Talk Back

[galactic_dev]

Obama's first book, written in his early 30s, was intended to be a book about race, but became a book about his family and upbringing. Considering that he has a mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya and spent several childhood years in Indonesia (and most of the other childhood years in Hawaii), his life story represents interweavings of race that make for an emotional search for self.

I felt like I was reading the newest chapter of Black History. There were no simple racial answers for him, since his mother (and her parents) were so integral to his upbringing, even though most of the US codes him as "black."

After reading Ellison's Invisible Man last year, I felt like I was reading a much more optimistic sequel here.

Considering his many-branched family tree includes people of many different races and religions (including a secular humanist mother), and that his INFP nature has led him to search for a harmonization of these disparate peoples and views, he strikes me as an optimal anti-Bush and I hope to see him become our next president.

He wrote this book before running for any office, so I'm curious to see if his newer book, The Audacity of Hope (a term coined from controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright), reads differently. I'll review that in a month or 2 when I've read it.