A Free-Spirited Wanderer Who Set Obama’s Path - New York Times

A Free-Spirited Wanderer Who Set Obama’s Path - New York Times

This is a really nice article about Barack Obama's mother. For me this reflects the person I initially thought Barack Obama was. I imagined him as a dreamer and visionary however I often feel that he has somehow become tainted by His Chicago experience. I somehow imagined Obama as less of a class conscious person and more of a Peace and Love individual however he's not that person. He has become shaped by his environment and I somehow feel the person that his mother created will never come back. Somehow as far as Barack Obama is concerned I feel that he is fighting for two selves as W.E.B. Dubois wrote about. However the self that he is conflicted with is the self that walked into a radical black church when he could have walked somewhere else. Obama could have been shaped more to think that what the poor need is economic opportunity, and education and it did not or does not take the "system" to make these things happen but concerted thought and focused energy to change life for the poor in the United States or in any third world country. The example of his mother insisting that he have early morning studies while overseas is an example of an individual overcoming systematic restraints. If blacks are to go anywhere they must take resposnibility for their progress regardless of the "system". Obama has been a member of his church for twenty years, a lot of people who have subscribed to radical beliefs let it go after two years at most and call it a stage. after twenty years of being a member of this particular church I really think that there is no reclaiming the man that Obama was.