Dreams of my Father

The surprising thing about Barack Obama’s memoir, Dreams of my father, is that it’s such a cracking good read; I don’t know why this surprised me, after all, he is eloquent, a smooth and persuasive speaker with a knack for soundbites that capture the popular mood. Yet, the emotional intelligence that courses through the book, is not one I, and I suspect, most people would expect from a modern day politician; it has the tone of a man suddenly aware of the physical power he wields, both aware of it, terrified by it and determined to wield it for good. On one level, I couldn’t help but think this was a very good myth, a powerful story of the creation of a hero, like the odyssey, a story of a prince learning the limits of himself before he returns to his kingdom to rule; but then I remember that this was written before his momentous, historic campaign for president, before he became the Obama of Yes, we can.

I think it had so much more force for me, because it came before, because it was written at the stage in life, where as he says somewhere in his book (we do the things we tell ourselves we need to do to grow up), and exists now as a record of how a man goes from that to where he is now. I don’t have any illusions of grasping for the same kind of power Barack Obama has reached out for, yet in reading his book, the journey from taking himself – a confused, fucked up, mixed race kid to the security of campaigning as a post-racial candidate, I find a map of sorts. It involves boxing with shadows, and wrestling with demons; if he does nothing more than run for president of the United States, Barack Obama has already achieved a great deal – millions of mothers can point to him, as his own mother did with the role models, of King, Baldwin et al and say yes, you can too.