Obama: His Influential Mother

My e.mail is cluttered with hatred for our President, claiming he is a Socialist, that he wants to make everyone dependant on government, and that his aim is to become a dictator with complete power over our nation.

Anyone who spreads this nonsense is a bigot, a liar, and a fascist. And anyone who believes any of this is a fool.

Some even believe Obama is not a true American, that he was born in Kenya and that he is a Muslim. His father was born in Kenya and was a Muslim. Our President was born in Hawaii and, abandoned at age two by his father, grew up under the influence of his white, Christian mother.

Ann Dunham was born in Wichita, Kansas. After her father returned from World War II, the family moved frequently. They even lived for a while in Texas. Ann went to high school in the Seattle area. She won a scholarship to the University of Washington, but shortly after her high school graduation, her parents decided to move to Hawaii. They insisted she go with them.

Ann was a friendless newcomer when she entered the University of Hawaii as a freshman. She was seduced by this handsome, intelligent, charismatic African. They married, and she named the baby after his father, Barack Hussein Obama. She was only 18 years old.

When the little boy was two, his father received a scholarship to Harvard. He left and only came back once. The month in Hawaii when Barack was nine years old was not a happy visit. When Barack Sr. left that time, the boy never saw or heard from his father again.

The big influence on his life was his mother, Ann Dunham. She was a remarkable woman. Only 20 years old when she became a single mother with a child to raise, she did not become a “welfare mother” content to let the government support her. She obtained a college degree in anthropology. While doing research for her Ph.D. in Indonesia, she worked with villagers, helping them to develop crafts to market and sustain their native culture.

Later she worked for the Ford Foundation on economic development projects throughout Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, Japan, Vietnam, and India – and other countries I can’t remember. If you want to check the facts, please read “The Bridge”, David Remnick’s biography of Obama.

Remnick quotes Obama’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, “I don’t know what she (Ann Dunham) wanted, beyond what any of us wants – some measure of satisfaction that we have contributed positively to the lives of others and enriched our own understanding of the world around us and taken full measure of our own place in this life and world.”

That’s what Ann Dunham instilled in her son, Barack Obama. In his speeches Obama always stresses “self-reliance” as accompanying any government program. In his policies he strives to “contribute positively to the lives of others.”

Not what the internet attacks on him would have you believe.