that he champions the black man at the disadvantage of the white when he’s half white. It’s also interesting that his father carried such a high level of impact when his actual time spent with the boy was only weeks.

At any rate, he does write well and it was a good read; although, I found his African experience to be a bit slow.