Psychoanalyzing Barack Obama
March 23, 2007
Steven M. Warshawsky
Steve Sailor, who writes for The American Conservative and VDARE.com, has written a series of pieces about Barack Obama that make fascinating reading, as they explore the reality behind the notion that Obama "transcends" race and, in Jonathan Alter's words, offers voters an "historic and possibly redemptive" choice for president.
In a feature artticle in the current edition of TAC, Sailor carefully examines what Obama wrote in his best-selling autobiography Dreams From My Father: A Story Of Race And Inheritance. Sailor lays bare the race-consciousness at the center of Obama's worldview. This race-consciousness expresses itself most poignantly in Obama's self-identification with his "black" heritage (his father was Kenyan) and not-so-subtle rejection of his "white" heritage (his mother was a Caucasian from Kansas).
What effects this psychological dynamic may have on Obama's performance as president (assuming he were elected) is far from clear, of course, but it is important for voters to appreciate the issues Obama himself raises in his book (which, Sailor notes, few people appear to have read, despite many buyers).
Sailor has written a number of shorter follow-up pieces about Obama that also are well worth reading. See here, here, and here .
Whatever one may think about Barack Obama as a potential president (and I don't think very highly of him at all), Obama's candidacy, and the reactions it has triggered among liberals and conservatives alike, is one of the most interesting political stories of recent memory. Sailor's observations help flesh out this story in ways that one will not read in the mainstream media.
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