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Obama’s ‘Dreams’ is engrossing story
By Margaret Barno
Correspondent
Published October 25, 2009
“Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” by Barack Obama, Three Rivers Press, New York, 457 pages, $14.95.
As I cracked open the next book to be reviewed, I listened as the committee spokesman announced of this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize: Barack Obama, statesman, president of the United States of America. It was one of his books I was about to read.
Originally written more than a decade ago, the second edition had been published in 2004, long before he had become a household name, other than to those who lived in the greater Chicago area or Illinois having served in that state’s Legislature.
Born in Hawaii in 1961, to a Kenyan father and white mother from Kansas, he was raised in Indonesia and Hawaii, attended Occidental College, graduated from Columbia University and became a community organizer in Chicago before studying law at Harvard University.
He returned to Chicago, lecturing in constitutional law at the University of Chicago, was elected to the Illinois Congress before his election as a United States senator, and subsequently elected as the 44th president of our country.
An impressive résumé for any person, but outstanding for any person of color.
This book is not about those achievements, though they are mentioned.
What this New York Times best-selling book explores are the dreams of a man who left the family when his son was only 2 years old.
A man, who his son met only once, and yet one who had an amazing influence on the person his son would become.
Though his father fell far short of his own lofty dreams, his words and his father’s voice “remained untainted,” inspiring, granting or withdrawing approval.
He rebuked his son for not working hard enough, reminded him he must help in his people’s struggle.
His son took his father’s admonitions and expanded upon them. He realized the struggle was everyone’s, not just those of African-American descent.
He identified the problem as being national in scope and required everyone’s working together to resolve issues and fix complex problems.
The most interesting truth he identified was the necessity to forgive and seek to learn about and from one another.
It was that step he was about to take with his own father. Unfortunately, that meeting never took place. His father was killed in an auto accident.
Obama was able to go beyond the hurt, sense of loss and eventually honor his father, accepting the flawed person as he was.
“Dreams of My Father” is well written, engrossing, work through which we learn much about the man who now holds the highest elected office in our country.
No matter where you place yourself in the political spectrum, the content in this book will give you an opportunity to stop, pause and reflect on the influences others have made in your own life.
Margaret Barno, a retired social worker, lives in Pflugerville.
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