Recently I finished Barack Obama’s memoire, first published in 1995, called Dreams from my Father. I like the way he analyses his own and other people’s identities. For himself as a highschool kid on Hawaii two things were important: being black in a white country and having, in spite of being black, a white mother. This tended to be a little confusing. As he grows up, gets educated and immerses himself in social work, he gradually shifts his attention to the way other people see themselves:
“beneath the small talk and sketchy biographies and received opinions, people carried within them some central explanation of themselves. Stories full of terror and wonder, studded with events that still haunted or inspired them. Sacred stories.” (p 190)
Working in a torn apart black Chicago neighbourhood, he tries to connect people’s individual stories with their collective problems: how come so many black people fail to get ahead? Thinking about this question he manages to avoid the easy, big picture, large scale generalisations. ‘Contradictory experiences’ and ‘the messy reality of history’ are among his favorite expressions.
Eventually his own identity knocks on the door again. He never knew his father, who was a black man from Kenya. Now seems the time to visit his family over there. The Kenyan trip will indeed proof a spiritual revelation to him, a confirmation of his suspicion that blacks in America should turn to their African roots for inspiration and cultural pride.
In this third, African part of the book Barack ‘lost’ me a few times: his enthousiasm sometimes seemed to overshadow his subtility. Towards the end one passage really annoyed me. Barack meets his half-brother Mark. Unlike Barack, Mark doesn’t need his African roots. He likes Shakespeare and Beethoven, in other words: hard-core white culture. Of course Barack remains polite, but it’s clear from the narrative that he disaproves of Mark, feels alienated and disappointed towards him.
I don’t understand that. Surely a black American is not obliged to seek salvation in Africa, is he? Mark can be touched and uplifted by whatever culture he wants. It’s a free country, Barack.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Does Barack say anything about his brothers sacred stories, I wonder. Though I can imagine that it's hard when your brothers culture and believes are so different from your own.
No he doesn't. He just sees Mark as disloyal to his african family. Maybe he analyses Mark as secretly despising his own blackness.
Did you see third rock from the sun on Belgium television today. It was the episode on ethnic minorities and the aliens had to figure out which minority group they belonged to.
In one scene Dick professes not to know his co-worker is black because "I just can't see the difference between all you people".
In the end their neighbour has to tell them they're Jewish, and they are so very relieved to finally belong.
i only saw the closing scenes, with the jewish name. Haha, with the neighbour not knowing how they just picked that name randomly, after reading it on a truck in the street.
Post a Comment