This week, online media outlet Gawker leaked presidential hopeful Mitt “Mittens” Romney’s financial data that he has been avoiding releasing to the public himself. Gawker found oodles of information on where his money is coming from, how he avoids paying taxes on it, and some of it proves incumbent Barack “Barry” Obama right on a few key points in his arguments on the economy. As a devout liberal, this leak got me as excited as an episode of “The West Wing.” I know so much about Barry’s policies, but I realized recently that I know so little about the man himself. So when I saw this book at the library, I couldn’t resist it.
Okay, I didn’t actually read Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama. I listened to it. But before you knock that and say, “Helena! You goose! That doesn’t count as reading!” hold up. Stephen King counts it as reading. He says he reads six to eight books a year via audiobook, and I’m not going to tell Stephen King he’s wrong. Plus, Barry himself reads it, and no matter where you lie politically, I think we can all agree that he has a voice as smooth as butter (and he got a Grammy for it, so there).
Maybe the fact that Barry read it made me love it so much, but I seriously can not get enough of this guy. I always think it’s weird when younger people write biographies (hello, Miley Cyrus’ Miles to Go) because it feels like they still have so much more to do. Granted, Barry isn’t a super young guy, but he wrote this before he was even elected to Congress. I thought the book would be all about politics and how this country is going off the deep end; instead, I found a fiction-like account of a fascinating life.
The book starts with stories of his grandparents: their childhoods, their marriage, their dreams. He tells stories of his mother’s childhood and how his parents met. They seem like typical recollections from a child regarding his parents’ relationship. It isn’t until later, when Barry himself realizes that race is an issue, that you really see how odd the biracial relationship is. I mean, they were in love right smack in the middle of the civil rights movement. It’s also pretty great to see how little she cared, and that’s obvious through Barry’s description of her relationships with his Kenyan father, also named Barack, and Lolo, his Indonesian step-father.
He talks about his childhood in Hawaii and his experiences in Jakarta, where he lived for four years. He talks about his mother and her influence on him. She made sacrifices for his education, she made sure he was surrounded by respectful individuals and she created an image of his father to model himself after. I think he would have been fine modeling himself after her, because she’s kind of a rockstar, but everything worked out pretty great so I’m not going to judge. He talks about the other men in his life: his grandfather, an ambitious and good man, and Lolo, his supportive ex-step-father. Lolo teaches him how to box when he gets bullied and gives him a pet monkey upon his arrival in Indonesia. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
He talks about his adolescence, spent back in Hawaii, where he does normal, teenage-ry things. He goes to school, he deals with racism, he tries to become what he thinks a black man in America is, with his voice switching drastically from a correct young boy to a slang-talking young man. He recalls a conversation with a high school friend and repeats the curse words uttered by both of them. I’m not going to lie, I squealed. Barack Obama curses– he’s just like me!
He talks about college, and the crazy partying he did at Occidental which led him to transfer to Columbia. He talks about Kenya and his family there. There are so many situations he is put in that are so unique to him, it honestly seems made up. I could never imagine George Bush or Bill Clinton just hanging out with a monkey named Toto in Jakarta, and I can’t imagine them saying the words “reefer,” “getting laid,” or the racial slurs repeated by Barry.
While neither Mittens nor Barry have particularly imitable lives that the average American can say is similar to theirs, I find Barry’s the more relatable of the two. Sure, he’s a well travelled man with a rich cultural heritage. He was surrounded by all sorts of languages and traditions that not many people have the opportunity to see. But he still faced more adversity than Mittens ever has, largely because of his race and the strong female figures that dominated and shaped his life.
It’s hard sometimes to separate the men from the politics they advocate on Capitol Hill and it is far too easy to label them all as corrupt. This book offers insight into Barry’s experiences that shape his beliefs and values. Since he wrote it before he was involved in politics, it has no agenda other than to recollect his experiences, which I find refreshing. I recommend it to anyone who is into silky smooth voices, or wants to see the man in the Oval Office, not his administration.
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