Obamas bring new era of history to the White House Barbara Ferguson | Arab News
WASHINGTON: For more than two centuries, the United States presidency has not been vastly more diverse than leaderships in other countries. But when Barack Obama became America's 44th president on Tuesday, few had time to dwell on the journey America's First Family had made as they walked into the White House. It was their family's final step in its journey from Africa and slavery to a White House built partly by slaves. Now the Obamas have turned that history upside down, with a Technicolor family that looks almost nothing like their overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly Protestant predecessors. *The family that produced Obama and his wife, Michelle, is black and white and Asian, Christian, Muslim and Jewish. They speak English; Indonesian; French; Cantonese; German; Hebrew; African languages, including Swahili, Luo and Igbo; and even a few phrases of Gullah, the Creole dialect of the South Carolina low country.* Very few are wealthy, and some — like Sarah Obama, the step-grandmother who only recently got electricity in her metal-roofed shack in Kenya — are quite poor. Obama story is hugely different from the second President Bush, who grew up with wealth and privilege. Aside from Obama's top-quality education, America's new president came to politics with none of his predecessor's advantages: No famous last name, no deep-pocketed parents to finance early forays into politics and, in fact, not much of a father at all. Obama built his political career from scratch, with best-selling books and long-shot runs for office. He and his wife Michelle were only financially able to pay off all their college debts a few years ago. But how far they have come. Only five generations ago, the first lady's great-great-grandfather, Jim Robinson, was born a slave on Friendfield Plantation in Georgetown, South Carolina. His son, Fraser, ran a lunch truck in Georgetown. In turn, his son, also named Fraser, struck out for Chicago in search of something better. Unable to find work, he left his wife and children for 14 years. As a result, Michelle Obama's father was on welfare as a child and started working on a milk truck at 11. After serving in the Army in World War II and finally securing a job as a postal clerk, Fraser Robinson Jr. rejoined his family. His son — Michelle Obama's father, Fraser Robinson III — wanted to further his education but became weighed down with debt and dropped out of college after a year. He worked in a city boiler room for the rest of his life, but did manage to help send his four younger siblings to college; then his two children, Michelle Obama and her brother, to Princeton. For all of the vast differences in the Obama and Robinson histories, a few common threads run through. Education is one of them. As a young man, Barack Obama's father herded goats; then won a scholarship to study in the Kenyan capital. From there he graduated from the University of Hawaii, then gained his graduate degree in economics at Harvard University. Obama's father returned to Kenya and saw his son only once more before dying in an automobile accident in 1982. When Barack Obama lived in Indonesia as a child, his mother woke him up for at 4 a.m. for English lessons while at the same time, she earned herself a PhD in Anthropology. (His mother, Ann Dunham, then pursued a career in rural development championing women's work and micro credit for the world's poor, and as a consultant in Pakistan.) Meanwhile, in Chicago, Michelle Obama's mother was bringing home math and reading workbooks so her children would always be a few lessons ahead in school. It is these details that add significance to the millions who crowded the National Mall in Washington, from hearing President Barack Obama's rousing speech promising "a new way forward" to the tiniest little details — such as the color of First Lady Michelle Obama's day coat and inaugural gown that gave the resounding theme of the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States on Tuesday. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
