Omaba's Books

Omaba tells the story of his life, the son of a Kenyan man and a white woman who divorced when he was a young child. His father was a quick-talking polygamist who was often an embarrassment to Omaba's family. Here are some interesting quotes from Obama's book Dreams from My Father (Three Rivers Press):

"I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites."

"I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race."

'There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.

"It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names."

"I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa , that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself , the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela."


From his book Audacity of Hope:

"In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

To read other famous quotes by Barack Hussein Obama, go here.