by Neil Elliot
The most significant story of last year was not the weather, or the economy, but the election of Barack Obama as the first African American president of the United States of America. It was not just hugely historically significant, but it was for many around the world a feel good story, a rags to riches story, a story of hope, which trickled down to those of us outside of the USA.
Much hope and expectation is vested in Obama, more than one real human being can possibly bear, and we have yet to see how the story will play out. But what we have in this book is how the story started. It is a story that was written before Obama was a phenomenon, when he was just slightly famous. In 1994, Obama became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review (whatever that is) and wrote this story. The book was reprinted when he became the sole black senator in 2004.
However, this is not a biography in the conventional sense. It is subtitled "A Story of Race and Inheritance," and that makes all the sense you need. This is a story, told with a particular purpose. It is the story of one person’s journey to find identity. That identity is complex because of Obama's heritage as the son of a mixed race marriage, with a Kenyan Muslim father, and a mother from Kansas. Both of his parents had complicated family backgrounds. Obama grew up in Hawaii and in Indonesia, when his mother had a short-lived re-marriage. The story is grounded in the poor “project” areas of Chicago and in Obama’s family home in Kenya.
The story Obama has to tell is not interested in dealing in full detail with every aspect of his life, with his romances, his finances or his academic development. Sometimes these things are touched on, but only if they illustrate the theme of the story, Obama's identity. Of course there is editing in every biography, but this is the first biography I have read where the story is so purposefully focused.
The story is a vehicle for a wider consideration of the construction of identity, sociologically the key project of post modernity. We see a young man coming to terms with his heritage in all its aspects. We are privileged to see the good, the bad and the ugly —basketball to drug taking (by the US President elect!), family dysfunction and corruption.
This is also a story of what it means to be black in today’s world, not just in the projects of the USA, but in the cities and rural environment of Africa. We see the range of approaches that people have taken to deal with white society, and there is a thought provoking sense of futility and hopelessness for many.
This is not a tale of bitterness though, just an acknowledgement that this is "how it is" for many in our world. It is this, which gives me so much hope. Here is a person who knows the world, not just from the back seat of a limo, but from the back of a (seatless) bus, crammed with the poor and the needy. Obama has the background to make decisions for us all. Black and white, rich and poor, African and American, Christian and Muslim are all represented in this person. Now we will see what he does.
