Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

As most of the world knows, the President of the United States of America is Barack Obama. Now, of course, everyone has struggles throughout their life, but looking at the President now it seems as if he was always as self-assured as he is today. However this is not the case. Obama has been through more trials, growing pains, and confusion than one would initially imagine. His book “Dreams from My Father” gives you a glimpse into Obama’s life. It let’s you see the many different things that he went through that helped transform him into the President that we see before us.

Obama was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii with his mother. Even though he was named after his father, he only saw him once in his entire life. When Obama was really little his father left to pursue other dreams in Africa. In middle school his father came to visit while the family was in still in Hawaii. During that time Obama remembers seeing his father relaxed only one time. Obama recounts his teenage years as what most other teenagers go through growing up in adolescence. The typical stuff like the drivers license, acne, and raging hormones. The thing that set Obama apart from most other teenagers was his tendency to think rather deeply on everything he experienced. It just so happened that it was also around his high-school years when he started to really experience racism.

Now, Obama’s mother is Caucasian and his father was African. So when it came to identifying with one particular race Obama recalls jumping in between the two.

“As it was, I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds, understanding that each possessed its own language and customs and structures of meaning, convinced that with a bit of translation on my part the two worlds would eventually cohere.” (Obama, 82) In this book Obama talks about his friend, who he calls “Ray,” and the many different things that they encountered together. In fact his friend had a lot to do with Obama embracing the African side of his heritage. Obama talks about how he and his friend made up “half the population” of black students in the school, and everyone else was white. This being so, he looked desperately for a place of belonging.

Due to many hours after school and during the summer on the basketball court, Obama became a decent ‘baller. He could hold his own against the university students even while he was still in high-school. Naturally, he looked to his fellow basketball teammates for a sense of belonging, but even that didn’t work out too well. The reason you ask? There were white and black people on the team. This seemed to cause a false sense of camaraderie in Obama’s mind. This is because they would all be working together on the court but as soon as they would hit the locker room his fellow black teammates would start to talk about the white people as outsiders. Obama was torn. Whenever he tried to identify with the white people he would feel as though he were not being true to himself. Conversely, at when he would hang out with his friend Ray as well as other black people, he would sometimes feel like he was on the outside looking in. He didn’t like how some black people would treat their oppression as frivolously as a light switch. “Our rage at the white world needed no object, he seemed to be telling me, no independent confirmation; it could be switched on and off at our pleasure.” (Obama, 81)

What Obama also found irritating was the tendency for people who identified themselves as “multicultural” to become annoyed when you called them black. “They talked about the richness of their multicultural heritage and it sounded real good, until you noticed that they avoided black people.” (Obama, 99) It was becoming increasingly apparent to Obama that to be anything other than white was negative. “We were always playing on the white man’s court…by the white man’s rules.” (Obama, 85)

He read many different books looking for numerous ways to validate his new understanding of life. This mentality was troubling for Obama and it essentially drove him to become a little more than just the social drinker and smoker. Not wanting it to affect his grades too much, Obama’s mother tried to talk him out of his new-found outlook on life. However, despite his threats to his mother that he would end up like his grandfather, he went on Occidental College where he continued his inward battle to find his place in life. It was here he first experienced the power he had to capture the attention of a crowd with powerful words and a demanding voice. This was also the place that gave Obama the opportunity to further his education in New York. While he was living there he dropped his “recreational” drinking and smoking habits and started to turn his life around. He had a new goal in his life; he was realizing what he was missing. “What I needed was a community, I realized, a community that cut deeper than the common despair that black friends and I shared when reading the latest crime statistics, or the high fives I might exchange on a basketball court. A place where I could put down stakes and test my commitments.” (Obama, 115)

Even though I am not a fan of Obama politically, after reading this book I have a new respect and understanding of what he has been through and how that affects his life now. I would recommend this book firstly to anyone who lives in the United States, so that they can have a new understanding of Barack Obama as well. Secondly, I would recommend this book to anyone who feels like they don’t quite have a place where they belong. Obama is a real inspiration to keep moving forward in life, and to never stop searching for a better understanding of life.