Oh, for goodness sakes!
I can not believe this story: Obama Barack is complaining about not fitting in at his private high-school on Hawaii. Puh-leeese. I grew up in Hawaii, and let me tell you something about that place: everyone is equally discriminated against there, there is no such thing as political correctness. For example, I was, and on occasion still am called, a dumb haole! I was beaten up as a kid for being white. I was the only "white" kid in a class of 33. Growing up in Hawaii is probably the best thing for a mixed-race kid. Nobody really cares there...and here Obama is trying to act like it was so difficult. Yes, the school he went to was a little more white-bread than other schools on the islands, but he was growing up in perhaps the most ethnically diverse place in America. But he still finds a way to paint himself as a victim with a struggle. Oh, boy...
Yes, certainly at Punahou there is a higher percentage of white kids attending, it isn't a purely rich kid school. And for him to paint it that way, is just so ridiculous.
And the journalist who wrote the story is equally non-sensical:
Obama came from a modest background; suddenly his peers were the island's richest and most accomplished students. Around that time, America Online founder Steve Case, actress Kelly Preston and former Dallas Cowboys lineman Mark Tuinei attended the school, which offers kindergarten through 12th grade on a lush hillside campus overlooking the Waikiki skyline and Pacific Ocean.
Um, hello, they were children at the time, not the mega-rich people they are today. Kelly Preston for example, according to Wikipedia: Her mother, Linda Carlson, was an administrator of a mental health center, and her father, who worked for an agricultural firm, drowned when Preston was three years old. Her adoptive father was Peter Palzis, a personnel director, and her stepfather was Lee Carlson. What part of that reeks of priviledge and riches?
Steve Case? His father was a lawyer and mother an elementary school teacher. It's not like he was already the billionaire he is today.
Mark Tuinei? According to this article: The son of a Samoan father and a mother of Yugoslavian descent. He tells stories of his father's frequent gory fights, his brother's time in prison and his own rough behavior. He was kicked out of UCLA after a drunken dorm brawl; be served three months in jail for assisting in the beating of a man in Hawaii. A decision to join the ROTC program at the University of Hawaii helped settle him down enough to finish his eligibility. Doesn't exactly sound like this guy came from an ultra priviledged family, does it?
So, let me see, according to those examples, someone could equally write an article stating: "Mr. X came from a modest background; suddenly his peers were the island's richest and most accomplished students. Around that time, presidential candidate Obama Barack attended the school."
Whatever...and they wonder why we are losing faith in traditional journalism...
Yes, certainly at Punahou there is a higher percentage of white kids attending, it isn't a purely rich kid school. And for him to paint it that way, is just so ridiculous.
And the journalist who wrote the story is equally non-sensical:
Obama came from a modest background; suddenly his peers were the island's richest and most accomplished students. Around that time, America Online founder Steve Case, actress Kelly Preston and former Dallas Cowboys lineman Mark Tuinei attended the school, which offers kindergarten through 12th grade on a lush hillside campus overlooking the Waikiki skyline and Pacific Ocean.
Um, hello, they were children at the time, not the mega-rich people they are today. Kelly Preston for example, according to Wikipedia: Her mother, Linda Carlson, was an administrator of a mental health center, and her father, who worked for an agricultural firm, drowned when Preston was three years old. Her adoptive father was Peter Palzis, a personnel director, and her stepfather was Lee Carlson. What part of that reeks of priviledge and riches?
Steve Case? His father was a lawyer and mother an elementary school teacher. It's not like he was already the billionaire he is today.
Mark Tuinei? According to this article: The son of a Samoan father and a mother of Yugoslavian descent. He tells stories of his father's frequent gory fights, his brother's time in prison and his own rough behavior. He was kicked out of UCLA after a drunken dorm brawl; be served three months in jail for assisting in the beating of a man in Hawaii. A decision to join the ROTC program at the University of Hawaii helped settle him down enough to finish his eligibility. Doesn't exactly sound like this guy came from an ultra priviledged family, does it?
So, let me see, according to those examples, someone could equally write an article stating: "Mr. X came from a modest background; suddenly his peers were the island's richest and most accomplished students. Around that time, presidential candidate Obama Barack attended the school."
Whatever...and they wonder why we are losing faith in traditional journalism...
posted by CaliValleyGirl at 10:33 PM
5 Comments:
you make many excellent points. i heard several people say several times that my sister and i blended in during our time in hawaii schools so well because we are hapa haole.
Wonderful post!!! And good catch on the "richest most accomplished" line of BS! Ha!
I absolutely hate this "I'm a victim" mentality. If he's so victimized that he was scarred by such an ordeal as going to a private school...how does this make him in any way a good candidate to lead our country? Geeze!
Did someone here just rail against the victim mentality? Don't even get me started - just don't.
Obama wants to show how much he has overcome. A racist grandmother and all, you know.
Well, darn it, I was a victim too, then. I had to take HAM sandwiches to school and I had to MAKE THEM MYSELF!
Yes, I know. Horrifying, isn't it? Hold me so we can cry about it. :)
The comment by his wife that she is now proud of her country for the first time sort of got to me. I know the media can blow these comments our of proportion and, at first, I thought that's what was happening. But after I started thinking about it, I got angry. Our country certainly has and has had many flaws but where else can you find the kind of opportunity that she has been afforded or that any of the rest of us have been afforded, for that matter?
His memoir, Dreams From My Father, goes into great detail about his life in Indonesia, Hawaii and the south side of Chicago. His struggles were less about class than race. I don't know about Hawaii, but even on the west coast growing up multiracial was not easy. Take all of the normal crap that we all grow up with as teenagers and pile some extra identity crisis because your mother is one color and your father is another and everyone around you is white. I've been ridiculed and called the foulest racist things by every race that I embody. And I know my experience is not unique for multiracial ethnic minorities. The victim mentality sucked in my sister, so I know what it does to a person, but I can appreciate his struggle to find where he fit in with his mixed background and without a father (as did I). Yet, he managed to not fall into the trap that too many African American men (whom he identified with as a youth) have - crime. It's a long read (like this post) but the book is worth trudging through to understand this man a little bit better, especially before he became who he is today. For me, it's nice to see someone at this level who understands my life as a person of many colors :)
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