Response to Obama letter

Editor:

I think Barack Obama would be the first to take umbrage with erroneous characterizations of his upbringing, in which Jean Spinka, (GV News March 28) claimed was “a solid upbringing of the Kansas variety.”

His mother, true, was a white American; his father, a black African. His father soon abandoned Barack and his mother to return to Africa, where he had a number of wives over his short life span. The number and timing were left unspecified in Obama’s first book. He reappeared in his son’s life for a brief period several years later, then left his son in his wake of emotional destruction when he returned to Africa once again.

Barack Obama revealed in his first book the confusion he felt as a teenager socializing with black peers who often derided whites. He would then return home to his white grandparents and mother.

As for the assertion that Michele Obama “will make a great first lady,” that remains to be seen. Earlier in the campaign, when many white Americans were voting in primaries for Obama, Michele Obama said that this was the first time she was proud of America. Although she quickly backpedaled when the comment reached the media, her original statement has greater cache when viewed in light of recent revelations of the Sunday sermons at the church to which the Obamas belonged for 20 years.

In the process of choosing our next president, hopefully Americans will consider all the facts carefully and not be swept away by oratory, youth and promise.

Joanne DeStefano, Tubac