Not too long ago, I finished Dreams From my Father by Barack Obama. I found it to be an incredibly powerful, humanizing portrait of our 44th president

As bold as this might sound, I recommend this book to every American—especially those who weren’t particularly fond of him.Two things distinguish Dreams From my Father from a standard autobiography authored by a politician: It is written a lot like a traditional narrative novel, complete with developed characters and descriptive scenes, and it was written before Obama had an established political career, which saves it from politically-motivated interjections and career-oriented motivations.Importantly, it functions as a treatise on the reality of race and identity politics in America. I encourage skeptics of identity politics to take a crack at reading this book. It thoroughly explains the factors that underlie the formation of racial factions in disenfranchised communities in a raw, first-hand manner that is not afforded by disconnected commentaries on racial politics.I found myself stunned by the voice with which Obama wrote this book. While eloquent, his words are fusing with a certain frustration—an anger that has culminated after years of racial confusion and “soft racism.” It is a side of Obama’s personality that we almost never saw from the composed, articulate academic who commanded the Oval Office for the better part of the last decade. He is also remarkably frank about the more disgraceful episodes of his life, which entailed drug use and sympathies for certain radical ideologies: As a university undergraduate, he attended socialist rallies, flirted with moderate interpretations black nationalism, and fervently rejected the culture of “white middle-classness” that had consumed America. A number of his friends in university were dissidents who were aligned with the Nation of Islam. Interestingly enough, for a while, he disliked the nickname “Barry,” as he felt that it was a gross Americanization that detracted from the ethnic beauty of his birth name, Barack. Following his transfer to Columbia, he matured and subscribed to a more mainstream brand of left-wing American politics.I was also surprised by the ubiquity of religion in this memoir. I had long assumed that Obama was agnostic—and, to be fair, this isn’t an inaccurate assessment, as he does describe the indifference he felt towards religion in his youth. As a community organizer in Chicago, however, he did a lot of work with churches to facilitate change, which opened him up to Christianity and prompted him to recognize the power of God.Liberal or conservative, this book deserves a place in your collection, for it provides perspective on our 44th president that is essential to understanding his character. via /r/books https://ift.tt/2K2Ew1J