I recently read Obama’s recent speech on race and it further turned me off to his candidacy. Overall, it was a good speech. Obama is truly a gifted orator. I agree with a lot of it, but his depiction of his grandmother in the speech was completely off-putting and offensive. Here’s what Obama said about this grandmother in the speech:

I can no more disown him [Rev. Wright] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

According to the Barack Obama in 2008, his grandmother “once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street.” But that’s not how the the Obama in 1995 apparently described the same incident. In Dreams from My Father a teenage Obama woke up to an argument between grandparents. At the time, he was being raised by his white grandparents. While going to work his grandmother had been accosted by a black man while she waited for the bus. Obama writes:

“Her lips pursed with irritation. ‘He was very aggressive, Barry. Very aggressive. I gave him a dollar and he kept asking. If the bus hadn’t come, I think he might have hit me over the head.”

…

“He turned around and I saw that he was shaking. ‘It is a big deal. It’s a big deal to me. She’s been bothered by men before. You know why she’s so scared this time. I’ll tell you why. Before you came in, she told me the fella was black.‘ He whispered the word. ‘That’s the real reason why she’s bothered. And I just don’t think that right.’

“The words were like a fist in my stomach, and I wobbled to regain my composure. In my steadiest voice, I told him that such an attitude bothered me, too, but reassured him that Toot’s fears would pass and that we should give her a ride in the meantime. Gramps slumped into a chair in the living room and said he was sorry he had told me. Before my eyes, he grew small and old and very sad. I put my hand on his shoulder and told him that it was all right, I understood.

“We remained like that for several minutes, in painful silence. Finally he insisted that he drive Toot after all, and I thought about my grandparents. They had sacrificed again and again for me. They had poured all their lingering hopes into my success. Never had they given me reason to doubt their love; I doubted if they ever would. And yet I knew that men who might easily have been my brothers could still inspire their rawest fear.” [page 88-91]

Maybe the 2008 Barack Obama is talking about something different entirely, I don’t know. But it sounds like the same. If it is the same incident, Obama has little respect for his grandmother. In the 1995 version, his Grandmother was accosted by a bum. In the 2008 version, she had a general fear of blacks. If she had been accosted, it is understandable why she would be afraid of blacks.

I don’t think highly of people who disrespect their grandmother or mothers and compare them to the likes of Rev. Wright. Especially when, like Obama, they are doing it for political gain.

I could be wrong, so please comment if you disagree with my take on this situation. Even before I knew about Obama’s description of the event in his book, comparing his grandma to Rev. Wright didn’t sit well with me.

Here’s where I got the quotes from Obama’s book.