Found this interesting list of other O. quotes from his book being taken out of context, along with commentary by the blogger.
Alleged quote:
"The person who made me proudest of all, though, was [half brother] Roy...He converted to Islam."
Real quote and/or context of quote:
"The person who made me proudest of all, though, was Roy. Actually, now we call him Abongo, his Luo name, for two years ago he decided to reassert his African heritage. He converted to Islam, and has sworn off pork and tobacco and alcohol. He still works at his accounting firm, but talks about moving back to Kenya once he has enough money. In fact, when we saw each other...he was building a hut for himself and his mother...in accordance with Luo tradition."
>>>An honest conversation about race begins with just that: HONESTY. The paraphrased quote implies Obama is happy for his half-brother because he converted to Islam, which is of course a lie. When Obama first meets his half-brother, Roy is an obese, hard-drinking man whose life is in a downward spiral. Obama is proud of his brother for turning his life around, as we all would be.
----
Alleged quote:
"In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school...I studied the Koran..."
Real quote and/or context of quote:
"In Indonesia, I had spent to years at a Muslim school, two years at a Catholic school. In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell my mother that I made faces during Koranic studies. My mother wasn't overly concerned. 'Be respectful,' she'd said. In the Catholic school, when it came time to pray, I would pretend to close my eyes, then peek around the room. Nothing happened. No angels descended. Just a parched old nun and thirty brown children, muttering words. Sometimes the nun would catch me, and her stern look would force my lids back shut."
>>>This paraphrased quote is not just misleading, it's deceitful. You're obviously implying that Obama was indoctrinated into the Muslim faith as a little boy. But the full quote, taken in context, depicts nothing more than your average precocious kid bored silly in religion class.
----
Alleged quote:
"Lolo (Obama's step father) followed a brand of Islam ...."I looked to Lolo for guidance".
"Real quote and/or context of quote:
"Like many Indonesians, Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths...[two paragraphs later]The world was violent, I was learning, unpredictable and often cruel. My grandparents knew nothing about such a world, I decided; there was no point in disturbing them with questions they couldn't answer. Sometimes, when my mother came home from work, I would tell her the things I had seen or heard, and she would stroke my forehead, listening intently, trying her best to explain what she could, and I always appreciated the attention--her voice, the touch of her hand, defined all that was secure. But her knowledge of [Indonesian] floods and exorcisms and cockfights left much to be desired. Everything was as new to her as it was to me, and I would leave such conversations feeling that my questions had only given her unnecessary cause for concern. So it was to Lolo I turned for guidance and instruction."
>>>It's becoming painfully obvious you haven't read a single word of Obama's books. The paraphrased quote would have you believe that Obama looks to this stern Muslim as his mentor, when in the full, contextual quote, NOTHING like that is said or inferred. Obama mentions offhand that his stepfather is Muslim--even better, that he adheres to an ecumenical brand of Islam. What follows after that is a full page of text and two expository paragraphs on Indonesian life, and then Obama says he turns to his stepfather for guidance about Indonesian customs and history because his grandparents and mother are relatively clueless.
----
Alleged quote:
"I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."
Real quote and/or context of quote:
"In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."
>>>This is truly a thing of beauty here. Obama creates this carefully nuanced portrait of Arab and Pakistani Americans unlawfully imprisoned in post-9/11 America, and he vows to defend their freedoms as Americans. And what does the paraphrased "quote" imply? That come the next Holy War, Obama is joining the Jihadists.
----
Alleged quote:
"I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites."
Real quote and/or context of quote:
"[We] know too much, we have all seen too much, to take my parents' brief union--a black man and white woman, an African and an American--at face value. As a result, some people have a hard time taking me at face value. When people who don't know me well, black or white, discover my background (and it usually is a discovery, for I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of twelve or thirteen, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites), I see the split-second adjustments they have to make, the searching of my eyes for some tell-tale sign. They no longer know who I am. Privately, they guess at my troubled heart, I suppose--the mixed blood, the divided soul, the ghostly image of the tragic mulatto trapped between two worlds. And if I were to explain that no, the tragedy is not mine, or at least not mine alone, it is yours, daughter of Plymouth Rock and Ellis Island, it is yours, children of Africa, it's on the nightly news for all to see, and that if we could acknowledge at least that much then the tragic cycle begins to break down...well, I suspect that I sound incurably naive, wedded to lost hopes....Or worse, I sound like I'm trying to hide from myself."
>>>Wow, stunning editorial journalism here. A sprawling paragraph about a young man's inner conflict with his multi-racial heritage, and the paraphrased quote dispenses with the parenthetical reference, and devoid of context, morphs into the rough equivalent of, "KILL, WHITEY!"
----
Alleged quote:
"never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself..."
Real quote and/or context of quote:
"Yes, I'd seen weaknesses in other men--[my grandfather] and his disappointments, [my stepfather] and his compromise. But these men had become object lessons for me, men I might love but never emulate, white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, the son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela. And if later I saw that the black men I knew...fell short of such lofty standards; if I had learned to respect these men for the struggles they went through, recognizing them as my own--my father's voice had nevertheless remained untainted, inspiring, rebuking, granting or withholding approval. You don not work hard enough, Barry. You must help in your people's struggle. Wake up, black man!
"Now, as I sat in the glow of a single light bulb, rocking slightly on a hard-backed chair, that image had suddenly vanished. Replaced by...what? A bitter drunk? An abusive husband? A defeated, lonely bureaucrat? To think that all my life I had been wrestling with nothing more than a ghost! For a moment I felt giddy...The king is overthrown, I thought. The emerald curtain is pulled aside. The rabble of my head is free to run riot; I can do what I damn well please. For what man, if not my own father, has the power to tell me otherwise? What I do, it seems, I won't do much worse than he did."
>>>I barely know where to begin with this one. Here we have Obama wrestling with the legacy of his dead father, and with how much he had WRONGLY invested himself in the myth of his father and by extension the myth of his racial heritage. And what does the altered quote suggest? BLACK POWER! BLACK POWER!
righttruth.typepad.com |
