Posted on 10/01/2008 3:38:21 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
His boyhood friends in Indonesia were street peddlers, and his grandmother still lives in a mud-walled house in Kenya. But Barack Obama is another world away, presiding over the Harvard Law Review as the first black president in the prestigious journal's 103-year history.
The charismatic 28-year-old, ensconced in the halls where tradition reigns, is taking aim at another custom: Obama's sights are set on the South' Side of Chicago, not on a U.S. Supreme Court clerkship or a fast-track career with a cushy firm.
"I'm not interested in the suburbs. The suburbs bore me. And I'm not interested in isolating myself," Obama said in a recent interview. "I feel good when I'm engaged in what I think are the core issues of the society, and those core issues to me are what's happening to poor folks in this society."
His passion is rooted in his background. He was born in Hawaii, his father an Oxfordand Harvard-educated economist from the African nation of Kenya, his mother a white anthropologist from Kansas. Obama moved to Southeast Asia at age 2 when his parents divorced and his mother married an Indonesian.
Until the fifth grade, Obama attended Indonesian schools, where most of his friends were the sons of servants, street peddlers and farmers. Concern for Obama's education led his mother to return him to Hawaii, where he attended public schools through high school. In 1983, he graduated from Columbia University with a degree in political science.
At a recent meeting in a Harvard cafeteria, his affinity with the underdog was readily apparent. "I lived in a country where I saw extreme poverty at a very early age," Obama said. "Parts of my family in Kenya remain very poor. My grandmother still lives in a mud-walled house with no running water or electricity.
"That's who I am, that's where I come from, not always literally, but at least emotionally." Obama entered Harvard Law School in 1988, and through a combination of grades and a writing competition, was elected to head the law review this February, He succeeded Peter Yu, a first-generation Chinese-American.
Obama cautions against reading too much into his election. "It's crucial that people don't see my election as somehow a symbol of progress in the broader sense, that we don't sort of point to a Barack Obama any more than you point to a Bill Cosby or a Michael Jordan and say 'Well, things are hunky dory,"' Obama said. "There's certainly racism here. There are certain burdens that are placed, more. emotionally at this point than concretely," Obama said.
"Professors may treat black students differently, sometimes by being, sort of, more dismissive, sometimes by being more, sort of, careful, because they think, you know, they think that somehow we can't cope in the classroom," he said.
Obama sees the inner cities as the front lines of racism. "It's critical at this stage for people who want to see genuine change to focus locally. And it is crucial that we figure out how to rebuild the core of leadership and institutions in these communities," he said. For five years before law school, Obama took on that task in Chicago.
As the director of a program that tried to bring South Side churches, unions and block associations together on projects, Obama was not trying to solve local problems, he said. Instead he sought to construct something more lasting — a forum for the community.
"I'm interested in organizations, not movements, because movements dissipate and organizations don't," Obama said.
BTTT
He claims his poor Kenyan family then, but now...
Empty suit then, empty suit now.
Actually, I think he is a communist thinker and always will be. And I think he is someone’s tool. How much will he owe Soros
Well, what is the truth? I had heard that Obama attended a private school in Hawaii, this says that he attended public schools???
Looks like a good commercial for Oakland and Macomb Counties in Michigan (suburbs of Detroit) and in other target-rich Reagan Democrat suburban areas of OH/PA.
Once an urban snob(suburbs bore me), race baiter(blacks get treated differently), and hypocrite(NOT movements)—always an urban snob, race baiter, and hypocrite.
So this was him being interviewed, not something he published?
First glance I thought this was about a pimple.
hahahahahaha!
This is an actual news article from the AP. I'm Googling how to post a Print screen and I'll show the actual newsclipping.
Obama’s tenure as president is largely responsible for the destruction of the Harvard Law Review’s reputation as a scholarly publication. There’s a whole book about it:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n4_v47/ai_16662305
This ungrateful snit NEVER mentions the white grandparents who really raised him—except to dismiss his grandmother as a “typical white person” with racist tendencies. The Kenyan grandmother may or may not have been his real, blood grandma. His African grandfather had a string of wives.
I ask because I think I heard he was President of the Law Review, but NEVER published a single article.
“As the director of a program that tried to bring South Side churches, unions and block associations together on projects, Obama was not trying to solve local problems, he said. Instead he sought to construct something more lasting — a forum for the community.
“I’m interested in organizations, not movements, because movements dissipate and organizations don’t,” Obama said.”
This is a very deep and serious activist, he knows how a nation can be effectively restructured, and the people can be bypassed, by placing worms within their political system.
What bugs me is why doesn’t he help his relatives? That’s what I’d do - take care of my own. Instead he wants to tax every US family for his Global Poverty Act to flood Africa with our $ - like that’s gonna work. It would only be the beginning (and think of the corruption) But Obama wouldn’t feel guilty about his relatives anymore so I suppose he’d be happy that he made us all pay.
Movements achieve things and their members go on to other things.
Organizations stick around long after their reason for being is gone.
FWIW, Obama did say "I" a lot. Maybe the NPD threads are right.
We know neither of his HLS grades nor his entry in the writing competition. He graduated magna cum laude (top 10% of his class), but was that awarded because of his grades, or was the magna awarded to reflect his election as President of the Harvard Law Review? (it would look funny to have the HLR President not graduate with honors).
It is.
It is the story of the Scarlet Pimple Nil.
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