Replies

http://blog.aaanet.org/2009/08/11/anthropologist-remembers-president-obamas-mother/

Steve Ferzacca, on August 17th, 2009 at 11:49 pm Said:

It was 1983, myself and a friend were traveling in Indonesia. We were both anthropology students — I was an undergraduate at the time at the University of Arizona and my friend was off to USC as a graduate student in their inaugural year of their program in visual anthropology. We had just finished a particularly long stretch of travel from Bali through Java. Next on the list of people we had arranged to visit before we left was Ann Soetero at the Ford Foundation in Jakarta. Both of us were ragged from travel and my friend was experiencing an existential crisis, questioning the depth of her commitment to anthropology. Ann quickly sensed our tired despair, and lit up her office with her big hair and big personality. She gave us her afternoon to not only cheer us up, freshen us up with cold drinks and American sensibility, but revitalize the wonder in us for anthropology. She talked of her projects, the microcredit project with Indonesian women, the attempts at unionizing labor, the need to understand a person’s life from close up. She conjured forth the spirit of the work that is anthropology, and then sent us on our way with smiles on our face and new energy in our hearts. Several years later I ran into her again at the University of Hawaii — I was studying Indonesian now as a University of Wisconsin graduate student. I thanked her for that afternoon in Jakarta — she said she remembered us well. Didn’t matter really — her gift given far enough away in time and space had been put to some use. She spoke to me of her difficulties finishing her dissertation between making a living and raising a son. Once again I appreciated her openness and willingness to give something of herself even if there was nothing I could do in return. I don’t know — it seems like I see this in her son as well.

If I’m reading this right, this is another case where the numbers don’t fit the narrative.

In 1983, Barry would have been, according to his stated 1961 birthdate, 22 years old and on the mainland. “Several years later” (the words used in the quote), he would have been in his mid-twenties. So I don’t understand Ann’s “difficulties finishing her dissertation between making a living and raising a son. . .” at that time.

She doesn’t appear to have been around much during his “raising” years. And it doesn’t make sense to claim that she was still rearing him in adulthood.

She spoke to me of her difficulties finishing her dissertation between making a living and raising a son. Once again I appreciated her openness and willingness to give something of herself even if there was nothing I could do in return. I don’t know — it seems like I see this in her son as well.

whata load of tripe from an obvious obamabot, meanwhile, in Hawaii, people who knew Madelyn tell of how the two children, Maya and zero, would sit in the bank and wait for her to finish work, doing their homework. That selfish Stanley Ann never 'raised' anyone...other than her own profile. Soon we'll have a Stanley Ann Park in Hawaii and a statue of her, for the pidgeons to crap on.