Blog 11: Race, Identity and Parents

    One of the things that touched me deeply about Obama’s autobiography is the fact that it, in part, is an examination of the effect of the absent father and that it was written while one of Obama’s parents was dying. This reminded me of another memoir I read in another class, namely Out of Place written by Edward Said, who was a controversial figure in the realm of postcolonial studies. Said wrote his memoir while battling leukemia — he won that battle, but that war eventually took his life.  However, that struggle shaped his writing and had Said known that he would live for several more years, perhaps his autobiography might have read differently.
     I found it interesting that both Obama and Said reflected on a life lived while they were witnessing a life lost and it made me wonder how Obama’s autobiography might have been different if he had known his mother would succumb to cancer in just a few months. He posed the same question in his introduction and I had to wonder if we would have heard the same messages had his memoir shifted from the mourning of the absent parent to a celebration of the present one, especially given the end of chapter 14.
    Bearing a parental void all his life taught Obama compassion and his search to fill the void left by an absent father drove him to help other African-Americans fill the voids in their life. Had he known his mother was dying perhaps Obama might have depicted this instinct differently — perhaps he would have penned it a reflection of his mother’s determination to find a positive place within the social order. Would his message of compassion have been lost?
    One of the other aspects of Obama’s memoir to which I connected was the idea that appears in Chapter 10 that purity of race and culture can no longer serve as the basis for African-American’s, and I would argue anyone’s, self-esteem. I see this as a decidedly American thing, accustomed as we are to thinking of ourselves as part of a great melting pot, but I wish the rest of the world was more comfortable with this hybrid view of identity. In fact, I wish we were more comfortable with it, as well. Many ills and evils of the world could be eliminated if we could face the reality of our identities and instead of mourning what they lack (purity) celebrate what they are — a reflection of humanity’s rich diversity and limitless possibilities.