Rethinking Obama
1
Obama - Hope
Introduction
Barack Obama’s complex upbringing has polarised the media and brought a lot of controversy.2 His multicultural background made him a hero and villain at the same time. Chicago native? First African American President? Half white? Hawaiian? Indonesian? All of these labels have been used to simply box him into one of these categories. But we should not ignore the life experiences this brought and eventually defined his identity. Obama, like any American president, wanted to make history and be remembered by future generations for his greatness.3 On his quest to leave a mark on this earth, his public image has changed from being the coming-book superhero4 who would help Americans out of the recession to a terrible President who cannot fulfil his citizens expectations.
Before we can find out if he was rather a hero or a villain, we need to know who Barack Obama is, why he matters and why we have chosen him for this book.
Barack Hussein Obama II was born on August 4, 1961, in Hawaii to Ann Dunham, a white American from Kansas, and Barack Obama Sr., a black Kenyan. They met as students at the University of Hawaii. When Obama was two years old, his father left the family and returned to Kenya, where he died in a car accident nineteen years later. In 1963, Ann Dunham met another foreign student at the University of Hawaii, Lolo Soetoro of Indonesia. They got married and moved to Indonesia, where Obama lived from age six to ten with his mother and stepfather. He attended Catholic and Muslim schools.5
"I was raised as an Indonesian child and a Hawaiian child and as a black child and as a white child," Obama later recalled. "And so what I benefited from is a multiplicity of cultures that all fed me."6
In 1971 Obama's mother sent him back to Hawaii so he could get a better education. He lived with her parents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, and attended Hawaii's prestigious Punahou School from fifth grade through graduation from
Obama - Hope
Introduction
Barack Obama’s complex upbringing has polarised the media and brought a lot of controversy.2 His multicultural background made him a hero and villain at the same time. Chicago native? First African American President? Half white? Hawaiian? Indonesian? All of these labels have been used to simply box him into one of these categories. But we should not ignore the life experiences this brought and eventually defined his identity. Obama, like any American president, wanted to make history and be remembered by future generations for his greatness.3 On his quest to leave a mark on this earth, his public image has changed from being the coming-book superhero4 who would help Americans out of the recession to a terrible President who cannot fulfil his citizens expectations.
Before we can find out if he was rather a hero or a villain, we need to know who Barack Obama is, why he matters and why we have chosen him for this book.
Barack Hussein Obama II was born on August 4, 1961, in Hawaii to Ann Dunham, a white American from Kansas, and Barack Obama Sr., a black Kenyan. They met as students at the University of Hawaii. When Obama was two years old, his father left the family and returned to Kenya, where he died in a car accident nineteen years later. In 1963, Ann Dunham met another foreign student at the University of Hawaii, Lolo Soetoro of Indonesia. They got married and moved to Indonesia, where Obama lived from age six to ten with his mother and stepfather. He attended Catholic and Muslim schools.5
"I was raised as an Indonesian child and a Hawaiian child and as a black child and as a white child," Obama later recalled. "And so what I benefited from is a multiplicity of cultures that all fed me."6
In 1971 Obama's mother sent him back to Hawaii so he could get a better education. He lived with her parents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, and attended Hawaii's prestigious Punahou School from fifth grade through graduation from