Reply #48: I'm afraid that I don't have anyone else's life experiences to presume a likenability to. [View All]

[LooseWilly]

Even reading Obama's book would merely give me my life experience of reading the book to liken my presumptions of Obama's life experiences to. I'm not sure that this detail of my notions of subjectivity is particularly relevant however.

All I was trying to talk about is precisely that similarity- i.e. having a foreign born parent and an American parent. I was talking about the experience of being "mixed race" (or, as I like to call myself, being a half breed).

I have, indeed, not read "Dreams of My Father". Perhaps Obama has, indeed, constructed a very different narrative for himself in dealing with his mixedness. I was not trying to foist my narrative upon him... merely to point out that those of mixed race are de facto outsiders in the context of race. That said, I was arguing that Obama's choice as to how he self-identified was just that... his choice.

I don't think I was projecting my own life experience in a "universal" fashion... but rather pointing out a small kernel of similarity which provides me with a small kernel of insight... and in the context of that small kernel, I was asserting that Obama's self-identification/choice of whether or not to adopt himself into a community which is willing adopt him is a matter of his own choosing, rather than something which outsiders should feel justified in deciding for him. Myself included.

As far as I'm concerned, Obama is as white or black as he himself chooses to judge himself. If the answer to that question is to be found in his book "Dreams of My Father", then I am perfectly willing to embrace whatever choice he declares therein. The gist of my point is that, as a person of mixed race, there is room for choice in a way that those not of mixed race might not fully comprehend.