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tazzygirl -> RE: His Muslim faith (8/24/2010 8:27:58 AM)
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Ahhh... now i know what was niggling at me... this quote isnt as it appears.
• From Dreams from My Father : "It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names." (Page 101)
This quote is taken from a description of Obama's first year of college, when he self-consciously cultivated an identity of angry rebelliousness, a phase he grows out of. Here's the fuller quote:
"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 structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. 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. ... But this strategy alone couldn't provide the distance I wanted … After all, there were thousands of so-called campus radicals, most of them white and tenured and happily tolerated. No, it remained necessary to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names."
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/10/dreams-my-father-quotes-require-context/
Misleading e-mail: From Dreams of My Father : ; "It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names."
Actual quote from "Dreams from My Father" [pg. 100-101]: 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 structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed necolonialism, 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. But this strategy alone couldn't provide the distance I wanted, from Joyce or my past. After all, there were thousands of so-called campus radicals, most of them white and tenured and happily tolerated. No, it remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names. On its own, the quote makes Obama appear racially militant. Whereas, in full context, the quote illustrates Obama's confusion over his race and cultural heritage. This is emphasized in the preceding paragraph, where Obama describes himself as someone compensating for insecurity in his "racial credentials."
- Emi Kolawole and Brooks Jackson
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_obama_write_that_he_would_stand.html
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