Six Crises 15

I finished Richard Nixon's 1962 book, Six Crises.  I read the appendix, which has three speeches that Richard Nixon gave when he was Vice-President: One in Great Britain, one in the Soviet Union, and one as the Republican candidate for President before the 1960 Republican National Convention.  I have three items.

1.  Nixon in his speeches talks a lot about the problem of international Communism.  In his speech in the Soviet Union, Nixon says that he's all for controlling weaponry, but the Soviet government has stood in the way of arms control as well as ways to verify that both sides are pursuing it.  In his speech in England, Nixon affirms that he is for a variety of approaches to the problem of international Communism, such as military strength and humanitarian aid.  This stood out to me because I enjoyed his discussion earlier in the book about the need for a multivalent approach to Communism, particularly because it highlighted Nixon's talent for identifying weaknesses in certain positions.  Against those who argue that we should just focus on building our military strength----a "fortress America" view, if you will----Nixon points out that "Communism made its greatest gains immediately after World War II when the United States had a monopoly on the atomic bomb and massive military superiority over the Soviet Union" (page 289).  Against those who say that our primary focus should be on economically assisting underdeveloped countries, Nixon says that we "have only to look at the Czechoslovakian experience to realize that the Communists can take over countries with no serious economic problems" (page 289).  For Nixon, the weapons against Communist expansion must be multivalent, which means that they must include military weapons, economic weapons, political weapons, and propaganda weapons.

2.  In his speech in England, Nixon spoke rather favorably of British colonialism.  He says that it brought to a number of the colonized countries the military strength which protected them, "the technical training which assured economic progress", ideas that are the basis for progress, and such values as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion (page 433).

I thought about the Dinesh D'Souza documentary 2016, which I have not yet seen, but which I've heard is critical of Barack Obama for being anti-colonialist.  D'Souza's defenders say that colonialism has brought good things to the Third World.  I don't know much about Obama's stance on colonialism, but I do remember him saying in Dreams from My Father that, in Kenya, even after the country had attained its independence, much of the economy was still in white hands, while black Kenyans were on the margins (see here).  Colonialism may have brought wealth to the Third World, but how much of that wealth trickled down to most of the inhabitants of the country?  I don't know.  I will say, though, that, even though Nixon spoke favorably of colonialism in this speech in England, he did seem to have a sensitivity to the economic condition of the inhabitants of the Third World.  I base this in what I read in Stephen Ambrose's Nixon: The Education of a Politician, and also Six Crises.

3.  I enjoyed Six Crises.  I can see why it was Nixon's favorite book that he wrote, why he recommended it to his staff when he was President, and why some on his staff read it multiple times.  The book was clear, and it also had a story-telling, conversational quality.  This was especially the case when Nixon talked about his two daughters, Tricia and Julie.  I also agree with what the San Francisco Chronicle said about the book, which is on the cover of the copy of Six Crises that I own: that Nixon in the book is "relentlessly self-analytical".

Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father 15

I finished Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.  In my latest reading, Obama talked about introducing Michelle to his family----on both his father's side (in Africa) and his mother's side (in the U.S.).  Barack's white grandfather thought that Michelle was quite a looker, and his white grandmother considered her to be a woman with good sense!

What I want to focus on in this post, however, is a discussion that Barack had with Dr. Rukia Odero, a friend of his father and a former teacher of his half-sister Auma.  In my last post, I talked about Obama getting in touch with his African roots and the catharsis that was for him.  In my latest reading, Dr. Rukia mentions another side to that.  She says that many young African-Americans romanticize Africa, when----in her younger years----she and others tended to think that the answers were in America, as people sought inspiration in Harlem, Chicago, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, and the Kennedys.  She says that African-Americans come to Africa looking for authenticity, but they are disappointed because there is no purely African culture.  Kenyans like tea, but this was a habit that they got from the English, and their spices for the fish meal that she and Obama were eating came from India or Indonesia.  Moreover, while you'd think from the fish-meal that the Luo ate fish, that wasn't the case for all Luo, and it wasn't always true because the Luo were pastoralists before they settled by the lake.  In short, the culture is in flux, and it has been subjected to foreign influences.

Moreover, Dr. Odero says that colonialism made many black Kenyans defensive about preserving their African culture, when, as far as Dr. Odero is concerned, there are elements of Kenyan culture that should probably go, such as polygamy and collective ownership of land, which have been abused.

I'm not sure what to say about these points, but I found them to be interesting.  Overall, this was an excellent book to read, and I can see why it gained the renown that it did.

Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father 14

In my latest reading of Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Barack Obama relates the story that his Granny in Kenya told him about his paternal grandfather and his father.  On pages 429-430, Obama narrates:

"When my tears were finally spent, I felt a calmness wash over me.  I felt the circle finally close.  I realized that who I was, what I cared about, was no longer just a matter of intellect or obligation, no longer a construct of words.  I saw that my life in America----the black life, the white life, the sense of abandonment I felt as a boy, the frustration and hope I'd witnessed in Chicago----all of it was connected with this small plot of earth an ocean away, connected by more than the accident of a name or the color of my skin.  The pain I felt was my father's pain.  My questions were my brothers' questions.  Their struggle, my birthright."

As I read this passage, I thought about the scene at the end of Roots: The Next Generation, in which Alex Haley (played by James Earl Jones) hears about his ancestor Kunta Kinte from a tribal historian in Africa.  "You old African!", Haley exclaims.  "I've found you.  Kunta Kinte, I've found you!"

There are people who have disputed the accuracy of parts of Haley's tale.  There are also people who have disputed the accuracy of Obama's tale in Dreams from My Father, for that matter!  But perhaps both of them had a profound experience in which they got in touch with their roots and felt a little less disconnected from the world, as they gained or learned more about their identity.

Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father 13

In my latest reading of Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, I noticed similarities between certain Kenyan tribal customs and rules in the Torah: a man marries his brother's wife when his brother dies, for example.  There was also a sort of purity system, for a person in the Luo tribe with a rash or sores was regarded as unclean.  But there was a difference: the Luo tribe was against circumcision, whereas the Torah mandated it for Israelites.  There are probably sociological and anthropological explanations for these similarities and differences----a tendency to establish an in/group and an out/group, for instance.

Another theme that came up in my latest reading was that of trying.  One person named Yosuf did well in school and got job offers, but he was afraid to try, and so he mostly stayed with Granny and did chores for her.  Another person was persistent and knocked on doors, sure that his efforts would pay off at some point.

Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father 12

In my latest reading of Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Barack Obama is still in Kenya.  On pages 352-353, Obama talks about a conversation he had with a man named Francis about taxes in Kenya.  The roads were dilapidated, and Kenyans didn't like to pay taxes because they were reluctant to give their money to somebody else----due to trust issues.  Francis says that this is even true of well-off people whose trucks use the roads: "They would rather have their equipment break down than give up some of their profits."

This reminded me of the controversy that Barack Obama's comments on small businesses set off: Did entrepreneurs really build their small businesses, or should they be grateful to the government for giving them the roads and the schools that made their success possible?  I had a discussion with a libertarian friend recently, and he said that commerce actually came before roads and allowed for there to be capital and funds for the roads to be built.  In his reasoning, businesses came before roads, and not vice versa.  My friend did acknowledge, however, that there is an upward spiral----businesses result in roads, yet roads result in more production and an increase in entrepreneurship.

I wonder, though, about the well-off in Kenya who clung to their profits even when doing so resulted in dilapidated roads.  Perhaps the roads could give them more profits, and yet they were somehow making profits without good roads.  How?  I mean, if their equipment breaks down, it costs money to fix that!

Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father 11

In my latest reading of Dreams from My Fathers: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Barack Obama talks about his experiences in Kenya, where he had family.

Obama liked Kenya because he felt part of a warm community, but over time he became skeptical of his family's affection because he was wondering if his family was warming up to him because he was an American and it thought he had money.  While Obama acknowledges that Kenya has close-knit tribalism----something that his father did not understand when he came to Kenya with his advanced education and expected the inhabitants to listen to his wisdom, while bypassing the tribal and kinship structures----Obama does not always present his family as warm and rosy.  When his father was down-in-the-dumps, for example, many in his family laughed at his problems, even though he was sure to help his relatives when he was on-his-feet. There is a touching story, however, about when Obama is playing basketball with his seventeen-year-old half-brother Bernard (who may not have been his half-brother, since it was not entirely known that Barack, Sr. was Bernard's father) and is encouraging him to pursue vocational training.  Bernard says at the end of the conversation that he's happy to have a big brother.  You can read about Bernard as an adult here.

Obama also tells a story about how he and his half-sister Auma were at a restaurant, and they had to wait to be served, but the black African waiters were quick to serve some white tourists.  Obama's half-sister----whom Obama earlier in the book said was rather forgiving----was bitter about the preferential treatment that the white tourists received and how Kenya tended to gravitate towards the highest bidder, but Obama tried to understand where the waiters were coming from----for they lived in a nation that had attained its independence, and yet whites still owned major parts of Kenya's economy, and so there was a sense in which black Kenyans were still on the margins.

My latest reading made me think about the times that I----a white person----have been in predominantly black settings, whether they be African-American, Latin American, or Caribbean.  Am I shown hostility because I am white?  Or am I basically treated like a king because I'm white?  Perhaps both, depending on where I am.  I one time talked with a white Seventh-Day Adventist who was a truck-driver and visited a black Seventh-Day Adventist church on one of his travels, and he remarked that he was treated like a king at that church!  How should I respond to that sort of set-up when I experience it?  Should I politely accept their courtesy, even though I'm sure that there are people who will tell me that I'm exploiting them so that I can feel special and accepted----in a world where I ordinarily am not considered all that special?  And yet, there have been black people who have told me that I'm fortunate to have their acceptance, since there are African-Americans who do not warm up to white people so easily.  So, in a sense, in my mind at least, I'm doing them a favor by embracing their acceptance, by acknowledging that they're being generous. And yet, by giving me an opportunity to hear their stories, they are doing me a favor----they are teaching me about what society is like, and the value of all of humanity.

Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father 10: Jeremiah Wright

In my latest reading of Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Barack Obama talks about Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, which was pastored by Jeremiah Wright.

Why was the church so successful?  Obama talks about Wright's dynamism combined with his education, but there were also the activities that Trinity offered.  Moreover, while Obama says that there were African-American males who avoided church because they considered it to be more of an activity for women, he also discusses how church gives people a sense of mission, purpose, connection, and community----a place that honors people when they die.  And church gives people comfort during their problems.  Obama talks about a sermon that Wright gave, "The Audacity of Hope" (which happens to be the title of Obama's second book), which is about finding hope in the midst of hopelessness.  The sermon touches on economic and other problems.

Another issue that came up was Wright's hope that African-Americans would economically prosper, without succumbing to a middle-class mindset----one that focuses on prospering and forgets about those in the city who still have problems.  Wright's assistant was moving to the suburbs for the sake of her child, but Wright did not think that she was making things better for the kid.  According to Wright, he wouldn't have a clue about who he is, and life is not safe anywhere for African-American men.  That brought to my mind something I read earlier in Dreams: Obama mentioned a teacher who said that African-American children learn about other people's history and thus have a sense of alienation, plus the men lack fathers who can teach them how to channel their energies into constructive directions.

Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father 9: Forgiveness

In my latest reading of Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Barack Obama talks about one of his Kenyan brothers, Roy, who had difficulty forgiving their father because the father always expected him to be the best.  On page 265, Obama says:

"...in [my sister] Auma I had...sensed a willingness to put the past behind her, a capacity to somehow forgive, if not necessarily forget.  Roy's memories of the Old Man seemed more immediate, more taunting; for him the past remained an open sore."

Some people have difficulty forgiving.  In my opinion, what they need is healing.  Unfortunately, my impression is that certain biblical writings give them judgment, instead.  I think of Jesus' statement that those who do not forgive others will not be forgiven by God.  Wow, that sure encourages healing, doesn't it?

Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father 8: Can You Fight City Hall?

For my write-up today on Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, I'll talk about the issue of success in social activism, while also drawing on some of my favorite passages in my latest reading.

In my latest reading, Obama has a conversation with his half-sister, who tells him about their father in Kenya.  Kenya was having a lot of problems: tribalism, government jobs going to people who were unqualified, and Kenyan politicians purchasing a bunch of land and businesses rather than redistributing them to the people.  Barack's father spoke up, and he was essentially blacklisted from working in the government.  He degenerated after that point.

Obama as a community organizer was trying to make things better in Chicago as he worked with others.  And, in areas, he succeeded, for there were neighborhood crime-watches and tutoring programs.  But there was one time when it looked like he was going to be successful, but he ultimately was not.  This was when he and others were lobbying local officials to investigate apartments to see if they had asbestos, and to get rid of the asbestos.  Obama and his team succeeded in getting the officials to investigate the asbestos.  But, because the federal government only appropriated so much money, the residents of the apartments had to choose between asbestos removal and new plumbing and roofing that they needed. 

There were inspiring stories about the community's anti-asbestos stand, though: A woman named Sadie, whom Obama didn't think would make a good spokesperson because she was rather mousy, ended up doing a good job and getting things done; Obama says that one of the officials with whom they interacted reminded him of his grandfather, who was broken down by life; etc.

But, in terms of concrete results, the crusade failed----and yet, as Obama notes, it was successful in that the community came together to seek change.

Is change possible?  In areas, perhaps so.  At least one should try.

Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father 7: Dilemmas on Race

In my latest reading of Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Barack Obama reflects on race.

He highlights a number of dilemmas.  How can African-Americans gain the self-esteem that can help them to succeed, when poverty takes a toll on the self-esteem of many within the African-American community?  How can they advance, when even African-American leaders prefer to hire whites for tasks because (according to them) whites do things right the first time, or when African-Americans see other African-Americans as lazy, or when banks are reluctant to loan money for African-American businesses, thinking they might fail?  How can people within the African-American community reflect on what they may be doing wrong, when doing so essentially slaps down African-Americans, and when whites are quick to jump on such reflections to say that even African-Americans note a pathology within the African-American community?

I'm not entirely sure what Obama's solutions to these dilemmas are.  He does say that he believes in rooting self-esteem in people's experiences rather than race, which may mean that he wants for African-Americans to draw inspiration from the struggles of others within their community.  And he also discusses work that he did as a community organizer to bring a job-training program closer to residents of certain areas of Chicago.

Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father 6: Community Organizer

In my latest reading of Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Barack Obama talks about his time as a community organizer in Chicago.

He talks about the different perspectives and the personality conflicts.  Some did not feel that community organizing was necessary because Chicago now had an African-American mayor.  Others, however, thought that community organizing was essential because there were still problems.  One African-American lady thought that a white organizer did not have the African-American community's interests at heart, and that the policies that he advocated would not really work.  The white organizer, meanwhile, felt that the African-American lady didn't like him because she wanted to be the one in charge.

There were Obama's attempts to become effective in his line of work, and Obama is candid about where he failed.  He came across to people as an interviewer and thought that leaving tracts or brochures would launch a successful operation, but the white organizer told him that he should work more at getting at the heart of people's discontent, listening to people, and showing them how community organizing could actually improve their lives.

There were some characters.  One person, Will, just left when he thought that a meeting was boring.  There was fear that he'd be the only one left to run the community organizing operation!

But, at the end of my latest reading, I gained insight into why the community organizers kept on keeping on, notwithstanding the challenges.  And it came from the lips of Will, who told about a time when things were better and children were happier, in contrast to the sadness, anger, and unhappiness of the present.  That inspired Obama, who was asked by a lady why he did community organizing when he did not appear to have a solid religion (at least at the time).  And it taught the lady that her reasons for community organizing and those of Barack were really not so far apart.

Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father 5

In my latest reading of Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Barack Obama talks about his time at Columbia University, his work in the corporate world, and then his entrance into the world of community organizing.

I'd like to highlight something that Obama says on page 121:

"I might meet a black friend at his Midtown law firm, and before heading to lunch at the MoMa, I would look out across the city toward the East River from his high-rise office, imagining a satisfactory life for myself----a vocation, a family, a home.  Until I noticed that the only other blacks in the office were messengers or clerks, the only other blacks in the museum were blue-jacketed security guards who counted the hours before they could catch their train home to Brooklyn or Queens."

This is an important passage because Barack highlights that he had dreams of a good life for himself, but he wondered if those dreams could be fulfilled because there were barriers that inhibited African-Americans from economically rising.

Interestingly, after Barack got an education and was thinking of becoming a community organizer, an African-American security guard named Ike tried to encourage Barack to go into something that would make him more money.  Ike saw that Obama had potential, and he wanted Barack to succeed financially!  But Barack was drawn to community organizing, in part because of his admiration for the civil rights movement.  Then, Barack felt, he could make a difference at a grass-roots level.

Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father 4: Turning Points

In my latest reading of Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Obama talked about his experiences at Occidental College.  To me, they seemed to be turning points in his life that made him more mature.

Obama says that he began to notice something at Occidental College: when he spoke, people listened.  He enjoyed the applause that he received, but he also wanted to find some way to enable his words to make a difference in the world.  But, although he gave a good speech at an anti-Apartheid rally, he became discouraged that the rally did not make a difference----that people returned to playing frisbee, and the visiting trustees did not take the rally seriously.

Obama's girlfriend Regina tried to encourage Obama by telling him that his words can make a difference, especially when he speaks from the heart.  When Obama's friend Reggie then comes along and brags about a party that he and Barack had, in which they left a huge mess for the maid to clean up, Regina is disappointed at Barack.  She says that her grandmother could have been the maid who would have been stuck with that mess!  Barack began to realize that, although he lived as an African-American in a world that was unfair and racist, that did not exempt him from the rules of common courtesy.

(UPDATE: According to this article, which discusses David Maraniss' biography of Barack Obama: "Writing about his schooldays, Obama created a friend called Regina, a symbol of the authentic black American experience that Obama yearns for.  Maraniss found, however, that Regina was based on Caroline Boss, a white student leader at Occidental College. Regina was the name of Boss’s Swiss grandmother.")

Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father 3

For my write-up today on Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father, I'll use as my starting-point something that Obama says on page 85:

"We were always playing on the white man's court, Ray had told me, by the white man's rules.  If the principal, or the coach, or a teacher, or Kurt, wanted to spit in your face, he could, because he had power and you didn't.  If he decided not to, if he treated you like a man or came to your defense, it was because he knew that the words you spoke, the clothes you wore, the books you read, your ambitions and desires, were already his.  Whatever he decided to do, it was his decision to make, not yours, and because of that fundamental power he held over you, because it preceded and would outlast his individual motives and inclinations, any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning.  In fact, you couldn't even be sure that everything you had assumed to be an expression of your black, unfettered self----the humor, the song, the behind-the-back pass----had been freely chosen by you.  At best, these things were a refuge; at worst, a trap.  Following this maddening logic, the only thing you could choose as your own was withdrawal into a smaller and smaller coil of rage, until being black meant only the knowledge of your own powerlessness, of your own defeat.  And the final irony: Should you refuse this defeat and lash out at your captors, they would have a name for that, too, a name that could cage you just as good.  Paranoid.  Militant.  Violent.  Nigger."

In my latest reading, Obama talks about how he was insulted for his race by white people, and they were puzzled when he got mad about it.  But Obama also mentions a time when tactful education made things a little better: When Obama's Kenyan father spoke to Obama's class and answered questions, including one about cannibalism.  According to Obama, his class was very impressed with his father.

I can understand somewhat what it's like to feel powerless and to think that people smugly look down on me when I react angrily to that powerlessness.  But, as a white person, I cannot comprehend that sort of scenario at the level that Barack Obama talks about: to be part of a race that is looked upon with contempt by the larger white society, which has power.  Whatever things I do that turn off others, I do not have to work as hard as many African-Americans to gain the respect of society.

I wish that white people would take into consideration the struggles of African-Americans rather than dismissing the African-Americans who are angry and bitter.  When Barack Obama gave his speech to the 2008 Democratic Convention, right-wing pundits called it angry and bitter.  Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't.  But what I didn't hear those right-wing pundits ask is: Why would an African-American be bitter?  Were they to do that, perhaps they'd see that there are African-Americans who are angry for a justifiable reason.

I myself need to work on understanding.  I have problems being around African-Americans who are so angry.  But what should my approach be?  I don't want to be a patronizing white liberal with white liberal guilt, since that makes me (and even some African-Americans) sick.  But I also don't want to be a conservative who doesn't think there is a race problem in the United States.

Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father 2

I have two items for my write-up today of Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.

1.  On pages 40-41, Obama talks about a lesson that his step-father Lolo was teaching him.  Lolo said: "Men take advantage of weakness in other men.  They're just like countries in that way.  The strong man takes the weak man's land.  He makes the weak man work in his fields.  If the weak man's woman is pretty, the strong man will take her...Which would you rather be?  Better to be strong.  If you can't be strong, be clever and make peace with someone who's strong.  But always better to be strong yourself.  Always."

I suppose that's the rationalization behind the Vietnam War and neo-conservative foreign policy: that we have to be strong so that others will fear and respect us.  But some on the Right will argue that President Obama does not follow this policy because he apologizes to other countries for what the U.S. has done in the past.  There may be a point to exuding strength, but I think there's also a place for what some consider to be weakness----apologizing when one is wrong, for example.  See here to read about a situation in which that actually worked.

Something else that I was thinking about when I read that passage: It's hard for individuals to show strength when it's against the law for them to forcefully stand up for themselves.  In the real world, we cannot punch people who try to run all over us, because then we could be arrested for assault.  That probably does not apply to self-defense, however.

2.  On page 55, Obama said regarding his grandfather: "Gramps had left the furniture business to become a life insurance agent, but as he was unable to convince himself that people needed what he was selling and was sensitive to rejection, the work went badly."

The reason that this passage stood out to me was that I remembered Ann Coulter criticizing Obama's grandfather in a piece that she wrote on Dreams from My Father.  She calls him "Obama's good-for-nothing, chronically unemployed white grandfather".

I haven't yet read the part of the book that Ann Coulter discusses in her column.  But, based on what I have read so far in the book, I do believe that Obama's grandfather tried.  He read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People and was able to make friends easily with his humor, his storytelling, and his interest in others.  As you can tell from the passage, he had jobs, for he was in the furniture business and then was selling life insurance.  And he had dreams and ambitions in terms of writing and art.

Maybe he wasn't successful.  Perhaps he struggled with a lack of self-confidence, in areas.  That doesn't mean he was good-for-nothing.  I get so sick of people's judgmentalism, especially the sort of judgmentalism that I see on the Right, which looks down on those who are not successful.  I'll admit that the Left has its share of judgmentalism, for many of its adherents act as if those who disagree with them lack intelligence.  But the judgmentalism on the Right especially peeves me.

Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father 1

I started Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.

The book is about Barack Obama's quest to learn about his father, an educated Kenyan man whom Barack apparently did not know that well because the father was in Kenya trying to help his native country.  In my latest reading, Obama talks about hearing stories about his father from his white grandparents on his mother's side----how they described him as a confident person, one who was even able to make a white racist at a tavern feel guilty and pay for his drink.  Obama also discusses his grandparents.  They lived in Texas, but they moved to Hawaii for employment opportunities and also because they did not care for the racism in Texas.  As Obama says, they didn't exactly know about the word "racism", but they believed that people should be treated right.

I enjoyed some of what Obama said on page 4.  He talks about a time when he was comfortable with solitude, and he knew an old man who lived next door to him who also was somewhat of a loner.  Obama helped him carry his groceries up the stairs.  I liked this story because it made me feel all right to be an introvert, and yet it also teaches me to try to understand others and to help them out when I can.

Obama also mentions his birth certificate on page 26, as he talks about finding an article about his father: "I discovered this article, folded away among my birth certificate and old vaccination forms, when I was in high school."