It doesn’t even seem like we read the same book. For instance, I only recall one mention of Malcolm X in the book, where Obama talks about Malcolm once writing that he wished he could erase his white blood, which came from the rape of slaves. Obviously, Obama has a different lineage and had the experience of being raised and nurtured by whites, so he couldn’t come to that conclusion, as he writes. Often in the book, especially while chronicling his childhood and teenage years, he writes about his point of view at any given time, then about arriving at different conclusions later. He doesn’t necessarily announce to the reader, hey, I thought this and then I thought this when I had other experiences or information. He simply traces his own evolution, which includes changing points of view on race that you somehow don’t find as credible as his teenage anger. It’s very easy for a white person, who has never had to deal with racism or question his identity the way many biracial people do, to dismiss a black person as “obsessed” or “acutely sensitive” to racial issues. To then extrapolate from this that he’s just a stereotypical Angry Black Man with a chip on his shoulder is truly vile.
