4um: Barack Obama: Washington Post, Chicago Tribune investigations confirm autobiography lies; now asking: Is "African-American" a lie too?

Title: Barack Obama: Washington Post, Chicago Tribune investigations confirm autobiography lies; now asking: Is "African-American" a lie too?
Source: Reading Between The Lines
URL Source: http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/20 ... ma-questions-about-ethnic.html
Published: May 18, 2008
Author: Kenneth E. Lamb
Post Date: 2008-05-18 10:06:40 by christine
Keywords: None
Views: 651
Comments: 33

The following article with preface may be distributed. If used, please contact the author before editing and publication. The author has written and researched for the New York Times, the Miami Herald, the St. Petersburg Times, and the Jewish Information Network, among others.

Synopsis: The author opens citing the work of Mr. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post. Mr. Cohen’s columns about the “composites,” rearranged timelines, and complete fabrication of events in Sen. Obama’s autobiography are the basis for a further investigation into Mr. Obama’s claim to be “African-American.”

(NOTE: This IS NOT a rehash of the discredited discussion of either his education in Islamic schools, or any other ties to Islam. His religion, and education, outside of citing his Harvard attendance, play no role whatsoever in this article. THIS ARTICLE PRESENTS NEW, PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED documentation concerning his ethnic identity claims. It is based upon original research that the author openly invites for further inquiry and academic verification in his preface to Mr. Cohen.)

Documentation of his actual ethnic background demonstrates Mr. Obama is not an “African-American” as defined in United States law. This research was initiated by a request from a daily news publication of international reputation in New York City.

The story then moves to documenting his father’s genealogy. This study indicates Sen. Obama is actually Arab-American. The significance of this is that “the soul and substance of Mr. Obama’s claim to fame” rest entirely on his being “the first” African-American to achieve whatever it is that Mr. Obama is claiming at the time. If Mr. Obama is not legally an African-American, then his claims collapse. While there may still be historic firsts, for example, being the first Arab-American to be the president of the Harvard Law Review, those claims are not the star-appeal of his entire political life, and the basis of his current celebrity star status. If he is not African-American, then he is not what has propelled him up the political ladder; he is not, as described by one journalist riding Mr. Obama’s campaign plane, what is currently capturing America’s “cult” attention.

The author includes a section that notes the double-standard Oprah Winfrey applied in her handling of Mr. Obama’s autobiographical fabrications vis a vis her reaction to much less in a book by another author she promoted. It calls upon her to explain her double-standards, and asks, reasonably under the circumstances, if her double-standards are racist.

The article concludes by citing the importance of recognizing that Mr. Obama’s image of himself is built on lies. It challenges the reader to ask if his or her own racist presumptions of ethnic identity tied to physical appearance are at play.

The encapsulation of the final question put to the reader is to ask, “If we elect a person whose entire image is based on lies, and citing again the documentation of Mr. Cohen and the Washington Post to show he continues to lie without conscience as a matter of habit, should the burden fall upon him when we feel the anger of being lied to, or in fact, is it we who should be the object of our anger when it is we who first lied to ourselves when we decided to accept his lies, knowing all along that he was lying to us?”

Earlier today, I sent you an email about Sen. Obama. In the course of reviewing it for final draft, I made some changes; for one thing, I upped the number of references to your columns. What follows below is the final draft – it varies significantly from the prior draft by placing more responsibility upon “us” of the American body politic for lying to ourselves, and using racist presumptions to allow Mr. Obama to lie to us as well.

With this amendment, I send to you what I hope will be the first read of the article, and hopefully it may provoke all of us to reexamine ourselves in light of the Obama mania sweeping America.

That said, the rest of the email and article follows with the introduction I sent below for the sake of continuity with my previous communication to you. While similar at first, it is now much more pointed in its condemnation of us for lying to ourselves, again, about whom we elect, and why.

further, i'm putting it up for discussion. your characterizing it as i'm insinuating obama isn't black enough is absurd. it was the term African American that the author is disputing, not his black color.

Saying someone isn't African-American enough isn't the same as saying he's not black enough? And the point of the article isn't that he's not African-American because his father was not enough of a Negro, i.e., a black?

Obama talks about whether he's `black enough'.

Byline: William Douglas

LAS VEGAS _ With puzzlement and a touch of humor, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama weighed in Friday on a question posed by some in the African-American community about whether he's "black enough" to represent them in the White House.

Speaking to a packed ballroom at the National Association of Black Journalists convention here, Obama said he found the question curious because it appeared to go deeper than his brown skin or his record as a U.S. senator from Illinois or a member of that state's legislature.

"It's not my track record. It's not that I can't give a pretty good speech; from what I've heard I can preach once in a while," he told the audience. "What it really does lay bare, I think, in part: We're still locked into the notion that somehow if you appeal to white folks then there must be something wrong."

Some blacks have questioned his ethnicity because he was raised by a white American mother and an African father, who left the household when Obama was young.

Obama added that his educational background _ he attended Harvard Law School _ might contribute to some people doubting his racial pedigree.

"There's some of that `Is he keeping it real because he went to Harvard,' which a lot of you in the audience had to deal with ... you'd think that we'd be over that by now," he said.

The Illinois senator, who trails Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., in most national presidential polls, is regarded as the first African-American candidate with a legitimate shot at the Democratic presidential nomination.

Early conventional wisdom was that African-American voters _ a key Democratic voting bloc _ would enthusiastically flock to Obama's campaign, making the path to the nomination more difficult for Clinton, former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., and the rest of the large Democratic presidential field.

That hasn't come to pass. Clinton, armed with former President Bill Clinton's connections, has aggressively pursued the African-American vote and endorsements from key African-American leaders in the political, business and entertainment arenas.

The "blackness" issue dogged Obama early in the race. Some African-American leaders such as the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton _ both former presidential candidates _ initially told African-American voters that they should cast their ballots based on their political interests, not skin color.

Clinton held a commanding lead over Obama among African-Americans early in the race. An ABC News/Washington poll in January showed Clinton ahead of Obama among African-Americans 60 percent to 20 percent.

But Obama has closed the gap. A Gallup poll released in June showed Clinton leading Obama among African-Americans 43 percent to 42 percent, a virtual dead heat.

Obama arrived in Las Vegas prepared to confront the "blackness" question, which was the subject of one of the convention's panels.

He used elements from the old joke about time and so-called "colored people time" as the reason that he was late for Friday's convention events.

"You guys keep asking if I'm black enough," he said with a straight face. "I thought I'd just stroll in."

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ARCHIVE PHOTOS on MCT Direct (from MCT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): Barack Obama

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