To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling constraints. We weren't indifferent or careless or insecure.We were alienated. - Barry Obama
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Obamassiah
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That passage comes from Dreams from My Father. I read the book a few years ago. Obama is talking about his first year in college where after living with his white mother and grandparents he is trying to find his own identity as a young African-American man. He thinks he has to hang with a certain crowd but he eventually realizes he’s living a lie.
Chris, I was wondering how you came across that quote?
He realized that he was living a lie and yet he still surrounds himself with people with similar viewpoints.
He surrounds himself with people of many different viewpoints – that’s the point. When we’re young we all try to figure out who we are but once we mature we realize it’s not about fitting in. It’s about accepting who you are.
Chris, how did you come across the quote?
Young? So Anita Dunn and Ron Bloom were young when they talked about Mao? Andy Stern was young when he talked about "persuasion of power"? Jeremiah Wright was young when preached to Obama for half his life? And Obama was young when he brought these people into his administration or attended their church? These aren't youthful discretions. He has knack for surrounding himself with these people.
Not sure why it matters, but I found the quote here: http://tinyurl.com/yzu8uqo
Why did you attribute the quote to Barry Obama instead of Barrack Obama?
According to Wikipedia:
"Obama was known as 'Barry' in his youth, but asked to be addressed with his given name during his college years."
I wasn't sure if he had already started going by Barack at this time or not.
The link where you found the quote attributed it to Barack Obama. Did you hear this first on Glenn Beck? Is that why you’re attributing it to Barry?
No, he's called Barry all over Twitter. That's where I got it.
So it’s just a coincidence that Glenn Beck talked about this exact quote on his show and made a point of talking about Obama changing his first name in college around the time he made these associations? That had nothing to do with your posting this quote and attributing it to Barry instead of Barack Obama?
Chris, was this just a coincidence or did you get it from the Glenn Beck show?
Must have been a coincidence because I didn't see that episode.
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