“My President Was Black”

Reading is comprised of so many elements for me: what, who, when, and where I’m reading.

Finishing President Obama’s (hella long) memoir in 2021 after a traumatic 2020 and previous four years, after an insurrection at the United States Capitol, after Trump’s electoral defeat, after winning the Senate, was an experience.

After four years of Federal incompetence and hate, a year where that incompetence caused the deaths of more than 400,000 (as of this writing) Americans, and the examples and agendas of women like AOC, and E Dubs (Elizabeth Warren) I read this memoir angry and further to the left in politics (if not always in praxis) than I read Obama’s first two books.

It’s not him, it’s me.

He promised Hope and Change, and delivered in some ways, but I’ve changed.

So the memoir itself, besides being long, (did I mention it was long?) was extremely well-written. This is not surprising, because if there’s one thing Obama is going to do it’s write and wield his words but the effect of the prose was that I read a 700-page book with ease.

For readers of his previous books, there’s some repetition about his early years, but I appreciate the opportunity to revisit and contextualize recent history that I lived through. We get to learn more about his initial political failures, his Senate run, the Rev. Wright situation, and more-stories that feel like a lifetime ago. At times, some of the episodes (the financial crisis for one and the many steps needed to right a sinking boat of an economy) felt overly laborious, but I was reminded that he inherited a dumpster fire on domestic and international fronts and that it might feel that way, because I lived through that. Criticism of Obama as overly professorial holds up, but it also belies how thoughtful and measured he is which makes for a great book. Obama does a great job illustrating (or reminding people who forgot-I haven’t forgotten…) how the modern Republican party evolved from McCain bringing Palin on board, to the Tea Party, to birtherism, to Trump, to an insurrection…

I kept being drawn back to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “My President Was Black” from 2017 and his latest essay revisiting Trump as America’s “first white president”. Unfortunately, I think it’s impossible to read the memoir without simultaneously considering what came afterward.

P.S.

Michelle (ah that Inauguration look!) and Obama’s memoirs serve different purposes, but it’s interesting to think about what those purposes are and how they advance our understanding of this historic couple as individuals and as a couple.

P.P.S. If Sasha and Malia ever write memoirs I.am.here.for.it.