Many people know that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas.I really can't understand why this is supposed to make a difference. The man has no control whatsoever over what his ancestors did or did not do. We should judge a candidate by his merits, not by the sins of his father, or great-great-great-great grandfathers as the case may be. I like Obama, I don't really think he has enough experience yet to deserve to be President, but please, let's leave his family's ancient history out of the discussion.
But an intriguing sliver of his family history has received almost no attention until now: it appears that forebears of his white mother owned slaves, according to genealogical research and Census records.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Geez, I'm behind the times
I really haven't had the time to read much news in days. All the discussion of Obama and his lack of slave ancestry, and then the reference to him being descended from slave owners, got me searching the news of Obama's ancestry. I found this article from Thursday - A new twist to an intriguing family history from Baltimoresun.com:
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1 comment:
In fact, a lot of the African American descendants of slaves are also the descendants of slaveowners (see Frederick Douglass, for example).
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