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Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
3/5. I hadn't read this in nearly twenty years, and thought it was time. And that's . . . interesting? Like, this is a book all about growing up as a mixed race kid, and finding and losing different kinds of racial identities, and working as a field organizer in poor black Chicago communities, and going to Africa for the first time. (And also in passing about the drugs he did in high school, LOL. Kid was not planning on running for President with this out there, you guys). It's an extremely personal story of race – that's the entire project. It's about the two sides of his family, and his many half siblings, and the accommodations with themselves and the world they all come to, in different ways. But it is not, even in the chapters about community organizing, a book about institutionalized racism. It's about the extremely personal experience of a thing we're just . . . kind of not talking about. That rings true for a man who would later be dragged hard by segments of the black community for his repeated insistence that all sorts of problems from crime to poverty should be solved in the black family rather than, say, through policy.
But yeah. Good to revisit. I remember how much this book was talked up before his senate run, back when only serious politics nerds knew who the hell he even was. It was revelatory to a lot of people then, many of whom – including me – had never read a book by a black man like this one, about these things. I've read many more since, and this is still a pretty good one.
And also, not for nothing, he was and is a strong, confident writer and, oh yeah, smart as hell. Remember that? It's good to remember.
3/5. I hadn't read this in nearly twenty years, and thought it was time. And that's . . . interesting? Like, this is a book all about growing up as a mixed race kid, and finding and losing different kinds of racial identities, and working as a field organizer in poor black Chicago communities, and going to Africa for the first time. (And also in passing about the drugs he did in high school, LOL. Kid was not planning on running for President with this out there, you guys). It's an extremely personal story of race – that's the entire project. It's about the two sides of his family, and his many half siblings, and the accommodations with themselves and the world they all come to, in different ways. But it is not, even in the chapters about community organizing, a book about institutionalized racism. It's about the extremely personal experience of a thing we're just . . . kind of not talking about. That rings true for a man who would later be dragged hard by segments of the black community for his repeated insistence that all sorts of problems from crime to poverty should be solved in the black family rather than, say, through policy.
But yeah. Good to revisit. I remember how much this book was talked up before his senate run, back when only serious politics nerds knew who the hell he even was. It was revelatory to a lot of people then, many of whom – including me – had never read a book by a black man like this one, about these things. I've read many more since, and this is still a pretty good one.
And also, not for nothing, he was and is a strong, confident writer and, oh yeah, smart as hell. Remember that? It's good to remember.