In Obama's Own Words, for Both Supporters and Nonsupporters:
Part I
For Obama Supporters: Enlightenment
For Clinton Supporters: Encouragement
For McCain Supporters: Ammunition
For all those persons who have neither the time nor the
inclination to read over 480 pages of Barack Obama's first book,
here are some quotations taken from that book, "Dreams from My
Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance", by Barack Obama,
published by Three Rivers Press, New York, New York, Copyright
1995, 2004, paperback edition, ISBN 978-1-4000-8277-3 (Original
edition ISBN 1-4000-8277-3). It is noted that in 1995, Barack
Obama was 34 years old.
This "Part I" covers Chapters 1-8 of the book.
[PRELIMINARY NOTE: I have CAPITALIZED WORDS what I want to
emphasize. These words were NOT capitalized by Obama].
Page 24:
About his grandfather, Gramps, his mother's father, in discussing
how Gramps would deal with his customers as a furniture salesman,
Obama, states:
"I would hear in him the breezy, chatty style that he must have
decided would help him with his customers. He would whip out
pictures of the family and offer his life story to the nearest
stranger; he would pump the hand of the mailman or make off-color
jokes to our waitresses at restaurants. Such antics USED TO MAKE
ME CRINGE, but people more forgiving than a grandson appreciated
his curiosity; so that while he never gained much influence, he
made himself a wide circle of friends."
Bottom Page 25 to top of Page 26:
About stories his grandparents told Obama about his absent father
who had returned to Kenya, Obama states:
"The stories gave voice to a spirit that would grip the nation
for that fleeting period between Kennedy's election and the
passage of the Voting Rights Act: the seeming triumph of
universalism over parochialism and narrowmindedness, a bright new
world where differences of race or culture would instruct and
amuse and perhaps even ennoble. A USEFUL FICTION, ONE THAT
HAUNTS ME NO LESS THAN IT HAUNTED MY FAMILY, evoking as it does
some lost Eden that extends beyond mere childhood."
Page 47:
Telling some of the things he learned from his mother, Obama
states:
"She had always encouraged my rapid acculturation in Indonesia:
It had made me relatively self-sufficient, undemanding on a tight
budget, and EXTREMELY WELL MANNERED WHEN COMPARED TO OTHER
AMERICAN CHILDREN. She had taught me to DISDAIN THE BLEND OF
IGNORANCE AND ARROGANCE THAT TOO OFTEN CHARACTERIZED AMERICANS
ABROAD."
Page 50:
In describing some aspects of his mother, Obama states:
"In a land where fatalism remained a necessary tool for enduring
hardship, where ultimate truths were kept separate from day-to-
day realities, she was a lonely witness for SECULAR HUMANISM, a
soldier for New Deal, Peace Corps, position-paper liberalism."
Page 122:
In describing some of the ways he spent time when living in New
York City, Obama states:
"Political discussions, the kind that at Occidental had once
seemed so intense and purposeful, came to take on the flavor of
the SOCIALIST CONFERENCES I SOMETIMES ATTENDED at Cooper Union or
the African cultural fairs that took place in Harlem and Brooklyn
during the summers--a few of the many diversions New York had to
offer, like going to a foreign film or ice-skating at Rockefeller
Center."
Page 133:
In 1983, after deciding to become a community organizer, Obama
states:
"When classmates in college asked me just what a community
organizer did, I couldn't answer them directly. Instead, I'd
pronounce on the need for CHANGE. Change in the White House,
where REAGAN and his minions were carrying on their DIRTY DEEDS.
Change in the CONGRESS, COMPLIANT AND CURRUPT. Change in the
MOOD OF THE COUNTRY, MANIC AND SELF-ABSORBED. Change won't come
from the top, I would say. Change will come from a mobilized
grass roots. That's what I'll do, I'll ORGANIZE BLACK FOLKS. AT
THE GRASS ROOTS. FOR CHANGE."
Page 139:
After some short-term jobs in Chicago, Obama was unemployed, and
he states:
"In six months I was broke, unemployed, eating soup from a can.
IN SEARCH OF SOME INSPIRATION, I went to hear Kwame Toure,
formerly Stokely Carmichael of SNCC and BLACK POWER FAME, speak
at Columbia."
Page 154:
Describing some aspects of his education in Indonesia, Obama
states:
"In Indonesia, I had SPENT TWO YEARS AT A MUSLIM SCHOOL, two
years at a Catholic School. In the Muslim School, the teacher
wrote to tell my mother that I made faces during KORANIC STUDIES.
My mother wasn't overly concerned. 'Be respectful,' she said."
Page 163, first paragraph:
At the age of about 22, thinking and imagining about different
men that he knew who had differing opinions, Obama states:
"Each image carried its own lesson, each was subject to differing
interpretations. For there were many churches, many faiths.
There were times, perhaps, when those faiths seemed to converge--
the crowd in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the Freedom Riders at
the lunch counter. But such moments were partial, fragmentary.
With ours eyes closed, we uttered the same words, BUT IN OUR
HEARTS WE EACH PRAYED TO OUR OWN MASTERS; we each remained locked
in our own memories; WE ALL CLUNG TO OUR OWN FOOLISH MAGIC."
Page 163, last paragraph:
In comparing his feelings to the feelings of others about
religion, Obama states:
"I realized then, standing in an emply McDonald's parking lot in
the South Side of Chicago, that I WAS A HERETIC. OR WORSE--FOR
EVEN A HERETIC MUST BELIEVE IN SOMETHING, if nothing more than
the truth of his own doubt."
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