From the Vault • Barack Obama • SEP 1995

[Music] [Music] tonight we have a special treat for you we search deep in our vault and uncovered a piece of tape that we think you really enjoy the program is from an author series that was produced at the Cambridge Public Library back in 1995 and features a Harvard Law School student reading from a memoir that he wrote titled Dreams from My Father a story of race and inheritance this particular law school student distinguished himself as the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review and then some years later as the first african-american president of the United States sit back and enjoy a special archival presentation with Barack Obama good evening thank you very much I I noticed today as I was in the hotel room getting ready that : Powell is also here today we were gonna coordinate our tours and he was a little worried that I'd siphon off the crowds but it looks like he did okay I'm very happy to be here today although I admit that when I am in libraries in Cambridge I get exam flashbacks let's start getting breaking out into cold sweats but this is in fact the first time that I've been to the Cambridge Public Library which shows you the kind of life we lead over at the law school we don't leave campus too much a little bit about myself and the book a little preface as was said in the introduction my father was a black African and my mother was a a white American and much of my life was spent trying to reconcile the terms of my birth that divided heritage with the realities of race and nationality tribal identities that exist not just in this country but also overseas so that this book is not so much a memoir I think is sort of a journey of discovery for me some sense of trying to make sense of my family and and family is always a complicated thing but it's it was a little bit more complicated for me and and part of that process of me understanding my family ends of understanding the larger forces that shaped my family the first section of the book in particular talks about my grandparents and my mother's family who grew up in such metropolis as Peru Kansas and Eldorado Kansas we're not sophisticates we're not even liberal we're about as MidAmerican as you could get really if you look at pictures of my grandparents and their there's a picture on the cover of the book and particularly in their older years they look like they walked straight out of American Gothic on the other side my father's tried my father's family came from a small Kenyan village on the shores of Lake Victoria and sometimes we forget in some of the racial conflict that takes place in this country that contact between the west and Africa and the Western Kenya and my father's village in particular was relatively recent so that my grandfather on my father's side was the first or one of the first Africans black men to ever see and meet and have direct contact with a white person and this happened as recently as 1895 so that you have these widely divergent cultures coming together and as a child a lot of the conflicts that potentially arise out of that were tamp down in my life because they met in Hawaii and they met at a time there was full of idealism it was during the civil rights movement Hawaii as it is had sort of almost a mythic reputation of being multicultural and so that my parents were swept up in the idealism of that time and and the hopefulness at that time the sense that you might be able to create in this country a nation that was built on a sense of community and equity and fairness and as we know many of those dreams of my parents ended up fraying as time went on their marriage broke apart but also I think the hopes and dreams of the nation began to crumble in later 60s and so I end up coming into adolescence at a time when the tensions between the races even in a place like Hawaii are becoming more pronounced and so the identity politics that is so pronounced today was already starting to come to the fore so the section that I'm gonna read for you right now takes place during my adolescence and I'm a very angry man right young man at the time that this passage takes place yeah partly because my father is absent partly because I'm trying to struggle what does it mean exactly to be a black man in America partly because I'm sufficiently isolated in Hawaii without a large african-american community without father figures around that might guide me and steer my anger what I end up relying on are the images and stereotypes that are coming through the media and and I'm having to patch together and piece together exactly what it means for me to to be both African and an American so the passage that I'm gonna read right now takes place right after a party and what's happened is is that typically when I went to parties in high school often times there were three or four black people in a room of 300 so finally a black friend of mine and myself decided to invite some white friends to a black party out in a army base out in Schofield Barracks one of the major army bases in Hawaii and we immediately sense that they're a little uncomfortable being in this minority situation you know they're sort of trying to tap their foot to the beat you know they're they're being extraordinarily friendly and after a while they decide after about half an hour they say well Baracus let's get going you know we're feeling kind of tired we're feeling this or that and suddenly this sense that what I have had to put up with every day of my life is something that they find so objectionable that they can't even put up with it for a day and these are good friends of mine and and and folks who who would stood by me for many years it something is triggered in my head and I suddenly start seeing as I say in this passage a new map of the world a couple of other notes of explanation as I worked through this anger the sense of betrayal I've discovered that I'm feeling that same sense of betrayal from my family it all starts coming together and some of the characters in the book there will be Gramps in this passage rather Gramps is my grandfather toot is my grandmother that's short for - - which in Hawaii means grandmother at the time when I was born she decided she was too young to be called granny so her grams we called her to tea and the passage finally ends with me having a conversation with a close friend of my maternal grandfather a close friend of Gramps a black man from Kansas named Frank actually above at the time fairly well known poet named Frank Marshall Davis who had moved to Hawaii and lived there and so I have a discussion with him about the kinds of frustrations I'm having and and he sort of schools me on that I should get used to these frustrations so let me dig in we started down the road towards town and in the silence my mind began to rework Ray's words that day with Curt all the discussions we'd had before that the events of that night and by the time I had dropped my friends off I had begun to see a new map of the world one that was frightening in its simplicity suffocating in its implications 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 did not 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 that 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 proceeded and would outlast his individual motives and inclinations any distinction between good and bad White's held negligible meaning in fact you couldn't even be sure that everything you would assume 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 and 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 - a name that could cage you just as good like paranoid or militant or violent or [ __ ] over the next few months I looked to corroborate this nightmare vision of mine I gathered up books from the library Baldwin Ellison Hughes right wah at night I would close the door to my room telling my grandparents I had homework to do and there I would sit and wrestle with works locked in suddenly desperate argument trying to reconcile the world as I had found it with the terms of my birth but there seemed to be no escape to be had in every page of every book in bigger Thomas and invisible men I kept finding the same anguish the same doubt a self contempt the neither irony nor intellect seemed able to deflect even Dubois learning in Baldwin's love and Langston's humor eventually succumbed to its corrosive force each man finally forced to doubt art's redemptive power each man finally forced to withdraw one to Africa one to Europe one deeper into the bowels of Harlem but all of them in the same where he flight all of them exhausted bitter men the devil at their heels only Malcolm X's autobiography seemed to offer something different his repeated acts of self creation spoke to me the blunt poetry of his words his insistence on respect promised a new and uncompromising order Marshall in its discipline forged through sheer force of will all the other stuff the talk of blue-eyed Devils and Apocalypse was incidental to that program I decided religious baggage that Malcolm himself seemed to have safely abandoned towards the end of his life and yet even as I imagined myself following Malcolm's call one line in the book stayed with me before he spoke of a wish he'd once had the wish that the white blood that ran through him thereby an act of violence might somehow be expunged I knew that for Malcolm that wish would never be incidental I knew as well that traveling down the road to self-respect my own white blood would never recede into mere abstraction so I was left to wonder what else I would be severing if and when I left my mother and my grandparents at some uncharted border and to it Malcolm's discovery towards the end of his life that some whites might live beside him as brothers in Islam seemed to offer some hope of eventual reconciliation that hope appeared in a distant future in a far-off land where were the people who had worked towards this future and populate this new world after a basketball at the University one day ray and I happened to strike up a conversation with the tall gaunt man named Malik who played with us now and again Malik mentioned that he was a follower of the Nation of Islam but the sense Malcolm had died and he had moved to Hawaii he no longer went to mosque or political meetings although he still sought comfort in solitary prayer one of the guys sitting nearby must have overheard us for he leaned over with a sagacious expression on his face y'all talking about Malcolm huh Malcolm tells it like it is no doubt about it yeah now the guy said but I tell you what he won't see me moving to no African jungle any time soon or some goddamn does it somewhere sand on a carpet with a bunch of Arabs no sir and you you won't see me stop eating no ribs either you gotta have em ribs and - don't Malcolm talk about no now you know that gonna work I noticed ray laughing and looked at him sternly what are you laughing at I said to him you never even read Malcolm you don't even know what he says ray grabbed a basketball out of my hand and headed for the opposite rim I don't need no books to tell me how to be black he shouted over his head I started to answer then turned to malik expecting some words of support but the muslim said nothing his bony face set in a faraway smile i decided to keep my own counsel after that learning to disguise my feverish mood a few weeks later though i awoke to the sound of an argument in the kitchen my grandmother's voice barely audible followed by my grandfather's deep growl I opened my door to see - that's my grandmother entering their bedroom - get dressed for working I asked her what was wrong nothing your grandfather just doesn't want me to drive me to work this morning that's all I entered the kitchen and saw Gramps was muttering under his breath he poured himself a cup of coffee as I told him that I'd be willing to give - to ride to work if he was feeling tired this was a bold offer for I did not like to wake up early he scowled at my suggestion that's not the point she just wants to make me feel bad I'm sure that's not it grass of course it is he sipped from his coffee she's been catching the bus ever since she started at the bank she said it was more convenient and now just because she gets pestered a little she wants to change everything toots the Dominion of figure hovered in the hall peering at us from behind her bifocals that's not true Stanley I took to Din to the other room and asked her what had happened a man asked me for money yesterday while I was waiting for the bus that's all toots lips pursed with irritation he was very aggressive very very aggressive I gave him a dollar and he kept asking if the bus hadn't come why I think he might have hit me over the head Gramps was rinsing his cup when I returned to the kitchen his back was turned to me listen I said Gramps why don't you just let me give her a ride after all she seems pretty upset by a panhandler yeah I know but it's probably a little scary for her seeing some man block her way it's really no big deal he turned around and I saw now 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 fellow was black he whispered the word that's the real reason why she's bothered and I just don't think that's right his 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 assured him the toots fears would pass and that we should give her a ride in the meantime Graham 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 remain like that for several minutes in painful silence finally he insisted that he drive - - after all and I and struggled up from a seat to get dressed after they left though I sat on the edge of my bed and 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 and I doubted if they ever would and yeah I knew that men who might easily have been my brothers could still inspire their rawest fears that night I drove into Waikiki past the bright lit hotels and down towards the Ala Wai canal it took me a while to recognize the house with its wobbly porch and low pitched roof inside the light was on and I could see Franklin sitting in his overstuffed chair a book of poetry in his lap his reading glasses slipping down his nose I sat in the car watching him for a time then finally got out and tapped on the door the old man barely looked up as he rose to undo the latch it had been three years since I'd seen him want a drink he asked me I nodded and watched him pull down a bottle of whiskey and two plastic cups from the kitchen cupboard he looked the same his moustache a lil whiter dangling like dead ivy over his heavy upper lip his cutoff jeans with a few more holes and tied at the waist for the length of rope sighs your grandpa he's all right so what are you doing here I wasn't sure I told Frank some of what had happened he nodded an importance he just shot funny cat your grandfather he said you know we grew up maybe 50 miles apart I shook my head we sure did both of us live near Wichita we didn't know each other of course I was long gone by the time he was old enough to remember anything I might have seen some of his people though I might have passed them on the street if I did I would have had to step off the sidewalk to give him room here grandpa ever tell you about things like that I threw the whiskey down my throat shaking my head again no Frank said I don't suppose he would have Stan doesn't like to talk about that part of Kansas much makes him uncomfortable why he told me once about a black girl they hired to look after your mother a preacher's daughter I think it was told me how she became a regular part of the family that's how he remembers that you understand this girl coming in to look after somebody else's children her mother coming in to do somebody else's laundry a regular part of the family I reached for the bottle this time pour in my own Frank wasn't watching me now his eyes were closed his head leaning against the back of his chair his big wrinkled face like a carving of stone you can't blame your grandfather for what he is Frank said he's basically a good man but he doesn't know me anymore than he knew that girl that looked after your mother he can't know me not the way I know him maybe some of these Hawaiians can or the Indians on the reservation they've seen their fathers humiliated their mothers desecrated but your grandfather will never know what that feels like that's why I can come over here and drink my whiskey and follow sleep in that chair you're sitting in right now sleep like a baby see that's something I can never do in his house never doesn't matter how tired I get I still have to watch myself I have to be vigilant for my own survival Frank opened his eyes what I'm trying to tell you is your grandma's right to be sad she's at least as right as your grandpa is she understands that black people have a reason to hate that's just how it is for your sake I wish you were otherwise but it's not so you might as well get used to it Frank closed his eyes again his breathing slowed until he seemed to be asleep I thought about waking him then decided against it and walked back to the car the earth shook under my feet ready to crack open at any moment I stopped trying to steady myself and knew for the first time that I was utterly alone okay I am available for questions or comments right there you know I wish I'd asked myself that question before I started what motivated me when I was elected as I write about in the introduction when I was elected president a law review here at Harvard that generated quite a bit of publicity and so immediately you know there's this entire industry of agents and folks who's you know if you get your little 15 minutes of fame they'll call you and see you know if we I suppose can make some money on it and I think the idea that they had initially was sort of a sort of feel-good story you know it's a young black man successful and then I had to explain to them you know this is kind of complicated you know what's going on here and at the time I was thinking about writing more of an academic treatise you know because I wasn't very happy with sort of the terms of the public policy debate surrounding racial issues what happened as I began to write it and I've been keeping journals for quite some time what I realized is is that if I had anything unique or useful to offer that it probably had more to do with the stories of my life you know what I realized and and partly this is comes from my background as a community organizer where the way you organize community give them a sense of solidarity or meaning in their lives a lot of times has to do with sharing stories and there's a long tradition in the african-american community of sharing stories of storytelling and and in African traditions the grill sharing a story and so I guess I felt that oh I I ended up being drawn to the idea of sharing a story and and thought that my family might be a useful prism to understand some of the complexities of racial issues which gets so simplified when they're debated on crossfire the McLaughlin group for what heavy so that's that that was the initial impulse and I think there was a certain amount of expiation that took place because you know although by that time I was well established and you know I guess by conventional terms successful or on my way to success there was a lot of unworked through stuff that I had to write down you know clarify for myself in terms of organizing to write a book it wasn't very organized I got an initial advance which gave me sort of a jump it allowed me to go back to Kenya do some more research because the last section of the book talks about Kenya and so I started writing but then immediately during the 1992 election cycle I was approached by a number of people in Chicago to run a voter registration campaign and I had decided I'd do that much to the chagrin of my initial publishers but I thought the 1992 election was important and and the work needed to be done so it essentially and right after that I started working as a civil rights attorney and so what I had to do was what I imagine most first time I just do which is you know you write in the evenings you write on the weekends my wife who was foolish enough to to marry me right in the middle of this thing didn't see much of me for the first two years or so that we were married and I had to take some leaves of absence for a month or two once the first draft was written to try to polish it up a little bit okay can you say that more about how you manage to sort of get record numbers of voters out in Chicago in just six months sure in terms of the multicultural checkoff box on census reports and things like that I understand the impulse I'm sympathetic to the impulse in the end I guess I don't agree with the strategy of the this goes back to a constant debate about should we pretend that we've got a colorblind society or on the other hand is everything racial everything tribal and I guess I don't believe in those simplifications I think you know dr. King described it as a the need for us to move from a either-or mentality to a but and mentality and and and I think the the truth of it is is that we share a great deal in common amongst the tribes we have to continually work towards and affirm that commonality but we have very different historical circumstances and that you know I think William Faulkner said you know the past is never dead and buried it's not even past well that's certainly true when it comes to racial issues and so the notion that somehow changing a census box will free up someone who's quote-unquote multicultural so that they will now be able to live as individuals as opposed to categorized into groups it just strikes me as naive and potentially damaging from from a political standpoint you know I think that if anything it just creates one more category so now we have coloreds in America you know and there was long fight in South Africa to overturn that so so I yeah I guess that the simplest way to answer your question is if I'm in New York City trying to catch a cab I can hold up a little sign saying I'm multicultural yeah well you know this is only because I'm decked out for this reading now you know if I if I had my my homey look then then I might have some problems so the so I hope that answers your question as far as voter registration you know we live in a very cynical time about politics 1992 there was a window of opportunity where I think having come out of the the Reagan and Bush era I think there was and the Cold War being over there was some sense that now was a time where we could look inward and do something domestically and and in the african-american community there was some sense of optimism I think hardly because President Clinton tapped into some good rhetoric right he said some right things about community about mutual responsibility about refocusing and redoubling our efforts to do something about the inner cities and so we were able in some ways to work off of the energy that was being driven during that campaign most of it is not rocket science it's just hard work what you have to do is you have to go into churches you have to go into sororities you have to and recruit volunteers and train those volunteers and be systematic about you know putting them in in spots throughout the city and and it also costs money and so you have to you know raise money for it but in the end it really has to do with being able to link together people's understanding that their self-interest is tied to the political process and that is very difficult to do if you're in a situation in Robert Taylor homes let's say we're which is a large public housing development in Chicago a notorious public housing development where things seem to people feel like things are always happening to them and they're not active agents and so a lot of groundwork has to be laid to explain that no in fact you are an active agent you know and you sometimes you talk about welfare cuts and that if you don't vote somebody's gonna cut your your welfare sometimes you as people develop you can engage them in more sophisticated arguments about you know the potential power of a minority particularly in primaries but it's difficult work there's no easy magic solution to it I'll give to these two folks a chance and then I'll come back to you go ahead as they were generated by the reality of the fact that you were our vibrational of our bicultural I suppose even though over time you feel more just yeah you know I think that that sense of what would I discovered and I try to write about this in the book is that I guess that the solution for me to that sense of isolation was to throw myself into a community to basically decide and I it wasn't articulated in my mind at the time but in retrospect I can see what I was doing I ended up deciding that my individual fate had to be tied to something larger than myself that my individual salvation would only come from a collective salvation of some sort that my true sense of self would only come if I had some sense of community and so what I've internally I think did was to sort of reach back into that period of time that my parents came together the civil rights movement and I think I internalized a sense that this country had that this nation had in the early 60s that we could transform community that we could break isolation I think part of the impulse for my parents marrying each other you've got a a white woman from a lower middle-class background in a small starched you know town in Kansas now she marries an African well something's going on there I mean part of what's going on and she's you know the most wonderful woman I know and and part of what was going on with her was she's trying to break out of the isolation and Sultan and and constraints of her upbringing my father on the other hand he's trying to break out of his own vents of isolation he is a transitional figure someone who's moving essentially from the 18th century directly into the 21st out of a small Kenyan village into you know a Harvard ph.d program you know in one fell swoop so he's suddenly recognizing that his life is isolated that there's this modern world that's swirling about him and that he's got to take control of that in some fashion and so I think part of the impulse that brought them together had to do with breaking their isolation I think this nation was going through some the same sense when Freedom Riders went down from the north to register voters and break down segregation in the south that's an exercise in breaking through isolation and so I think that subconsciously at least I ended up harkening back to that time and and became a community organizer and what I discovered through the work that I did in Chicago was that by sharing stories as I said by understanding that the experiences of my grandfather in Kansas who you know sort of had an unsavory past and his father left him and left his mother or his mother ended up committing suicide he was always sort of you know I guess what might be considered poor white trash you know that that his story his needs his hungers weren't that different from a young man that I'm looking at an 18 year old in Chicago whose fathers left him and whose mother's maybe smoking crack and he's trying to make his way and I'm working with him once you start seeing those stories and and digging beneath the surface then you can reclaim a connection and and I guess one of the things that that I think that translates to politically is a sense that if we work through these racial harmony is not going to come by us holding hands and singing Kumbaya that understanding has to be earned it has to be worked for and their sacrifices involved and I think that breaking isolation requires work and sacrifice and I think that's how I ended up reconciling it so do the pizzetta to pool where there was it a second question I don't remember okay gentlemen you're writing and what kind of addiction realistically you can see for America I think you just begin to touch on it but maybe you could say more about what what are there any examples in the world in history or in model for what you would like to see that you really think is realistically achievable in the United States in the near future like the next decade yeah well keep in mind as I said the this passage that I read was right I'm 16 years old young men are just angry generally right it's the testosterone kind of thing all right there the rage of the privileged class that way cool is that something that is just a period that's going to be the over or I can see that's gonna last you know I I in the book on an optimistic note I mean I think this is a comedy as opposed to a tragedy this particular book so I do work through the anger that I personally experienced in my own life but as I said I think it gets transformed into an insistence on creating a politics that can address our past I am the whole country and you know I am I remain optimistic about America I I remain you know I'm I believe in the that we can appeal to the better angels of our nature and I think that you know my wife likes to say she a black woman who grew up in the south side of Chicago all her life working-class family she she likes to say and I think this is true that black folks are the most forgiving people because they've had the most practice and and I think that's true I you know that this whole notion of black anger and black rage you know I think is greatly overstated considering what a brutal experience it has been in this country and my I am always struck by how even though black folks may talk about white folks sort of in the generic sense that most black folks always have an open hand two individual whites and that if there was any sense that this country was making a serious effort to address the problems that have resulted from slavery and segregation in this country in that continuum that I think you would see an outstretched arm from the other side it requires that White's participate ooh and well you know the that's where my optimism comes in and and maybe this is naivete sometimes you know black folks think I'm a little naive but I guess I think that basically Americans are decent people I think problem with Americans and this is obviously a large generalization so you will excuse me as I generalize about Americans Americans don't like to sacrifice this generation in particular does not like to sacrifice our whole politics is geared towards not whine the sacrifice and trying to do everything on the cheap and solving the racial problems in this country at this stage has very much to do with economics and class and dealing with entire generations and segments of the society that need help and that's going to cost some money and that's going to require some sacrifice I think that the political current political climate can change and I think that if you talk to young people I think there have been changes so I'm not one of these people who says that nothing's changed I think it's the best of times and the worst of times for race relations in this country let's buy it for possession well it's democracy isn't gonna work isn't working well you know Cornel West has to go back to his Bible Brian they gotta have faith you know they got to have faith I mean I say that facetiously but but I do think that there is an element of faith involved in this project of democracy there's an element of faith involved in in in the notion that you can create a society in a country that doesn't all look like and sound alike and talk alike that's it's a profound experiment and it's not over with but but I continue to see opens there and then the question is whether we have the will and the resolve to take advantage of those openings you know I I feel deeply at home in Chicago partly because I think Chicago is similar to in some ways my Kansas roots even though I've never lived in Kansas but it's got that Midwestern yeah I I'm reminded of my wedding where my grandmother - who I just read this passage she's about 411 little white lady from Kansas and she came down to the south side where we were getting married and she came to my mother-in-law's house and you know she's this is a woman who like was a banker right so she she's a little white Kansas banker lady and she's walking in the mill the southside of Chicago and you know she was probably feeling a little tense about it and she walks in and and she sees sort of the spread that my mother-in-law is put out and immediately her like her eyes light up because there's macaroni and cheese and you know coleslaw and succotash and and other things that I don't eat jell-o molds you know and mancine funny but but there was an immediate connection there and I think it has to do with some sense and my mother-in-law reminds me very much of my grandmother in terms of some basic sensibilities so certain stoicism and unwillingness to complain and gripe all the time about things just to get on with it so so I feel comfortable in Chicago for that reason Chicago is a highly segregated City and and that creates discomfort not so much for me because since I work in a wide circle you know I'm fairly I can I can move in a lot of different neighborhoods but it lacks the cosmopolitan feel of say New York and I confess that when I go on a vacation and you know take a weekend in New York and I'm just walking down the street and I'm here and you know you know Pakistani over here and I hear you know you know Creole over here that you know that makes me feel sort of that I'm part of this wider world and you know those folks in the Midwest we're landlocked so we we sometimes kind of forget that but why don't I take one more question okay I'll see if you could describe a little bit what you brought back and the second question was you could tell us what your civil rights okay as far as Africa that as I said the entire book ends in Africa my it was an interesting process for me because my personal journey to discover very directly who my family was I think mirrors a more abstract sense of a lot of African Americans that they need to go back and reclaim their roots and a further parallel exists because in the same way that I think I had looked at my father as sort of an idealized image so does the African American community I think tend to idealize Africa look at it through rose-tinted glasses if it thinks about it at all now that you know part of that is counteracting years of feeling ashamed about Africa so going back I think for me was to embrace at least a partial truth about Africa which is that there's good in Africa and there's bad in Africa that there's great joy and much to be learned from Africa but that there is also much to be to be discarded about certain African traditions a very specific example is the sexism that exists in Africa which I think debilitates the country so you know I think that's more than anything when I brought back until you get to serve a more mystical plane where it is true that when you're on the Serengeti and you're looking out across the expanse time feels different and you bring back something I think that is different and and stays in you but I don't for exam I took my wife back and as I said she grew up in South Side of Chicago and what she realized was that she was an American I think it very profoundly she realizes now she's a very beautiful regal African looking brown skinned sister yeah and she goes there and we go up to my grandmother's village and first of all she's riding in my tattoos these little jitneys that are bumping along the road and they're chickens on her laps and you know she's and what was that game when we were kids right and then you put your twist all right Assad kills and so we get up there and and my little cousins they all start pointing at her and saying look the wazoo which means the white lady now you know for her girl from SAS out of Chicago whose complexion is about like this young lady's right here that's that's sort of a stunning it's a sort of welcome but beyond the superficial things I think what what you realize when you go back is is that African Americans already partake of a hybrid culture you know we are part of a hybrid culture and we can't deny that so in some ways you know the the more obvious by racial identity that I have to affirm African Americans also have to affirm and white Americans have to affirm because they partake in a hybrid culture I mean that you know the truth of the matter is is that American culture at this point what is truly American is black culture to a large degree flip on the television set look at pulp fiction you know I mean you can choose what are examples you want and and it's had a profound influence on this entire nation and it has to be affirmed in terms of my civil rights practice it's hard it's hard right now because Reagan and Bush appointing judges that are not sympathetic to civil rights laws and one of the things that I always try to emphasize is you know there is so much debate about affirmative action and very little talk about enforcement of anti-discrimination laws you know it is incredibly hard to bring a discrimination suit these days in the courts incredibly hard first of all you've got corporations who are willing to spend half a million seven hundred fifty thousand a million dollars worth of legal fees to defend one case you've got a black plaintiff or a woman plaintiff on the other side who if she can find a lawyer who's willing to take the case on contingency is still looking at 40 50 a hundred thousand dollars worth of just costs these are legal fees just costs they get worn down and then you have a court that is it has cramped readings of existing laws and so you know I have I just finished a case where a black man who was the only black employee and a sales force of 150 the first week on the job his manager who was now the CEO of a company which is a fortune 500 company pointed to him while standing next to a customer and said see I don't have to worry about the EEOC I've got my [ __ ] in the window said you know and and this is not uncommon and so you know the Conservatives have been very effective in using the moniker politically correct to sort of beat back the progress we've made in terms of decency and civility but III think that well-meaning citizens would be well-served to take a look at anti-discrimination laws and how they're being enforced because at least theoretically most conservatives still say that they believe in anti-discrimination laws they just don't believe in affirmative action in practice however it's very hard to apply those laws in a just and equitable way okay thank you very much one last question okay why didn't I put any pictures in the book you know I guess the I don't know that there was a part of me that thought you know pictures are like four you know Frank Sinatra writes his autobiography you know you know then people want to see him dancing with Mia Farrow or something I think part of it was as I was writing I really wanted this to be a work of the imagination in some way I wanted to read I wanted it to read like a story and not a memoir and but the pictures on the front are relative so the the two white folks here are my grandfather and my grandmother and the Africans are my grandmother on my father's side and my father sitting in her lap okay thank you very much [Applause] we hope you enjoyed this special archival presentation from our video vault for the staff of 22 city view I'm Richard Keynes good night

Channel: 22-CityView - Cambridge, MA

Views: 5,895,786

Rating: 4.6937523 out of 5

Keywords: Barack Obama (US President), Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, 22-CityView, Cambridge Public Library (Building), The Author Series, Cambridge Municipal Television

Id: w5JlqDnoqlo

Length: 56min 42sec (3402 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 12 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/oceanceaser]

God it makes me so sad seeing how eloquent and brilliant he is here knowing who replaced him. Sad tingles

[u/visualreporter]

Best president ever!