Obama, Identity Artist

More journalists are starting to read Sen. Barack Obama's elegant autobiography Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance all the way through and ask questions. (My big article in the 3/26/07 American Conservative on Obama's first 33 years is now in the online edition.)

The contrast between the suave master politician we see on screen and the racially traumatized young man described in his autobiography remain a mystery, one that needs to be solved before the 2008 election. We elected a pig in a poke President in 2000 and are paying the price today. With George W. Bush, we at least had the excuse for not making the effort to understand him that he turns out to be not very interesting to understand -- he's Chauncey Gardiner with a mean streak and some Daddy issues. Obama, in contrast, is a man of parts, a superior individual who rewards investigation.

Here's a new article from the LA Times:

Obama classmates saw a smile, but no racial turmoil
His Hawaii peers had no idea of the inner conflict his memoir describes. They recall a happy kid who fit in.
By Richard A. Serrano

Today, Obama is a campaign sensation, in part because he is seen as the first black presidential candidate who might be able to reach beyond race, building support among Americans of all backgrounds.

That capacity does not surprise the students who knew Obama at Punahou School, which carefully nurtured a respect for diversity. "We had chapel sessions on the Bahai faith, Islam, Judaism, and all forms of Christianity," said Bernice G. Bowers, a classmate. "The message was that diversity made for a richer community."

Dressed like other boys in the required collared shirts and khaki pants, Obama was one of a small number of blacks, but the student body included large numbers of kids with Chinese, Japanese, Samoan and native Hawaiian ancestry, as well as many whites. "We didn't think about his blackness," said Mark Hebing, who went to school with Obama for eight years…

Punahou was where Obama first awakened to these issues, and to the complexities of being black in America. In his bestselling memoir, "Dreams From My Father," he writes that during his time at the school — from fifth grade through his high school graduation in 1979 — he felt the first stirrings of anger toward whites. He says he also delved into black nationalism. He also experimented with marijuana and occasionally cocaine, which were prevalent in the '70s but presented what Obama in his book calls special dangers for young black men. …

Obama says that as he found his way in the world, he learned there were limits to the desirability of advertising his race. "People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves," he writes in "Dreams." "They were more than satisfied; they were relieved — such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time."

Certainly Obama's classmates had little sense of what he says was going on beneath the surface. "His reflections about the race issue surprised all of us," said Kellie Furushima, who knew him well. "He gave no indication of feeling uncomfortable in school, and I never witnessed or heard anyone being unkind to him. [More]

So, what's the story with Obama?

Here's one possibility I've kicked around. I've known a fair number of people who have battled depression, paranoia, and other emotional problems. During the bad spells, they can't remember their past happiness, just disturbing incidents that they string together to make up a story about how they've always been depressed and/or oppressed. Dreams from My Father resembles the kind of depressive's literature that psychiatrist Peter D. Kramer has pointed out is so common that it has become our expectation of what fine writing is like. A cheerful artist such as Nabokov seems like an anomaly to us.

On the other hand, I've never heard of any evidence for Obama being emotionally unstable … other than his own autobiography. Looking at his resume, he seems to have motored along through his career nicely, dotting every I and crossing every T so that at age 45 he's a serious candidate for President.

There is little market these days for a literary first novel, but a large one for "memoirs" of unhappy young people, so the publishing industry has been channeling creative writers into claiming a degree of veracity for their efforts that has led to numerous scandals, such as the exposures of A Million Little Pieces and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things as hoaxes. Obama's not that creative, but perhaps Dreams from My Father should be read as an autobiographical novel rather than as an autobiography?

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer