Myths about Barack Obama: An Irresponsible Mother

By: James Kariuki

[ Posted On: 2009-03-10 ]

Introduction

Barack Obama broke into the American national scene in 2007 like a political tsunami. One particularly memorable aspect of this phenomenon is that, as a presidential candidate, Obama refused to be on the defensive; he never was in denial.

Obama never lied to the American people about his race, names, religion or background, regardless of political risks. Behold, Obama is an American president humble enough to wear a Kenyan hand-made bracelet, and a president secure enough to have his strictly ‘tribal’ grandmother seated among the v.i.p.s during his inauguration.

Yet, some ‘untruths’ have sneaked into Obama’s political landscape, unexplained myths about the otherwise remarkably honest statesman. Now that the euphoria and novelty of his presidency have subsided, should the falsehoods be revisited, at least to clear the air?

Irresponsible Mother?

One of such unkind myths is that Obama was born into an irresponsible, free-spirit and unstable mother. After all, Stanley Ann Dunham married black, Kenya-born Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. when she was only a teenager, probably prompted by an unplanned pregnancy. Not so long thereafter, Ann Dunham married another ‘non-white’ from a different continent and ‘dislocated’ six year old Obama to grow up under a Muslim step-father in distant and Islamic Indonesia.

Undoubtedly, Ann Dunham was a non-conformist; some would say that she was a social maverick. In the 1960s America was not in the grip of Islamophobia the way it is today. However, it was caught in heightened and brutal racial tensions. It was then that President John F. Kennedy felt duty-bound to send federal marshals to the American South to force state-owned educational institutions to enroll qualified Black students. America was indeed drenched in racism and in this racially contaminated atmosphere, white Ann Dunham married Black Obama, Sr.

Yet Ann was a product of the overtly racist South where interracial marriages were in many states forbidden by custom and by law. Indeed Black men were actually lynched for as little as looking admiringly at a white woman. True, Ann’s family had relocated to the more liberal Hawaii, but the forbidden-fruit-mentality relative to Black men must have been grilled into her as she grew up. Against this background, Ann marrying the Black Kenyan in 1961was a major social infraction, a measure of remarkable independence of mind.

Ann as a Mother

That is by no means to suggest that Ann was reckless. The relationship with her Black son, Obama, proves that she was profoundly and systematically responsible. Since she got pregnant as a teenager, she probably could easily have sought an abortion. She chose to have the black child whom she presented to her family as an integral part of her new existence. Barack Obama was never perceived or projected as a social stigma; he was fully affirmed by his mother and her parents. When questions subsequently arose about his racial identity, the source was not the family; they originated from the outside world.

When Obama was four, Ann married Indonesian Lolo Soetoro. He too knew and understood from the outset that the youngster was part of a package deal, a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. Fortunately Soetoro became a lovely stepfather, devoting considerable time to teaching Obama the ‘ropes’ of manhood. Indeed, he introduced Obama to others as his own son.

That Obama, jr. was ever central to Ann’s existence was never in doubt. Before they left Hawaii for Indonesia, she wished to place him in an international school but the family could not afford it. Consequently, Obama was enrolled in an American correspondence course in addition to his Indonesian public primary school. Years later when Ann sent Obama back to Hawaii, she made sure that he was enrolled in the finest private academy on the Island. This educational foundation guaranteed that Ann’s son had a chance of admission into the finest colleges that America had to offer.

But while in Indonesia, Ann personally had assumed the role of tutoring Obama. She and her son woke up at 4 a.m. everyday to study--- before he went to school and she went to work. Irresponsible mothers do not wake up at the crack of dawn to expose their children to education.

Conclusion

Ann died young at 53 of ovarian cancer deeply concerned about the well-being of Obama and his step-sister. Meanwhile, Obama’s blood-father had been widely maligned. Remarkably, Ann never uttered a disparaging remark about Barack Obama, Sr. To her, he remained the man that she once dearly loved, Obama’s father, a brilliant and principled person.

Irresponsible people are not made of such stuff.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: James N. Kariuki - is head of the African Diaspora Unit at the Africa Institute of South Africa in Pretoria.

| View Profile & All Articles By: James Kariuki |

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