Not only did Obama come to recognize this basic racism in most of the others he encountered, but he even developed his own rather race-centric views that he was able to consciously exploit to his advantage. Basketball, for instance, became a way for Obama to celebrate his Africa-American heritage and solidify his identity. He recalls that "on the basketball court I could find a community of sorts...on a turf where blackness couldn't be a disadvantage" (Obama 80). At this point, Obama had accepted the reality of the divide that was thrust upon blacks and whites alike. Adolescence is a time when everyone is searching for their identity, and for Obama for a time this meant determining a specific racial identity and attempting to live up to it.
Of course, these attempts did not really a provide a long-term tenable position for Obama, and his views on the reality of racial differences eventually underwent an extreme examination that included extensive reading of African-American authors and scholars as well as personal conversations and reflections on racially-charges events in his own life. One of his most important memories leading to his epiphany regarding the tendency of all races to practice a fair amount of xenophobia based on any available criteria,...
Though such a viewpoint from someone in his own family could be -- and was, to a degree -- taken as an extreme betrayal, Obama reacts with a stoic and well-reasoned attitude to his grandfather's anger: "In my steadiest voice, I told him that such an attitude bothered me, too, but assured him that Toot's fears would pass" (Obama 89). While acknowledging the universality of such racist beliefs, Obama had learned that such attitudes did not need to be accepted.
The strength of Obama's oratory (and textual) style is his frankness in admitting the way things are without the cynicism that often accompanies it. He does not attempt to portray blacks or whites in a kinder light than they deserve, acknowledging the faults of both and of certain individuals without condemning them and at the same time without granting them an okay in continuing such thoughts and behaviors. It night simply be part of human nature to mistrust others, especially those that are different from us on the surface, but this doesn't mean that this part of our nature must win out.
